TIME FOR CITIZEN REPRESENTATION

Fellow citizens of Dearborn County:

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who voted for me in the May primary. I still firmly believe it is time to put a citizen representative in the Commissioners office and that is why I am asking everyone who supported me to please give your support to Mr. Orschell and Mr. Taylor. I feel that both of these gentlemen will be your true citizen representatives in the Commissioners office. They will give you the chance to speak in the meetings even if it is on short notice. They will allow you to speak for however long it takes to get your point across. I feel that they will be what a true commissioner should be, and that is a representative of all the citizens in the county.

After all, the Constitution of the United States clearly states that we are a government of the people, by the people and for the people, and we elect representatives to do our bidding.

The two current commissioners up for re-election do not seem to think along these lines, which is quite evident by their inability to pass the land use map amendment to the Comprehensive Plan. One commissioner seems to think that someone is going to steal your property if this map is passed. My father and mother always taught me that it was a crime to steal. I cannot figure out his thinking on this aspect, unless he feels that it is acceptable to steal in government.

Both commissioners have stated that they tabled the land use map so they could look at it more closely. Since then, no discussion or action has taken place in any commissioners meetings. If it is still being evaluated, how, and why hasn’t anything been discussed?

In the four years that these commissioners have been in office, I do not think that one residential subdivision has ever been denied. There are no county ordinances that say you cannot reject a subdivision. If the subdivision will create a hardship to the residents of the county, such as over crowding of public schools, over burdening the police and fire departments, emergency medical services, then the commissioners have a right to reject a proposed subdivision. One good example would be East Central high school and the building project that was completed last year at a high cost to the taxpayers of the entire county.

So I would like to say thank you once again to the people who supported me and I ask that you give your support to Mr. Orschell and Mr. Taylor and put true citizen representation back into county government.

Thank you;
Jerome (Jake) Hoog
Jackson Township

The above editorial was recently published in the Register.