Editor,

Fundamental to what drove those who founded our form of government was a division of power.

They had seen the abuse which accompanied concentration of power in one person.

Thus, we have an executive and representatives to make up the executive and legislative branches of government.

In the case of Oak Harbor, that means a mayor and city council members, all of whom are elected by the voters and answerable directly to them.

This form of government has proven effective and trustworthy for more than two centuries.

We will have soon an extremely important election for city council members.

We have a mayor who, since being elected, has removed all of the city department heads and replaced them with his personal choices.

Now we have him campaigning and door-belling for his choice of city council members.

We see this kind of activity sometimes in partisan races where one person may work to support the election of someone else in he same political party.

But city races are nonpartisan and the end result will simply be a concentration of power — in this case, with our mayor. Is it wise to have our city council members and all the department heads giving allegiance only to the mayor who got them elected? I think not.

The history of the world’s dictators and despots is similar.

They assume leadership, remove or destroy opposition and impose their will on the people.  I mean no ill will to our mayor, but does he really know what he is doing? Or is he simply too politically naive to know the potential for abuse of authority. Perhaps.

Either way, we do not need a king or a dictator.

We need to keep our city council members answerable to the citizens, not the mayor, just like he will be answerable to the voters.

Two of the council members who are being opposed by the mayor and his selectees are Bob Severns and Joel Servatius, both of whom have served well and proven themselves answerable to the voters. They both have wide experience and have been successful in business.

I know them personally as being men or integrity and honor who simply want to serve this community to the best of their ability.

I beg each of you who read this to re-elect them and vote against any candidate supported by our mayor. Keep the mayor honest and require him to sell his ideas to the council, not control it.

Barney Beeksma
Oak Harbor