Let Freedom Ring, even though our focus on national and national security issues, would like to support the Paddy Bell letter to the editor Citizens Won’t Be Silenced By Actions, Words of City Leaders dated September 16, 2011 in which she spoke about the procedures that occurred during the City Council meeting on September 13, 2011. The members of the council need to remember they are elected members by the people which mean they are answerable to the people not each other as was cleverly devised by the founding fathers. Elected officials at all levels work for the people, people do not work for elected officials.

What does being answerable to the people mean, it means that the public officials are representatives of the people as President Lincoln stated in the Gettysburg Address, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. Elected officials at all levels work for the people, people do now work for elected officials.

Councilman Partin is correct which he states that we are a Democratic Republic and not a Democracy. The definition of a Democratic Republic is a form of government embodying democratic principles and where a monarch is not the head of state. The definition of democracy is government by the people exercised either directly or through elected representation as defined by Britannica. Which means that people do not only have a voice come election time but also directly through referendums, as Willard Polk suggested and was turned down by other members of the city council, and also through public forums. Elected officials at all levels work for the people, people do not work for elected officials.

You need to ask yourselves if by not holding a referendum where people can express their opinions on matters or by interrupting or cutting people off while the public is speaking holds to what are founding fathers beliefs were in establishing this nation. Only you as individuals can answer that question. Elected officials at all levels work for the people, people do not work for elected officials.

It does however rise the question what is in the process of the YMCA proposal that concerns the city council where they do not want to have public discussions? Is there something there that the City Council is hiding and not disclosing to the public? Is the City Council being totally forthright? Are some members gaining personally from this proposal?

Elected officials at all levels work for the people, people do not work for elected officials. In full disclosure Willard Polk has spoken to our group and we support him, we believe that he is an honorable man and it seems that he is the only one on City Council that wants to hold public discussions. We support the YMCA proposal referendum petition.

(submitted by Richard Holmes)