VOTERS: Next time, think

Much has been said about the sadness at North Idaho College. It seems the five-member board of trustees is controlled by a majority of three, who vote to harm NIC, as reported almost daily in the Coeur d’Alene and Spokane papers. Many write criticizing these three trustees. But I have another slant on this. It is our fault — the voters. These three are backed by Brent Regan’s Kootenai County Republican Central Committee. The Central Committee says it screens candidates for us so we don’t have to. Then they publish a glossy list of approved candidates for us to vote for. And too many of us just do so.

But the Central Committee’s candidates owe allegiance to Regan’s Central Committee, not the county, and certainly not to NIC, or its suffering faculty, staff or students. The Central Committee weeds out candidates from the party that won’t take orders. In his recent visit to Kootenai County, our governor addressed the misery at NIC when he said, “Elections have consequences.” We need to wake up if we are to save NIC. To paraphrase the old comic strip character Pogo, we have met the enemy, and they are us.

DAVID HOFSTADTER

Coeur d’Alene