LETTER: Citizens need to keep watch on government

Talk about it

To the Editor:

“To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.” — Theodore Roosevelt.

Teddy Roosevelt’s philosophy is good for government, including Mitchell City Hall. We should be informed about what our local officials are doing when it comes to voting on studies and multi-million dollar projects.

Opening up competitive bidding for studies and projects is healthy and gives the citizens of Mitchell a better perception of city government. We need to give every qualified contractor, engineer, architect, owner’s representative and construction company a fair shot.

In order to represent the community in a competitive, fair arena, competition gives us the best product for the best price.

Will the City Council have public forums like it did for the next generation Corn Palace? $6.5 million is a lot of money when it comes to making major changes to the Corn Palace.

Should we build another $2.5 million indoor ice rink when other towns our size have only one rink? Maybe the $500,000 in donations should be raised first and a feasibility study done.

Do we really need to spend $2.3 million to expand the public library when we have the McGovern Library and very nice school libraries? Maybe updating it would be sufficient.

Instead of spending over $3 million building a new City Hall, maybe the city and county could work together and share a facility like they are doing in other successful communities.

Finally, we could use half of the $13.9 million that has been allocated for the Corn Palace, hockey rink, library and city hall and partner up with the colleges, hospital and school system, and build a $20 million state-of-the-art wellness center. Doing this would provide a quality of life for people of all ages and would bring in tax revenues and growth to our great city.

Attending meetings and asking tough questions will keep our elected officials working for the public and not self-serving interests.

Tags: opinion, updates, letters