This week the big news was the election to form a new recreation taxing district resulted in a resounding (88%) “no” vote. It got me thinking about how in a small town, the actions of a few can have a big impact. A small group of people originally started the petition in an effort to get an ice skating rink built. And just one person was responsible for a mailing to encourage people to get out and vote on the 7th or submit absentee ballots. He even included a reply card, so the number of absentee votes filed was huge.
Although most people I know think an ice rink in Sandpoint would be nifty, many, many letters in the local newspaper basically said that our property taxes are already going up at an alarming rate and we can’t deal with any more taxes. My personal take on it was that right now we have schools that are completely under funded and decomposing. (They had buckets to catch the water leaking into the high school gym recently.) Until someone can figure out how to fix that deplorable state of affairs, the ice rink can wait.
Unfortunately, with all these letters in the paper came a lot of really nasty personal attacks. I’ve been on the receiving end of those types of letters in the paper and it hurts. You stick your neck out publicly and try to do something that you think is right. Then people say horrible things about you. Because it’s an editorial page, any lie someone makes up can be printed.
Even though I didn’t vote for the new recreation district, I truly don’t think the people who suggested it were trying to do anything malicious or devious. I’m sure they’ll go back to the drawing board and find grants or other funding to make something happen, since an ice rink is a good idea.
Since I know how terrible it feels, I sympathize with the folks that were just editorially slammed to the ground over the last couple weeks. I hope they can get past the hurt feelings and find a new way to build their ice rink.