Dear Editor,

Well people, the drug dealers have won. We the people are of no consequence when it comes to the unbridled power of illicit drug money. We the people had no opportunity to have a legitimate vote on the degradation of our community. Behind the scene, the overwhelming power of the promise of bushels of easy money, overruled the Law, the integrity of our community, and taught every young person in the Mineral County school system, a powerful and enduring lesson. That lesson, with degrading and negative consequences, is that money talks, drug money rules, and open contempt for the Law is, by default, sadly, acceptable. **

When the highest-ranking office-holders in this County, the so-called Village Elders, show disdain for the Law and despicable contempt for the people, we are lost. The parents of every single student should rise up in defense of their own families, and condemn by Censure, the disgusting absence of Ethics and Integrity, in our officials, who have betrayed a Public Trust. Parents, what life lessons do you REALLY WANT your children to learn? **

There are so many unanswered questions on this issue:

Straightforward, sincere questions were ignored. Questions of law and legitimacy were met with silence, or ludicrous excuses. Practical questions regarding things such as insurance, liability, responsibility, were side-stepped or ignored. Potentially complicated law-enforcement conflicts were not properly addressed.

Ask yourself, honestly and objectively, would responsible adults, who have spent years, becoming respected, honorable members of the community, flush their own integrity and self-respect down the toilet, just to put some filthy drug money into the county’s bank account? No intelligent person would throw away their own self-worth for that. There has to be more going on. We will probably never know. Admitting that they know that they are deliberately violating federal law, a felony, speaks clearly to that question.

Public censure of these misguided, dishonest betrayers of the publics’ trust is warranted.

Tom Bergeron, Sr.

Mina

**Third Epistle of John: “I have no greater joy, than to hear that my children walk in truth.”