From: Tom Heller
Columbus
Let’s just say George Dutro and I have had our differences, from my earliest days in this community. In the ensuing 15 years, however, I’ve had the opportunity to observe, up close, the pecking order of privilege that runs this town. So I am not surprised to read George’s glowing endorsement of Jim Lienhoop for mayor.
What disappoints me, though, is the willful complicity of the local Democrat Party in failing to field a candidate for mayor in this year’s city elections. They did that in 2015, too, in obeisance to that pecking order.
By not fielding a mayoral candidate, Democrats were free to ask for a Republican ballot in the primary — and they did so in record numbers. The result was what was intended by that pecking order: knee-capping (defeating) the then-incumbent mayor who had brought fiscal order to the chaos then governing Columbus. (Remember Mayor Fred Armstrong’s $14 monthly trash Toter fee?)
That’s not democracy, Democrats. That’s a sham.
(Editor’s note: This letter is paid content.)
