Persistence Will Pay Off In The End

We don’t know whether to congratulate recently elected Bonner County Courthouse officials - or send them condolences.

Victory must feel good. But the road ahead is rough, particularly for Dale Van Stone and Brian Orr, the two Democrats who will control the commissioners’ office for the next two years. Both will be skewered mercilessly and watched intensely by anti-government activists who have bedeviled Bonner County government for the past decade.

During the campaign, the Bonner County Taxpayers’ Coalition provided a nasty foretaste of the future by publishing the Bonner Examiner, 20 pages of half-truths about the county budget and ruthless attacks on local officials. Unfortunately, a few voters believed the nonsense and, as a result, some elections Tuesday were closer than they should have been.

The far right missed defeating Van Stone and regaining control of the commissioners’ office by only 436 votes. As it is, contentious Commissioner Bud Mueller will continue to provide a courthouse beachhead for the radicals. They’re not going away. So, Van Stone, Orr and other courthouse officials, as well as local Republicans, Democrats and Bonner County residents, should learn to deal with them. At the courthouse, elected officials must challenge every lie and half truth spread by the rumormongers. It’ll be irritating and time consuming to do so, but it’s necessary. Truth exposes error. For too long, Bonner County’s self-proclaimed watchdogs have enjoyed free rein with their recall petitions, distortions and slander.

Commendably, Bonner County Republicans put partisanship aside and resisted extreme members by offering seminars by county Treasurer Shannon Syth to explain county finance. Also, the Republican Central Committee isolated the taxpayers’ coalition further by comparing the Bonner Examiner to supremacist hate mail and lashing out at a member who supported the tabloid.

Finally, Bonner County residents must remain vigilant. Apathy this decade has helped elect two divisive far-right Republicans who have made a laughingstock of Bonner County government: Mueller and former commissioner Gene Brown. The last two years would have been worse if Commissioner Larry Allen had continued to follow Mueller’s lead.

In January, Bonner County will swear in a good group of elected officials. They will improve the image and direction of county government, if given half a chance.