I thought I had attended the hearing attempting to unseat the 4 sitting County Commissions, but according to Yon Malkuch’s letter of March 7 I was apparently in the wrong courtroom. Before I dive into the heart let me acknowledge the one thing he got right, guilty as charged, I am a Democrat.

Let’s first of all look at 18-3-524 which clearly states the rules for filling a vacancy, saying that they “shall” pick a candidate from a list of 3 provided by the party. If shall means must why didn’t they say must? And if shall means must why is there a provision in the statue that provides an alternative procedure if the commissioners fail to pick a successor? The plaintiffs attorney performed amazing feats of pretzel logic but failed to make a dent( bare in mind your taking your legal advice from someone who apparently doesn’t know how to file a subpoena).

As for the supposed proof of a conspiracy all I heard was 4 people who were in agreement that they didn’t approve of the list of candidates the party provided. If agreement is a conspiracy, we are all guilty of something.

And finally (not lastly) if, as Mr. Miller testified , 70% of the 12,000 registered Republicans in Sheridan think that all 4 of the Commissioners are too liberal then how did they get elected in the first place? And , when they ran for office, why did the 3 candidates you put forward garner less than 1000 votes between them?

Most people don’t pay much attention to politics until October, but if there is conspiracy it’s a power grab by the extremists to purify the party.

Ray Olson

March 14, 2024