Letter to the editor: How many deputies could $600K lost in Gather lawsuit have funded?

Accountability, accountability, accountability.

This word slips repeatedly out of the mouths of Lewis County Commissioners Scott Brummer and Sean Swope with no less velvety smoothness than a Dairy Dan’s chocolate cone on a hot August day.

Yet who should be held accountable? Is it the Lewis County prosecutors who told Brummer and Swope their ordinance restricting the Gather Church’s needle exchange program would stand up to legal scrutiny so go ahead boys, spend, spend, spend that taxpayer money? Who were these prosecutors?

Seriously, I want them held to account. In March 2024, the commissioners were warned by a law firm specializing in national civil rights that this ordinance was not legal. Brummer states in hindsight after spending nearly $600,000 of taxpayer money on a losing proposition, “it’s very unfortunate we have found ourselves in this situation.”

Brummer, you did not just find yourself in this situation as if lost in a forest. You and Swope barrelled in headfirst, eyes open with the taxpayer wallet in one hand and your official patriotic, Christian card in the other.

Commissioner Lindsey Pollock offered a different needle exchange ordinance that she believed would hold up legally. But, no, Brummer and Swope charged ahead because, again in hindsight, according to Brummer, these illegal, losing ordinances are worth fighting for regardless of the $600,000 taxpayer funded price tag.

How many Lewis County deputies could that money have funded? How many nights of shelter for homeless moms and their children? How much food and cleaning supplies for the chronically underfunded animal shelter? How many meals at our senior centers? As I look at my property tax bill I wonder how in the heck this conservative, we-hate-taxes county came up with the outrageous valuation for my property.

I always support the police, the schools, the fire department, the roads, etc. But not fools who can’t listen to professional advice. I am fed up with Lewis County using my property as a 365-day-a-year ATM. I do not feel compelled to fund Brummer’s ideological fever dreams or Swope’s never ending war on the Gather Church with my tax dollars.

Maybe in the future these men can gently crane their heads over and try to have a listen to the person who presently appears to be the only grownup in the room, Commissioner Pollock. While I try to figure out where my property tax funds will come from, I have some advice for Brummer and Swope. Really and sincerely go back and read your Bible and count how many times Christ railed for accountability versus how many times he spoke of helping the sick, the poor and the forgotten.

If accountability wins, you can go back to your Christianity on your sleeves and tax dollars into the black hole ways and look in the mirror and proclaim triumphantly to yourselves and then to the rest of us poor, slack-jawed troglodytes who fund you that you two shall never be held accountable again.

Sona Markholt

Mossyrock