Beware of MEA old guard

To the editor:

Please vote for Lois Lester and Kit Jones and against Prop 1. in the MEA elections.

Lois Lester has been tirelessly fighting the good fight on the board for years, often alone against one of the most astringent, frankly racist group of people to ever involve themselves in a community.

Kit Jones is a sharp Republican businesswoman. I’ve enjoyed watching her dive into her work since she was recently appointed to the board, asking the hard questions with an open mind and a keen intellect. She does not engage in group-think. She engages in facts. That’s why the old guard is trying so hard to unseat her.

Proposition 1 was written by a group of political strategists as a back-door way to unseat Janet Kincaid from the board. It adds another layer of absurdity to the Byzantine by-laws. In a small community, it is not possible to find many people who do not have a relative who works for some sub-contractor who might do some work for the MEA. What’s next, bylaws dictating hair color? Please don’t sip this potion.

The management at MEA created an environment where a white employee could harass a black employee for years without reprimand. They politicized the MEA organization. They foisted a biased and poorly researched document on the public — in support of coal development — and then tried to shout down anyone who dared to critique it. And it is very possible that they might do the same with nuclear — not just any nuclear power, mind you, but an untested turn-key technology that Mr. Yoder has been paid to promote.

The MEA has been a politicized, poorly managed swamp for so long that it is hard for some of us to imagine it any other way. I encourage you to try and imagine that real change can happen there. And please do whatever you can to make it happen.

David Cheezem

Palmer