Letter to the Editor: County Assessor Recommends Swope, Pollock for Commission Seats

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Leadership — a word that many use and some may not understand. Leadership comes in many forms from many different people.

The definition of leadership from the dictionary is “the action of leading a group of people or an organization”.

Let me ask you where three of our County leaders were at 10:18 a.m. on Dec. 18, 2019 when a bomb threat was called into the County buildings. Do you know?

When the threat was announced and the buildings were evacuated, all three members of the Board of County Commissioners got into their personal vehicles and left the county campus.  

How do I know this? Because my staff and other employees of the historic courthouse were standing in the parking lot where they park their cars watching in amazement as they left. The parking lot is our designated evacuation area during a crisis in the building.

Would you not expect leadership to help maintain the safety of their employees?  

The three commissioners left us standing there with no direction or leadership. Erik Martin, Arny Davis, Larry Grove, Steve Wohld and myself all discussed the situation and decided that our employees should be moved to the old credit union building, In retrospect, that was not the safest building. We were all very lucky this was a false alarm. We learned a lot from a real life drill.

However, not one county commissioner was there to help maintain the health and safety of the county’s employees. Isn’t that their job? Aren’t they county leadership too and the main mission of the BOCC is the health and safety of its citizens? Aren’t employees citizens too?



Lewis County needs quality leadership now more than ever. There are tough decisions that need to be made every day in county government. Especially those that are related to COVID-19 and the myriad of policies that are coming forth as a result.

My question to you is, do you want leadership that leaves the employees and county buildings behind or do you want leadership that will be in control during a crisis of any kind?

My vote is for leadership, Please cast your vote for Sean Swope and Lindsey Pollock for Lewis County Commissioner on November 3. We need quality leadership in Lewis County.

 

Diane Dorey

Centralia

Lewis County Assessor