LETTER: Questioning the process by which commissioners reduced chairman’s ...

This is a change in form of a duly elected government. To change an elected government, it would seem to me that there would have to be a countywide referendum which would vote the old government out and the new government in.

Instead, three votes have stripped power given to the chairman by the entire county. No opinion of a superior court, no opinion from the state’s attorney’s office and no opinion from all of the voters of Madison County. Is that the way it works? If so, why doesn’t the board just change the election rules and vote themselves another term.

I am not getting into personalities, I am simply defending an elected government and I believe that a mistake has been made. “Don’t these people think we are smart enough to govern ourselves?” (This question was asked in the old Madison County Journal about the time the voters chose this form of government.) In 1968, at the democratic convention, a very scary statement was made by a famous protester, and I still hope it is not true. The statement was that “if a vote made any difference, they would make it illegal.”

Please, don’t let this be true.

Bruce Pilon
Danielsville