Jan 12, 2020 2 min read

Why start the ‘blame game?’

This is in response to Judy Kramer’s Jan. 9 letter concerning the hiring of a chief of staff for the Washington County commissioners to handle some of the workload due to the absence of director of administration Scott Fergus, who is on medical leave. She asks the question, “Who is the tax and spend party now?” Why was our new county treasurer’s name even included in the letter? Tom Flickinger, as the county treasurer, has sent out the county tax bill, as did his predecessor, at the beginning of the new year. That is his job. He did not “invent” any new tax nor did he (personally) raise any tax that was not already in place when he took office.

And while I do not know all the circumstances involving the newly hired chief of staff, I understand that the commissioners did not want to just abolish Fergus’ position because of the extenuating situation of him being on medical leave. I suppose that could have been a cost-saving solution, but not a very ethical one. Evidently the work that Fergus did was real and still needs to be done, hence the hiring of another administrator to do it, for now.

It is not fair to blame and question the newly elected (Republican) row office officials, who only took office less than a week ago. There are still many Democrats currently holding office also. Why start that Democrat-Republican party “blame game” already?

Denise A. LaSota

Washington