Reader supports Thome
Editor,
Keep in mind the local importance of the April 7 election. If you’re in the Town of Crescent wards 1 and 3, and if you’re interested in strong advocacy for clean water and pristine land, vote for Robert Thome for Oneida County Supervisor on April 7.

Robb Jensen didn’t listen to his constituents when he voted “yes” to sulfide mining after almost 65% of voters said “no.” Of the Board meetings I have attended, Mr. Jensen has always voted against our water.

Robert Thome not only supports strong environmental policies, he also brings a long history of financial and business expertise to the board as a former small business owner and CPA. These skills and his interest in the most important asset of Oneida County – our lakes and lands – make him my choice on April 7.
Karl A. Fate, town of Crescent

Vote on map drawing process
Editor,
Fifteen towns and cities in Vilas and Oneida Counties will be part of 23 Wisconsin municipalities placing a referendum on their April 7 Ballot. The non-binding question asks if Wisconsin should replace its current partisan map drawing process after each census with a non-partisan process similar to that used in Iowa for decades. These participating local municipalities make up 56% of Vilas voters and 57% of Oneida voters. The vote count will decide whether or not our two counties will join the more than 50% of Wisconsin county boards that have already passed this initiative via board resolution or ballot referendum with an average YES vote of 82%.

The other non-binding referendum question asks whether the voter supports calling for an amendment to our US Constitution to state that only human beings are endowed with constitutional rights – not corporations, unions, non-profits or other artificial entities, and money is not speech, and therefore limiting political contributions and spending is not equivalent to limiting speech.
Again over 146 Wisconsin communities and county boards have already passed either a ballot referendum or board resolution based on this question – 80% average YES vote. Lake Tomahawk made history in 2016 with a 91% passage.

Be sure to cast your YES or NO on April 7 or absentee in person with your clerk starting March 23. You can also apply for an absentee ballot to be mailed on line at myvote.wi.org through April 2 or in person with your clerk.
Darlene Goldschmidt, Eagle River
Bob Kovar, Manitowish Waters
Anne Nesgaard, Winchester
Yolan Mistele, Arbor Vitae

Reader: Vote Thome for OC supervisor
Editor,
I support Robert Thome for County Supervisor District 11 (Crescent Wards 1 and 3). Mr. Thome’s positions are clear: protect the lakes and surrounding habitat that makes our Northwoods, “The Northwoods,” a place to live, a place to recreate, and a place to enjoy. He will fight for local control, sound zoning, and maintaining our property values, which are so dependent on the quality of our lakes in Oneida County. He will listen to the citizens, who overwhelmingly opposed sulfide metal mining in the Town of Lynne, and who now oppose metal exploration in the town of Schoepke. He will bring his experience as both a business owner and a Certified Public Accountant to help the County make smart budget decisions.

On April 7, elect the clear choice. Elect the one who has your interests at heart. Vote for Robert Thome.
Dan Butkus, Squash Lake and Waunakee

Everyone should ‘bother’ to vote
Editor,
A recent inspection of voting records in Wisconsin reveals several worrisome facts, the most upsetting of which are these: Walleye can’t vote. Neither can trees and plants. Lakes, rivers and oceans are banned from the polls. Insects, animals and people under the age of 18 are forbidden to cast a ballot.

That is a scandal, because each of those groups will be greatly affected by earth’s changing climate. And each would be eager, given the chance, to vote for candidates vowing to enact legislation protecting us all from the worst consequences scientists are predicting. Those include increasingly severe storms and floods; warming lakes and oceans; vanishing species; and masses of people forced to migrate because of drought and fires.

The rest of us, the eligible voters, enjoy the hard-won privilege of determining how we are to be governed.
Yet many eligible voters don’t vote and don’t plan to. There are various reasons, some legitimate but most not, that so many shun that right. Perhaps the most common is this: “My vote won’t make any difference. It won’t change the world. Why should I bother?”

That reasoning makes perfect sense, from the perspective of a single person looking for an excuse to stay home.

Yet many people who decline to vote are careful not to throw trash in a lake or out the car window. They pick up a $10 bill someone has dropped and say, “Excuse me. You just dropped this.” They join strangers to push someone’s car out of a snow bank. They help an elderly person collect spilled groceries in a parking lot. They give lost travelers directions to the hospital or even lead them there. They release the fish caught out of season. They wait patiently at the red light, at 3 a.m. in a quiet town, with no other cars in sight.

The list of things non-voters do in the name of citizenship, or simple humanity, is endless. They don’t say, “This won’t change the world. Why should I bother?” Each of us, whether we vote or don’t vote, might ask that question, many times every day. “Why should I bother?”

We bother because of who we are, what we owe to each other and what we owe to the earth – not because we’re sure that our simple act or single vote will alter the course of history.

We vote to honor the people who worked, fought and died to establish that right to vote, as well as those who helped build this country even as they were denied for too long the right to vote in it.

Above all, we vote for the children, creatures, plants and waters that don’t have that right but must live in the world we leave them. If we don’t care about them, we don’t care about anything. That isn’t who we are or what we should become.
Ted Griggs, Ashland

‘Packing and cracking’
Editor,
“Packing and cracking” sounds painful, doesn’t it? It is. It means that political parties “pack” you into specifically-drawn districts after the census so they can get re-elected. It means that political parties “crack” groups of voters apart after the census so they can get re-elected. Bob Thome, who’s running for Oneida County Supervisor in the Town of Crescent, thinks packing and cracking is wrong. He supports a non-partisan method of drawing districts so the voters choose their officials rather than the opposite. Vote for Bob Thome on April 7.
Jane Banning, town of Crescent