Future looks bright

To the Editor:

On Aug. 22, the Sentinel once again published a misleading article, this one regarding the overstated cost of replacing our former city attorney and city administrator. Despite lacking information regarding the separation agreements, due to confidentiality terms, the Sentinel acts as if it has complete knowledge of what occurred.

The Sentinel continues to ignore the positive aspects of the new city administrator and legal counsel, and it purposely overstates the financial costs associated with these forward-looking changes. The facts are that the city has been in a downward slide for the past 20 years, with a continued loss of population, and changes needed to be made for the benefit of the city.

Our new city administrator has a salary and benefits package that is nearly $40,000 less than the previous administrator. If the legal fees from our new civil city attorney continue at the pace they have over the last three months, when combined with the criminal attorney’s charges, we are on pace to save $30,000 to 40,000 per year in legal costs compared to previous years. Besides this $70,000 to $80,000 savings, let’s consider the lost opportunity from businesses and residents that didn’t relocate to Fairmont over the last three decades.

The future looks bright for Fairmont and our citizens. We need to get past the division that misleading information like this has promoted.

Tom Hawkins

Fairmont

Kinship offers thanks

To the Editor:

I am writing under the premise that it is never too late to say thank you.

Plus, a non-political letter may be a nice change.

Our Kinship Industrial Commercial Rummage Sale was held this past month with great success. A shout out goes to Jeff and Sue Greischar for being the top donors of items from TECH Builders. They did this in addition to helping with setup and cleanup for the sale. Jeff provided a forklift and pallet jack for the heavy lifting. During the year, they always are faithful and generous supporters of Kinship.

We were blessed with 32 businesses and individuals bringing over 1,650 items for sale. Kahler Automation, Schmidt Siding and Windows and HenWay Mfg. were other top contributors.

It was uncertain with rescheduling due to COVID, but we are pleased with the funds raised that enable Kinship to bring kids together with trustworthy adult mentors.

We are grateful to the Martin County Fair Board for the use of its building, businesses who sponsored advertisements, STS with cleanup and Miller Sellner for forklift help.

Most importantly, we couldn’t do this huge event without hard-working volunteers. So many from our community, along with Kinship board members, helped with taking deliveries, hauling/moving, pricing items and clerking/supervising at the sale. Special credit goes to Darrel Krahler, John Bisbee, John and Diane Larson and Jo Moltzen.

Looking forward, we liked the warmer conditions and will likely repeat our sale in September 2021.

Thank you to all who make our community great.

Char Kahler

and all in Kinship

of Martin County