Letters - Sept. 9, 2010

Therefore

In response to Roger Whitten’s letter Sept 2:

Mr. Whitten you did not file against the two commissioners personally, you filed against them as commissioners.

You filed against them and the way you believe they did or did not do their jobs. Therefore the county (taxpayers) would be paying for their defense.

Kerry Moser, Colton

Passing the buck

Roger Whitten is trying to pass the buck for what even Roger acknowledges was a $19,632 unnecessary County expenditure for Commissioner legal defense in the matter of Roger’s failed recall complaint.

However, Roger’s reasoning fails a common sense test on two counts:

* Regardless of Roger’s opinion and commentary offered by others since the judicial decision on the matter, the fact is the judge found Roger’s complaint to be based on hearsay evidence and the Commissioners had not broken the Open Meetings Law, and he tossed Roger’s complaint out of court. A decision that Roger did not appeal. Those are the facts of the case despite whatever discussions may occur otherwise.

* It is generally the case for both private and public organizations to provide “errors and omissions” liability protection for officers and directors, so the County essentially providing same on an individual basis for the Commissioners in this case would be very customary. Otherwise, these organizations would never be able to find anyone willing to serve in these leadership capacities.

So I think the county’s “unnecessary” legal defense expenditure in this case was pretty obviously the result of Roger’s misguided civic activism for which Roger, like it or not, must shoulder the blame.

Doug Willcox, Palouse