A new section of www.elyminnesota.com offers our community an opportunity and venue for commenting on anything Ely. Events, thoughts, suggestions, complaints, cheers and encouragement are all fair game. Ely governance and it’s oftentimes non-responsiveness to citizen complaints, suggestions, and requests for help is so prevalent that many citizens have just given up and don’t even contact “the authorities.” Others, out of fear of retaliation have also given up and don’t participate.
You may submit your ideas and identify yourself or you may use a pseudonym. Many of you have told us you feel uncomfortable, for one reason or another, presenting ideas directly. Either way is fine but writing under a pseudonym should be done more cautiously and without taking liberties with what you say that you would not say directly. Either way you decide to submit comments and ideas, we would request that you be as respectful as possible and use words and language that you would use with your family…well, when you are not angry. So, if you are really angry, go ahead and write your thoughts, then re-read and edit once or twice before sending. Sometimes the best way to communicate is with questions, and we will keep a list of the questions you ask and check them off as they are answered by the appropriate person or authority. We will ask the question for you, we cannot guarantee an answer. But, what the heck, we’re not getting answers now. Let’s put them “on the board.”
You cannot make a defensive person self-critical! And, just the fact that we are being given this manner of communications will automatically make many in this community defensive. That cannot be helped and a good dose of self-criticality would be a major breath of fresh air for this community, in our opinion.