“The very essence of a free government consists in considering offices as public trusts, bestowed for the good of the county (sic), and not for the benefit of an individual or a party.”—John C. Calhoun: Speech, July 13, 1835.

Is it too much to ask that our elected county office holders simply do the job they were elected to do? I read the past articles and letters to the editor regarding the activities of various county employees and the County Executive and all sorts of “cloak and dagger” emailing, FOI requests, and smooth–talking non-answers regarding all this activity and wonder why they aren’t simply doing the work of the county and nothing more or less and regarding their public office as an opportunity to uphold it with dignity, honesty and integrity?

At some point, the over 700,000 citizens of Snohomish County deserve much better leadership than one which is constantly avoiding investigation. As Mr. Calhoun so aptly states, a public office is a public trust and therefore should not benefit an individual or a party, and yet, all of these alleged activities by the Executive and his employees seem to be only protecting a person from public exposure. If a wise person didn’t want “distasteful public exposure” then he would simply not be in any way associated with “distasteful activities” or put himself in the “public trust.”

So, my question is what have these individuals actually done to benefit the county? And, if they have so much extra time on their hands to be able to play their alleged “cloak and dagger” games of political intrigue, then maybe we, as the taxpaying citizens who pay all these salaries and benefits, need to demand a review of the county’s employment needs more closely.

To the voting public: please make sure when you vote for someone that the person has the personal characteristics which make a trustworthy public servant.

Catherine Paxton

Arlington