To the Editor:

Over the past six months, I’ve seen a decline in civility, transparency, and productivity in John Day. It’s the opposite of what our new councilors claimed they were campaigning for.

Personal attacks have increased, not decreased. The city is not progressing. The new mayor and councilors, under the toxic influence of Bob Pereira (not a resident), have made up excuses for not appointing Shannon Adair because of Pereira’s bogus ethics complaint against her.

The new council and their non-resident friends are causing John Day to fail. City employees, for the first time since John Day was founded in 1901, are now unionizing because they don’t trust the new city councilors and management.

I don’t blame them. I don’t trust them, either.

Their not-so-hidden political agenda is to systematically undo six years of progress made by the prior council and staff. They’re going back on agreements made by the last council related to the city’s pool, greenhouse, library, and other projects that will cause the city legal problems.

Worse still, they cover up their actions with thin excuses. When they get caught in a lie, they pretend they didn’t know what happened or that somebody else is responsible for their actions.

I speak for myself, Bob, as a resident. This isn’t the way a city should operate.

If the new councilors disagree with the decisions of the prior council, there’s a way to do it — by implementing their own agenda. But they haven’t done that either. There’s no law enforcement funding, no $2 million pool, no real progress on the treatment plant, nor any of the other campaign promises Mayor Rookstool, Sherrie Rininger and Ron Phillips told residents they could deliver.

How much worse can it get? Unfortunately, I’m afraid we’re about to find out.

Not the change we voted for.

Lisa Holland

John Day