To the Journal editor:

Marquette County neighbors, I just came back from the Kaufman awards. It’s an annual ceremony recognizing students who are doing something exceptional for their school, peers or community. Some examples that struck me were making equipment for our firefighters, serving as a liaison between the students and the school board during the Redmen to Sentinels change, and presiding over the Marquette Senior High School chapter of the national honor society. It showcased the potential of the students, but our new High School Principal Gavin Johnson saw something even more. He held up how the legacy of the Kaufman family giving back to their community, the efforts of staff at the school, and the support of parents and guardians come together to build this excellence in our students. He said he finds Marquette to be just like that. He expressed joy in calling that sort of community home.

It is hard to reconcile that vision with the latest challenge that has been placed in the way of MAPS’s planned facilities renovations. It’s not so rare that political news frustrates me, but it is rare for that news to be local.

I’d like to live in a society where we agree how to make a decision, such as by an expert committee, a jury decision before a judge, or a popular vote and then we respect that process. I do not want Centers for Disease Control committees packed with doctors with limited backgrounds in public health who happen to all be vaccine skeptics; that’s not really an expert committee. I do not want the response to an unfavorable judgement to be “one word: appeal” when you’re the world’s richest man: that’s not really a jury decision. I do not want every election subjected to a recount or challenge when you don’t like the outcome. These are ways for us to decide together, not battlegrounds of winners and losers. They break if we always fight as hard as we can.

I was impressed with the process that MAPS went through. They started with a survey, targeted their bond request to what they thought voters would support based on the survey results and then campaigned. They made sure parents were informed, offered to field questions from anyone in the community and gave tours of some of the affected buildings. They worked to help voters make this decision together, as a community. We voted and the bond proposal passed.

However, the renovation is delayed because Margaret Brumm is paying for a recount. She points to a post on TV6’s Facebook page claiming the proposal had failed when the official results were that it succeeded. TV6 has retracted the post, saying it was made in error and yet Brumm is still holding up the renovations. Why is she paying for a recount on such a weak foundation? Given her history of trademarking the new student-chosen Sentinel logo… I can’t help but see this recount as continuing to fight by wrenching the gears when the election outcome was unwelcome. I’d love to believe otherwise, but I don’t see how. This recount is legal, but it is not really how we agreed to make this decision and fighting on hurts everyone: in construction, delay usually means additional expense.

That vision of Marquette community that principal Johnson described, that’s how I see Marquette, too. I see Marquette to be a coming together community, not a battleground. I remain hopeful that everyone who cares and wants to help could join in that vision.