A Final Word or Two (or More)

The final post for the August 16, 2018 Mantua Township Trustees meeting is also the final regular post for Virtual Torch.  

When I retired in 2000 and came back home to Mantua Township, my intention was to build a house, have a dog and flower gardens, and make quilts that I designed myself.  My brother Dave began telling me about things that were being done to the trustees in meetings by a woman who had also enlisted the "help"--for herself, not the trustees--of a non-resident whom she described as having "a wealth of information."  It looked to me as if he had a wealth of damage he wanted to do the trustees and Marie Stehli.

I began going to meetings and was outraged at the cynical way the trustees and fiscal officer were being abused.  Dave and I had at both of the abusers, and finally managed to turn the tables on the man.  The trustees also adopted language permitting only residents to speak during public comment.  The man stopped coming to meetings.

At the time, a really nasty website--on the order of "Sound Off!" in the Record Courier only nastier--had been developed, with a title that led unsuspecting people to think it was the township's official website.

The whole thing made me sick to my stomach for two reasons:  First, what was being promulgated was ugly, ugly, ugly--and frequently to usually completely untrue. Second, it needed to be countered, but I had neither the money nor the skill to create an opposition website.  Then a friend told me about blogs and coached me in setting up Virtual Torch.  

The  first post was dated February 20, 2011.  I vowed to pull no punches, but not to sink to the petty middle school bullying that was going on in meetings and on the "rogue website."  That was an apt name for a screed completely without adult supervision and bankrupt of anything remotely resembling truth or ethics.

In the  time since the blog began, I have been lied about; stalked or at least followed, with my whereabouts posted location by location; threatened with legal action (an empty threat); and sued for "defamation of character"--a suit that came to nothing because there was nothing in it.

During the same time, Dave was baited and threatened and also lied about in completely obscene terms.  A friend was the target of an obscene cartoon, and Vic was portrayed in another in a completely false way.

Those are just the big things.  Every meeting was another assault on decency and the truth by what I charitably called "the peanut gallery."  Privately, I considered them jackals.

It's easy for people who weren't there to adopt the fiction of taking the moral high ground and not "stooping" or "getting involved."

But this is what Colin Powell, retired general and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had to say:

"No good idea succeeds simply because it is a good idea.  Good ideas must have champions--people willing to believe in them, push for them, fight for them, gain adherents and other champions, and press until they succeed.  I follow up with a related truth:  Bad ideas don't die simply because they are intrinsically bad.  You need people who will stand up and fight them, put themselves at risk, point out the weaknesses, and drive stakes through their hearts."  (Colin Powell, It Worked for Me)

During the time of the blog, I have most obviously been fighting against a bunch of bad ideas, which never go away but have for the time being diminished.

At  the same time, members of The Mantua Restoration Society, Inc., of which I was an officer in one position or another since we renewed its charter, have worked their hearts out, with the community's support, for the sake of a good idea.  We seem to have succeeded:  not only is the Mantua Center School building still standing, but it also now has an elevator (which will eventually be operational) and a gleaming refurbished bell tower.  And at the last meeting the trustees signed a two-year agreement to develop a community center at the school building.

Accomplishing that took both prongs:  fighting against and working for.

Hang in there--this is almost done.

In 2016, a person described by a now disbarred (or at least no longer licensed) lawyer as a man "of impeccable character" sued me for defamation of that character.  In the blog post dated September 6, 2016, titled "Careful What You Ask For," I said that before the lawsuit I had intended to close the blog at the end of 2016.  Now, however, I intended to maintain it as long as I flaming well pleased.

I am now flaming well pleased.

With the meetings now being videotaped, you have living color, moving pictures, and tone of voice--much more revealing than mere words in a blog post.  It's on the township website, mantuatownshipohio.gov.

There may be an occasional FYI type of post, but nothing regular and nothing lengthy.  A "New Post" message will still go out.  Until then, thank you for reading, and thank you more than you can know for the occasional e-mail saying, in one way or another, "Thank you."    The gratitude is mine to all of you.