“Whoa, this needs some serious fact checking…” I said to myself as I read the paid insert in last week’s CVN. The insert, which blamed the current assembly for just about everything that’s wrong in the world, was sponsored by supporters of three assembly candidates: Smith, Stickler and Clement. 

Sadly, the support it offered for those candidates was strictly an expression of anger, vitriol and negativity toward their opponents. Nowhere in the insert are we given even one positive reason to vote for the candidates it supports.

The insert also challenges the results of the last election, stating that there were many votes cast by people who do not live in Haines. Are we being asked, as the insert suggests, to vote for the three insert-endorsed candidates because they do not, for some reason, believe in counting the votes of all registered, legal voters? Really?

Additionally, the insert blames the current assembly for, among other things, creating last year’s property tax assessment crisis. Ironically, it was this current assembly (including Natalie Dawson and Debra Schnabel) that fired the old assessor, hired a more qualified new assessor, and proceeded quickly to fix the problem and return assessments to a reasonable level—to the satisfaction of just about everyone.

So, the insert should have more accurately read, “Job well done, assembly.”

George Figdor

Author