Your Turn
— Comments may be sent to the Marion County Record, PO Box 278, Marion, e-mailed to news@marionrecord.com, or brought to the office at 117 S. Third St. Please keep comments brief.
So the ministers think Your Turn should be stopped. I wonder just who set them off.
I would like to point out a couple of things. What if you are a city employee, a business owner, or just an innocent bystander who doesn't like what is going on in this town? Would you sign your name to a letter protesting the way things are going when, if you did, you might lose your job, have your business boycotted or, worse yet, be harassed?
I thought the Constitution guaranteed free speech. How are we going to be able to do that? You will say "do it the democratic way — elect new officials." Well, we tried that, and it didn't work. OK, so pressure has been applied to the newspaper to get them to stop printing the letters. Do you think that will accomplish anything? The only thing it will accomplish will be to allow the so-called "runners of the town" to continue doing what they are doing without any input from the ordinary people who live here.
I sincerely hope our new mayor will be able to stop some of the foolishness.
I am not signing this because I am one of the three named in the first paragraph — but the editor knows who I am and I hope she will not reveal my name — because I don't deserve retribution. I deserve the right to speak my piece and the newspaper is the only place where I can do that.
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Benjamin Franklin said, "No one is thinking if everyone is thinking alike." Isn't Your Turn an example of freedom of speech, showing that we are thinking? Let it continue!
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With all due respect to the concerned ministers of our community, the understanding and intelligence of the townspeople of Marion has been underestimated. We have the ability to decipher someone's opinion and form our own without being judgmental about the reason the person did not sign their name. Maybe they are family members, neighbors, business owners, ministers, people of your congregation who feel they have something to lose by confronting personally.
In the past five weeks' papers, the following statements have been made — one negative, 23 very positive, and 27 statements of observation and/or questions to think about.
Thank you, ministers, for your opinion. We shall be communicating with you about it. This opinion is not a weapon and shall not be burned instead of sent.
"Religion and politics make strange bedfellows."
Keep up the good work Marion County Record and thank you for the opportunity in this forum.
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Keep Your Turn in the newspaper. Without Bill Meyer's editorials, the Marion County Record had turned into a dull paper. This new column has made the paper interesting again.
I disagree with the group of pastors about the column. Marion had a negative image long before this column came about.
Up until the past couple of years, the town, compared to Hillsboro, had driven away new businesses.
With the expanded council and new mayor the city may have a brighter future.
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We were deeply saddened to read the letter to the editor where the ministers accused people of wielding a big stick for writing in the Your Turn section.
The ministers stated that communication cannot occur when it is one-sided.
I'm sorry, but as Marion County employees, we cannot sign our names when we write because at our jobs, the communication is one-sided. Have you not heard? We can be fired "at will." Do you know what that is? The commission does not have to give us a reason to fire us. If we go against what they say, they can fire us. It doesn't matter how well we do our jobs. If we speak out, we are fired.
Who's wielding the big stick? Who is having one-sided communication? Thank you for the Your Turn section so those of us who are on one-sided communication do have a voice.
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When promoting Marion as a place to live, people need to hear the negative as well as the positive so they are not blind-sided. They need to see the total picture, not the sugar-coated one. If I was moving to a new community, I would want to know the negative as well as the positive. Wouldn't you?
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Here's a solution to the jail problem — move the courthouse to Hillsboro and make the present courthouse into the new jail. It is already handicapped-accessible with ramps, restrooms, and an elevator.
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It's good to know Marion County Commissioners are open-minded enough to look "outside the box" for answers to the jail question. Checking with an architectural firm that specializes in jails and prisons is a good idea. You wouldn't go to the dentist if you needed an eye exam would you?
