Letters to the editor March 5

Library board overreach

Flathead County once had a library called Imagine IF. It was an award-winning library widely recognized for its innovations and its excellence. The community was proud of it and the staff was as well. The retention of those library workers was bedrock solid. “I love my job,” was a typical refrain if you asked them.

Library patrons knew the names of those staff and relied on their advice and guidance to navigate the book shelves and other resources. Perhaps one of the great acts of philanthropy in this nation’s history is the legacy of libraries that Andrew Carnegie left. Imagine IF was a shining testimony to that legacy.

It takes years of effort by hundreds of people to build a great library like Imagine IF. It takes relatively no time at all to significantly harm one.

Imagine IF has systematically been dismantled. Email exchanges between county commissioners and the library trustees they appointed show a deliberate effort to undermine and weaken the library leadership. Measures were taken to rewrite the policies of the library. These efforts were initiated even before the contrived controversy arose over two books within the library collection.

The library has lost some of its best and brightest. Both its previous director and interim director have resigned in just six months. A number of additional staff have departed. The highly regarded and successful library foundation director has just resigned. $35,000 in annual funding from the state has been lost with the hiring of a new library director who does not meet Montana’s public library standards. Imagine IF joins just three other libraries out of 82 in Montana that are not certified. Citing a shortage of staff, the library has recently reduced its hours of operation.

Andrew Carnegie would be shocked at the library trustee overreach and power grab that has yielded this intentional wreckage.

Flathead County once had a library called Imagine IF. It was a beautiful historic building that included many books, some that celebrated freedom of speech. It held resources that represented a wide array of views and beliefs. Some of those books warned us that a healthy democracy requires an informed and enlightened citizenry, and further that democracy dies in darkness.

The county commissioners and the library trustees they appointed have seen to it that the lights of our lovely Imagine IF library are going dark.

— Joseph Biby, Kalispell

Government trust

The destruction of trust in many of our governmental institutions is profound and disturbing. The start of this trend downward coincided with the start of the Obama administration and has accelerated since. It should be an issue brought up and discussed in this next election cycle because the list is long.

So, who trusts the Department of Justice anymore? The failure to investigate and/or prosecute political figures such as Hillary Clinton, or Joe and Hunter Biden, and the spurious investigation into President Trump has destroyed faith in that institution and rightfully so. The FBI isn’t far behind now that Biden has turned them loose on, of all things, school board meetings. The IRS was weaponized by the Obama administration to impede the formation of conservative nonprofit organizations (myself included) but Lois Lerner smirked her way through the process as thousands of relevant emails just happened to disappear.

The Department of Education, which instituted so many subjects steeped in far-left propaganda like CRT, homosexuality and other controversial subjects, has compromised itself to the point where it should be completely eliminated leaving education to each state. The 12 private banks running the Federal Reserve have joined the club by printing and buying up almost $9 trillion of American assets mostly to fund governmental out of control spending. Science and research organizations have been politicized to the point where the only points of view allowed must follow the “party line” meaning no one can count on objective information from them anymore.

Worst of all is the CDC which has been effectively marginalized by the inept, bumbling, inaccurate policies of Fauci who, single handedly, created cures and policies that were worse than the disease as more and more information coming out confirms.

Even Congress, with its never-ending investigations designed solely to highlight their political objectives, has fallen to historical low points in regards to trust and respect. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court is falling into the same abyss as Biden has now made it about race and sex, leaving competence and fairness out of the process to choose a new justice. And this doesn’t even count the ever-increasing loathing for the far-left social giants like Google, Facebook and Twitter or the mainstream news organizations.

There are solutions to these problems not the least of which is cutting back the scope of power and influence of the federal government in general and returning more power to each and every state. But it is imperative our congressional candidates acknowledge this profound problem and start offering dramatic, viable solutions to effectuate a return of trust in our governmental institutions. After all, it is their responsibility.

— Mark Agather, Kalispell