Dear Editor:

In the last three years Alna has suffered: (1) a bitter fight over school choice; (2) a secret write-in campaign aimed to steal an “uncontested” selectmen’s race in a pandemic; and (3) a pointless and expensive war over a gravel boat launch.

Two selectmen are worn out and four are running to replace them; two of these folks I know and two I don’t, but I had assumed they must have good intentions.

And then, as I recently read some campaign information posted all together on our local, supposedly ‘politically independent’ community Facebook group, I noticed that three appear to share the same design, style, and fonts. The only contact on one of them is a P.O. box linked to a dubious fundraising website called the “The Sheepscot Legal Defense Fund.” The backers of which are kept anonymous, all we see there is the same P.O. box.

This sure looks like a coordinated campaign to pack our board of selectmen with candidates obsessed with a boat launch that is already completed, and with candidates who have had no interest in the past in the running of our town. In fact, there is no real evidence that they have any interest in doing so now.

Is there no end to this? I had hoped that our town could have a break from the endless attacks by the same small group. The job of selectman is to simply administer our town government. It is not to exact revenge or to try and change the past.

Character and good and open intentions do matter. Consider that when you vote. Democracy does not thrive in secrecy.

Personally, I will vote for Kyle Levasseur and Chris Cooper. They are not running together, but I do know them both and what traits they share in common: no hidden agendas and a desire to do right by all of us.

Tim Richards

Alna