To the Editor:

While I am neither a resident nor a business in John Day, as a concerned neighbor, I would like to make some observations.

A customer who has lived and worked all over Oregon told me that Grant County politics was the most bitter he had ever encountered. Even an outsider can see that the city has too many problems to waste time and energy in internal fighting. Making a criminal case about the library sign is not helpful in any respect. Mr. Phillips has apologized, the sign is fine, the actual injury is negligible.

By the same token, I am not favorably impressed by attacks on Shannon Adair’s hotel scheme. I have no problem with bringing in more amenities. Once again the problem was the methods employed; if it had been sufficiently publicized it could have been as legal as church on Sunday. I am sure Shannon would do it all differently now and dwelling on it is wasting time and effort that should be devoted to solving real problems.

We are a small community with limited resources and limited manpower. It would be nice if we had a deep bench of people who were experts in law, finance, engineering and all the highly technical disciplines that the modern world requires. We don’t, and we have to make do with people doing the best they can. People will make mistakes. People will honestly disagree about the best way to proceed.

When you are surrounded and hopelessly outnumbered, you must be smart to prevail. Petty bickering about personalities and gotcha games are not smart. Working together in the face of disagreements to accomplish things we all need is.

Dave Driscoll

Canyon City