To the Editor:
Impropriety. Conflict
of interest. The County Board’s decision
to move publication of its business from the Anoka Union Herald to the Anoka
County Record has drawn protest from the community because it is simply wrong,
and steps over a line that is rarely crossed in this area.
Publication of the County’s business records is not a piece
of partisan business. It’s done to keep
the community informed, to keep its vendors and potential vendors informed, and
to establish, irony intended, a record of its business.
Moving publication of its business to a partisan
Republican-controlled ‘rag’ that is virtually unavailable in print to the community,
that does not indicate its availability by subscription, or even appears in
stores in every city of this large County, is a testament to both the lack of
transparency and the intentional control of information this current Board
chooses to practice in 2015.
Shame on the Board members who haven’t called out Board
Chair Rhonda Sivarajah’s obvious conflict of interest in voting for this
change. What conflict of interest? Anoka County Record’s publisher, John
Kysylyczyn is listed on the Sivarajah website as its administrative and
technical contact. Kysylyczyn gets a monetary gain by publishing the County’s
business in his so-called newspaper. The Chair of the Board should have recused
herself from voting on this issue.
Yes, as a DFL party leader in this community, I have my own
partisan interest in opposing the use of a Tea Party-influenced publication
receiving this contract from the Board.
But not because I’m a Democrat, but because this leaves citizens like
me, who live somewhere in the County where this is not available to us, without
access. And that is wrong. It would be hubris to expect this Board to
reconsider its intemperate action, but it is right and proper for recent letter
writers like Janet Entzel, Dee Ann Christensen, Beth Dhennin and now myself, to
expect more of its Board members and to look for alternatives to address this
political pay-off and conflict of the public’s best interest.
Wes Volkenant
Andover
SD 35 DFL Chair
Thank you to my proofreaders for this one, as I stride to have my facts and understandings correct within the context of the innuendo that I have put forth.
Our northern suburbs friend at "Developers are Crabgrass" covered this change himself, in late-January... http://zaetsch.blogspot.com/2015/01/a-bad-joke-from-band-of-jokers-set-on.html. This will provide you a link to the original story from the Union Herald about the Board's action. I am disappointed that newly-elected Commissioner Gamache, who I publicly supported in this Blog, voted with the majority. I hope that if an opportunity to reconsider arises, that he'll do that with a vote against the Record.
I've also appreciated the Letters to the Editor throughout February from the afore-mentioned women noted in my last paragraph. Thank you Janet, Dee Ann and Beth for holding their feet to this fire of protest.
And, it was interesting to see myself addressed again in a 2/28/15 letter from Christian extremist Barb Anderson of Champlin. Barb was addressing a letter I wrote last August (yep, SIX months ago)to complain that Republicans don't have a lock on morality in the United States. Well, shockingly, Barb thinks Republicans better represent her literalist view of the Bible, which makes them better Christians than us DFLers, apparently. As I said, shocking, isn't it?
