In their resignation letter last week, five members of the Grant County Public Access Advisory Board offered an unintended irony when they pressed the County Court to embrace rules of respect for others and against all personal attacks. While criticizing the Court for its actions, the letter failed to acknowledge that some members of the access board have run afoul of those very rules with their own comments in recent meetings and communications. The lack of civility in the road discourse has been striking, and they must share the responsibility for that.

To be sure, the County Court played a role in the eventual meltdown of the access board. The Court created the board out of a genuine desire for a participatory process last summer, but it was a rush job. The confusion and contentiousness that ensued was almost preordained. The members were appointed to a vague purpose, without the Court providing a detailed charter for the board or setting sideboards for its operations. Unlike other appointed boards and committees, this group was left largely on its own to chart its course.

It’s no surprise, then, that the board morphed into sort of a public-private hybrid. Indeed, we suspect those who quit the board last week will be far more comfortable as a private group than as a county body. That was suggested a few weeks ago in an email exchange obtained from the county by the Eagle, through a public records request.

In the exchange, County Judge Scott Myers asked Jim Sproul, then chair of the access group, to restore the forest supervisor’s name to the board’s mail list. Sproul replied that the access board’s “private email list” had been deleted, and that any personal emails sent by board members would be “for information only to concerned citizens of our choosing.” He made it clear that “all emails sent by the access board members to interested citizens of Grant County are for information purposes only and are private.”

That blending of private communications and public duties suggests the separation last week was inevitable, and probably a good thing. Today, these members are free to pursue their goals with roads – and any other issues – as private citizens, without the constraints of transparency that go with serving on a public board.

Still to be seen is whether the tone of the road discussion improves. So far, we’re hearing an escalation of angry talk on some social media platforms; a few of the more strident voices in the wider road debate are targeting individuals, businesses and agencies for personal criticism and scorn. It’s not clear how this happened, but we’ve apparently reached a point where demonizing those with different views is seen as an effective strategy to attain one’s goals.

We hope that as the discussion moves forward, the former members of the access board will embrace the respect and tolerance rules they urged on the Court and encourage others to do the same. They have the potential to be a force for positive movement – or stalemate – on these issues.

As for the Court, we urge the members to firm up the charge of the access board before filling any vacancies and moving ahead. We also urge them to adopt specific rules of conduct for their own meetings and to post them clearly, so that all members of the public – no matter what their opinions may be – will feel comfortable attending and participating. – SC