Should Rognstad be the one kicked out of party?
Mayor Rognstad,
We are writing here in response to the article you posted on your Facebook page, writing to point out errors you make in fact and judgment. Added to these are what I can only interpret to be the disrespect you hold for the intelligence of those who support you, and as you make clear, those who do not.
In your post targeting Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin, you tagged AFPAC as being Anti-Semitic. Having read the back story, I’m left to understand that you believe that a person’s ethnicity shields them from any criticism of words and actions. More specifically, critical remarks about uber-left/globalist operative, and Jewish man, George Soros, brands all AFPAC members Jew haters. If this is true, then please think a moment. A DNA study conducted at Belgium’s, internationally respected KU Leuven University, completed in 2010 supports the long-held belief Adolf Hitlers mother, hence, Adolph himself was likely Jewish. According to your logic, Mayor Rognstad, anyone who criticizes Hitler is an antisemite. Absurd? Yes. Equal in absurdity is this same slander you and others leveled at AFPAC participants.
Next, the “AFPAC as white nationalist” accusation. AFPAC’s 2022 conference speakers included Bryson Gray, Jon Miller, and Jessie Lee Peters; three proud Black men. Not persons one would expect to see on stage at what propagandists characterize as a white nationalist gathering.
Posting to your Facebook page was an exercise of the right to free speech. But you also reminded readers that you are the Mayor of The City of Sandpoint. A wiser man would have exorcised better judgement. You made it clear that you do not respect, therefore, cannot be trusted to fairly represent all Sandpoint residents.
At a recent City Council meeting you asked city auditors, Magnuson, McHugh & Co’s representative as to whether their findings show that you and council members were in compliance with US Treasury guidelines as written for recipients of ARPA funds.
Apparently, the auditor’s findings were news to you, as at your round-table, that you confessed that you had Said again, with inexcusable carelessness, you obligated Sandpoint to a binding contract with the federal government, the terms of which you did not know.
The current argument in your defense suggests that only law, regulation, and XO’s in place at the time of your actions are applicable. However, nothing is said about a situation arising, (as it has in Arizona), from contradictions between law, as crafted by Congress, and regulations - administrative rules that flow from enabling legislation. Anyone paying attention sees the astounding speed at which laws and legal interpretations are shifting. Mr. Mayor, neither you, or anyone else who has accepted ARPA money can take a moments comfort for having been, “in compliance at the time,” with US Treasury’s administrative rules, based on legal guidance or an auditor’s findings.
Mayor Rognstad, you call dissenters, extremists, and a plague, in an attempt to discredit those who disagree with you, going so far as to summon the specter of Richard Butler’s Aryan Nation. In truth, far from Butler’s followers, those you are attacking are that “well-informed electorate,” championed by Thomas Jefferson. People whose efforts Jefferson recognized as an indispensable prerequisite to democracy.” Jefferson’s heroes are the people you vilify and dismiss as haters.
However irritating disagreement may be, like sand in the flesh of an oyster it gives us pearls in the form of wise governance, from which flows trust in our elected officials. Taking a lesson from computer architecture, multiprocessor systems do more work in less time, reducing costs while increasing accuracy. By approaching problems from multiple angles simultaneously these systems reveal novel solutions. Multiprocessor computing is directly analogous to free and independent people working in a society that protect free speech, dissenting opinions, and the people who hold them.
By comparison, totalitarian governments rip open the oyster to remove a grain of sand. Having called for the expulsion of our lieutenant Governor, and those in your own political party of any who disagree with you suggests that if allowed, you too, would kill the oyster. We would rather not believe that you have chosen autocracy over Lincoln’s government of, by, and for the people. We would rather believe that you simply failed to recognize the dreadful, unconstitutional implications of your words. And having reconsidered, will publicly retract, and apologize for your remarks.
Short of this, just as you stated in your post, “we have a crisis in leadership.”
Having called for the removal of Governor McGeachin and the expulsion from your own party of those who stand in your way, you leave readers to wonder if it is not McGeachin, but you who should be removed from office, and “kicked out” of your party?
TOM CARROLL
Sandpoint
KAREN HEFLEY
Sandpoint
CHERI TILFORD
Sandpoint