As an exercise to see if we could make our eyes bleed we read through the packet for tomorrow nights borough assembly meeting again today. Missing from the blog post yesterday was the discussion of the vacancy report for boards and commissions. We think the best way to deal with an issue on the report and a new development that transpired both involving the ceremonial mayor was to send him an open letter. All in the sacred name of transparency and because we know the mayor and his peeps read this blog that they love to hate it so here it is.
Dear Ceremonial Mayor Devilbiss:
As residents of the borough we wanted to bring to your attention that the assembly will be taking action on the open seat on the Matsu Borough Planning Commission for District 1 at tomorrow (Feb 19th) night meeting. This seat has been vacant since the end of last year.
Two very qualified women threw their hat in the ring for the planning commission position as soon as the vacancy was available and have been keeping each other company in the "application received" column for some time. As evidence of their past experience and resumes it seemed very puzzling that neither of these well qualified women were selected. Normally having a citizen serve on the planning commission that has a planning degree or prior experience on the commission and wanted to serve at this time would be a stroke of luck for a conservative borough like ours.
Several weeks ago another candidate applied this time a male with seemingly no planning experience except if you count his efforts to stop public participation in the Buffalo Mine Community Council. His application was quickly followed up by yet another male applicant who owns rentals and brother was appointed by you to the platting board.
So now we see that you have moved Mr. Endel with his vast no planning experience into the column for the assembly to confirm. This just begs the question Mr. Mayor, if these two women with much higher qualifications than either of the MEN applicants aren't good enough...well then who is in your binder of women?
And really Mr. Mayor when will there be enough MEN serving you? The entire assembly is made up of MEN. The entire planning commission is made up of men. The platting board has six MEN and one woman. The aviation board seven MEN and one woman. Even your shiny new tower commission has five out of five positions filled by MEN.
We are hoping by bringing this gender imbalance to light you will reconsider your recommendation. We would like to think that a carrot farmer like yourself sees the value in having good female insight to help you plow the fields of the future of the borough.
Lastly it came to our attention you are instructing the assembly to make some changes in the newly passed Jim Creek Motorized Master Plan. While we were hopeful you would suggest a revisit to the plan for more parity for non-motorized users we were dismayed to learn it was because "it does not accommodate firearm discharge for hunting purposes". Say what? Really Mr. Mayor talk to anyone out in the Butte. The only thing getting hunted down to discharge into in the area is empty barrels and cars formally set on fire. The residents in the area trying to raise their families and co-exist with out of towners giving the throttle on their ATV a workout beg for some sanity in the plan. They deserve it.
So Mr.Mayor we hope you will take the above in consideration when you raise the gavel on tomorrows assembly meeting. The valley will be watching and listening while doing their best to keep the snickering level down for what voters have sown.
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