River News: Our View

There’s always so much — and so many people — to give thanks for come the holiday season, and always there’s such a rush to thank everybody we can think of that we inevitably leave someone out.

There are our veterans, and those family and friends in our lives who enrich and inspire and support us. There’s our material abundance, for those of us fortunate enough to have it, and a wide network of committed people who work tirelessly year round to help those not so blessed.

There are the everyday people who weave inconspicuously in and out of our lives, like software they quietly purr in the background. They make little noise, most days we don’t even sense or feel their presence, but they are there when we need them: The law enforcement officers who keep us safe, the doctors who work to keep us healthy; the technicians who keep the lights on (and restore the lights and heat when the power is out), the mail persons who keep us connected, and the small business owners who fuel our economy.

They all deserve our special thanks this Thanksgiving weekend. Along with all the people we’ve inevitably left out.

But there’s another group we especially want to thank, and that is the aggregate population of our own Northwoods and its towns — the devotion and dedication, the energy and resolve our residents give to the region’s civic and political life. It is a unique character infused both with a rugged individualism and an abiding sense of community, and the Northwoods would not be the Northwoods without its special seasoning.

We have mentioned this before, but, if ever any egghead professor wanted to put together a case study of good local government, they could do no better than to come North and stay awhile. What they would find is a textbook narrative of transparency and accountability.

Towns like Minocqua, Woodruff, Hazelhurst, Arbor Vitae, Lake Tomahawk, and more — we have noticed that they just hum along year after year. They take good care of their constituents; they steward the environment; they embrace and nurture civic institutions. They are run by good people who stand out in their commitment to good government, and it shows.

Oh sure, like every other place in the world, we have our issues every now and again. We are human, after all. But it is exactly in those times that the local populations always seem to rise up and guide their town or county to remedy and reason.

In such times, what are sparsely attended town and county meetings become packed-to-the-rafters sessions attended by residents attuned to what their communities need and want. Ultimately, local government delivers the required goods and services to its communities, and, when something important is on the line, our residents do not hesitate to respond. That is the indisputable pattern.

Some years ago, for example, we reported on a breakdown of transparency and accountability in Boulder Junction. We reported then on a groundswell of public participation as the former town chairman there, Jeff Long, and others rallied citizens to fix the problems. They did, and that citizens’ movement still serves as a quintessential example of how dedicated people can rise up when transparency and open government are threatened.

Far from being a black eye for Boulder Junction, it was a wonderful example of how a town responds to unexpected misconduct and protects its local institutions and traditions.

We remember, too, when Oneida County sheriff Grady Hartman stood up for open government by staging a raid on Rhinelander City Hall when there was probable cause to believe that some officials were not following the state’s open government laws. It was an action unheard of — actually executing a search warrant based upon an open records complaint — not just in northern Wisconsin but in the entire state.

More recently, we have been reporting about ongoing issues in Presque Isle, but there too the people have answered the call. After a judicial finding of election misconduct — a nonresident outsider living and registered in another state who voted in the spring election, to cite just one example — the people of Presque Isle won a new election and responded by going to the polls in far greater numbers than in the first election, 76 more voters to be exact, a stunning turnout in a special town election.

Those who voted in that election — however they voted — were not only voting for a particular candidate but for good government itself.

And so it goes in town after town across northern Wisconsin, and it demonstrates just how vibrant our grassroots democracy is in the Northwoods and how valuable and protective our people are of their civic responsibilities and their political culture.

We express gratitude for all this because — and many people may not realize it — many places in out great nation are not so fortunate. In many communities people don’t act with the same zeal, and so bad government that does not serve the needs of the people continues on for far too long.

That is not to say it is the people’s fault. Sometimes they do not have the economic status or clout to challenge the powers that be; sometimes decades and decades of insular government have made the flowering of democracy, which is a fragile thing to tend to, nearly impossible.

Sometimes the people simply lack the knowledge of what is going on and what needs to be done because they lack a watchdog newspaper or other independent media source, which has always been a critical component of good democracy.

So let us give thanks for how blessed we are with the history and traditions of our open governments, which feed and nurture the civic spirit we hold so dear in the Northwoods.

We still have work to do. In previous years, we have often seen our problems arise from within. No community lacks for bad actors, and sometimes complacency sets in. The Northwoods is no different, but when such problems arise organically from within our communities, we are all well-prepared to handle those lapses.

It’s different when the threats hail from outside, as they have in recent years — when outsiders laden with partisan agendas come in to manipulate local government for their own ends and when political propagandists pop up as newcomers spouting hatred and political poison from the rooftops.

In those cases, the actors have no intention to seek better government; they pursue narrow political results, and often try to deliver them by sowing discord and dissension so as to divide cohesive communities. They trash our towns and leaders with the baldest and most reprehensible demagoguery. 

This year, in a variety of ways — through robust voting, through jury participation, through concrete votes by our responsible town and county boards — we have watched as Northwoods residents have recognized and said no to this deconstruction of American and Northwoods culture. They have responded to the call of good government and said no to outside haters.

So let us be thankful this Thanksgiving for all that we have — our informed and vigilant citizenry keeping alive our civic traditions and democracy itself.

In such a way good government serves itself and serves its citizens. At this year’s end, our communities stand united against the intruding poison of outside extremism, and for that we can all be more thankful indeed.