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To the Editor:

It was yet another display of incompetence of the removed Green/Lundbom era within the city of John Day’s Feb. 24 council meeting. They keep bringing up policies of the past … most were supposed to be implemented in 2018-2019, which were not acted upon in the last administration’s rule. The biggest one being advisory boards. They have wasted the present administration’s time by continuing to bring this up at several meetings. When you hand pick your advisory committee by using your friends, you lose the right to being objective on any issue. It becomes an autocracy then.

“Innovation Gateway” plan … which is another topic they use as a crutch to obstruct progress made in the past year. Innovation is just a verb that politicians use to sell any plan whether successful or not and Gateway just adds to the attractiveness of that theory.

They have been responsible for the loss of a police department, the loss of our children’s swimming pool, spent a large amount of money on a failed greenhouse theory and started a financial mess that the current administration must clean up which includes the Grant County Digital Coalition and depleted the emergency reserves for sewer and water funds.

Not being transparent? This is self-explanatory when a supposedly educated individual shakes her head constantly (distracting the audience) when Nick Ducote was presenting his explanation of the progress being made on the wastewater plant. Mr. Ducote has produced papers on progress at almost every council meeting. There was a town hall presentation awhile back, showing a way forward on the neglected project (wastewater treatment plant) that the city needs to exist, by law. The same people that brought this transparency theory issue up was at the town hall. Obviously, they had another agenda planned besides going forward. Getting back in power whoever it hurts.

The current council is going ahead in a responsible manner with the city at heart and concentrating on what the city needs, not leaving the community behind while chasing their rainbows. Common sense must prevail to keep moving forward.

Bob Pereira

John Day