Someone, anonymous of course, wrote a comment and wondered if only I were still in Sidney that I could see all the, "Crap that was going on." They wanted to know If I would post my email so they could contact me and tell me what was going on next. They said they also missed the, "citizen," which I took they meant the association many had to me as the rumored author.
The fact that enough truth in the citizen's publication reflected my opposition to the nature of Gary Person and his cronies way of doing business, did not mean that I fully supported everything that was said. On more than one occasion and to more than one person, I expressed that the citizen was a member of the city's employees and that they were expressing serious concerns about the inner policy workings of the City Manager and his department heads.
My issues with the government in Sidney and recently Cheyenne County are primarily in that they defer too much to the whims of Gary Person, who in turn is too dependent upon the whims of his cadre of cronies, such as Mr. McCarville, Mr. Namuth and a few other choice others. These men (and women) have divided up the town to a creation of their choosing and have forgotten the everyday person who works and pays taxes and is forced to drive unkempt streets and pay for grandiose beautification projects that obligate the taxpayer to a lifetime of taxes and regulations dictated by the state and federal government bureaucracies.
To the wish that I were the Sidney Citizen, I will answer with the following: Not long after Loren Avey resigned, the Pundit stopped publishing its rant. Not long after it was evident Marv Filsinger lost his bid for re-election, so too did the publication of the Citizen cease. I don't know who the publisher or publishers of the Citizen are or were, but I can assure you that I was neither the writer, nor publisher of it.
As to being interested in what continues to take place in the burg of Sidney, I in fact do remain interested. Contrary to Gary's friends or what Susan Earnest and her family believe of me, I have a great many friends and I remain in very close contact with them all. I get my information from the same sources as many of you do, certainly including my friends. I write about my thoughts on these matters when it is appropriate and when no countervailing view is proffered by your, "Hometown" newspaper or local radio station. Both of these publications are a joke in the historical sense of what the media is supposed to be. Both are mere surrogates for the wishes of what passes for political and business elites in town and rarely do they investigate any position taken by any local governmental agency as to why, how or why this much. To them, the words from Gary Person's mouth might as well have been spoken from the midst of a burning bush and to question what is offered is to be a heretic.
I write for the people of Sidney and Cheyenne County because for 8 and half years, I was one of you. I write because I am opposed to change for change sake and I believe that the regular person in town has just as much right to question and then approve or disapprove of policies as much as the powerful person does. For my efforts, I have been tarred and feathered by the likes of Mike Hartzler and Cathy Wilson and certainly the newspaper and and radio station.
The newspaper took a letter to the editor (Tammy Nelsen was then editor, who was subsequently fired for unrelated reasons) which was not published, but instead delivered to the hands of Ralph Castner, current CFO of Cabela's. The subject matter involved the expansion of spending in city government and particular asked the question why 17 plus million dollars for a new school. Mind you now that it didn't denounce the building of a school, just asked the question why that much. Mr. Castner was livid and in a meeting in which my director, my CIO and my HR director were parties to with him, demanded what was going to be done to or about me for using company equipment to write a letter to the editor. Never mind the fact that the letter was written from home and only copied and pasted into my work email system. Never mind that the rule on using company equipment pertained to illegal or abuse of same. Never mind also that while being denounced by upper management as to the dastardly deed I had committed, Mr. Castner, it was rumored, used the call center to push poll the residents of Sidney and Cheyenne county into voting yes for the school bond issue. Can you see the irony?
The radio station is a different matter altogether. In a letter to members of the city council and city management, Susan Earnest leveled accusation after accusation at me, purporting as fact what was not true. To add further insult to the libel already perpetuated, her sister-in-law, Julie Young further perpetuated the libel on her new blog. The irony here is that the radio station has a requirement to serve the public interest (not the mob of Gary Person to which she is a ready member) and isn't immune to civil tort claims for such violations. Not only were her claims completely false, she managed to get Gary Person to act on them, utilizing a conglomeration unrelated rules to define media for the purpose of restricting access or placement during PUBLIC meetings.
So long as you are limited to this kind of "media," and there is an interest in reading what I have to say, or if I feel that it is in the interest of the people at large to hear that which does not come from the paper or radio station, I will write freely and with vigor. If for some reason any reader wishes to contact me you may do so at guardianofsidney@gmail.com. Comments are welcome, but since we are not in revolutionary times, those who have a willingness to stand behind their words with their name probably lend greater weight to the discussion.
I will not promise you that my thoughts are universally correct. I have been wrong about many things in my life, certainly as a writer for this publication. I am interested in promoting the original points and any counter point discussion that leads to a better understanding.
Those who are truly interested in finding the balance will find that was the newspaper and radio station begin to find a balance to their coverage, they will find additional balance in all forms of discourse.
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