Marti Rutherford: County Mayor Coppinger Should Be Applauded For His Courage - And Response (2)

  • Wednesday, July 8, 2020

We vote for people for lots of reasons; some reasons are sound and some are rather silly.  But when we elect a person, we hope that person will do a good job and will provide security and economic growth for our community.

We have been fortunate to have elected such a person in County Mayor Jim Coppinger; therefore, with his leadership, he has had to make hard decisions. Some of his decisions, such as wearing a face mask, have been difficult and not well received  by many of his own supporters. 

This does not make his decisions wrong; it does makes Mayor Coppinger a leader.  Mayor Coppinger has put himself and his happiness in second place behind the welfare of Hamilton County. 

Instead of being angry and unhappy with Mayor Coppinger, we should be applauding his courage and praying for the health of our citizens.

Marti Rutherford

* * *

Marti, on your opinion of how we should applaud County Mayor Jim Coppinger for his courage, some of your choice of words make some of us wonder if they are correct.

Leadership - Some lead by example not politics.
Hard Decisions - What is hard about helping save lives?
His Happiness - He should be happy to save lives.
His Courage - Why did he not sign the mask mandate himself instead of having Dr. Paul Hendricks do it?

There are only two words that describe the chaos the United States is in today:
 
Democrats
Republicans
 
Jerry McClendon
Soddy Daisy

* * *

Leadership? Difficult decisions? His happiness? Courage?

Boo-hah!

Leadership - What has Mayor Coppinger, or any elected/appointed official for that matter from the lowliest to the hoity-toitiest, President Trump already donates his, had to sacrifice while TaxPaying Joe and Jane Schmuckatelli on the street have lost income, jobs, careers, retirement benefits, businesses, and sometimes everything they've ever worked to earn in their lives?

Difficult Decisions - It's easy to say "Shut 'er down, mask up." when we have nothing to lose personally... because we've already retired once, have a second retirement staring us in the face due to term limits, and have a nice benefit package paid for by those very same TaxPayers mentioned previously.

His Happiness - Aw, porbrecito... to borrow an expression from our neighbors way down south of New Orleans. Perhaps government officials in general should give us, citizens, We the Peeps, credit for having half a brain and enough sense to tend to our own health and safety. If we're ill, we need to stay home. The rest of us don't need to be punished and lives destroyed due to the fears of a few.

His Courage - As with those difficult decisions, it's easy to say "Shut 'er down, mask up." when we have nothing to lose personally.

A friend in Japan from decades ago had an expression she used for such as these... "tuh-key cr-r-runchy". Try as I might to teach her otherwise, she just never could pronounce "horse hockey" properly.

Full disclosure statement: this schmaltz with CoVD-19 (I know it's CoVID, but VD is VD no matter which way we spell it) has had a negative affect on my business but not significantly. When we study Hermitology, with threats to hoist a Jolly Roger at the entrance to the property, we don't need to worry too much about biosecurity. Some friends and other acquaintances haven't been so fortunate.

Royce Burrage, Jr.

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