The Benton County Republicans for the 15th Legislative District have written an open letter to the people of Benton County about the county commissioners and their saying that they have no authority to resist the governor’s stay at home orders. The letter reads, in part:
…Shon Small, Jerome Delvin, and James Beaver made the statement “The Benton County Board of Commissions does not have the legal authority to override the Governor’s ‘Stay Home, Stay Healthy’ proclamation…” The Commissioners’ job is to oversee the county and also, we firmly assert, to protect the citizens from overreach of power by the capital. All three of our Commissioners are either willfully ignorant or just negligent in their role…
It is time to get business’s open and the people back to work. We firmly believe that every
person in Benton County is essential. We know there are veritable public health concerns and
those who ought to stay home, can chose to do so. The working people of Benton County
know what is best for them, not the Governor’s boot-licking Commissioners, whose income
rolls in whether they work or not. It’s time the Commissioners earn their paycheck and protect
the good and hard working people of Benton County from the bureaucratic double speak of
Olympia. The woes of King and Pierce County are not the identical worries of Benton
County; we are a different demographic, climate, economy, and culture. The citizens of this
community possess an undeniable right to make decisions autonomously from our State
government; to tailor our county government to serve the people of this area as is fitting to the
citizenry of this particular locality. Top down, authoritarian mandates from the capital are ‘one
size, fits the capital alone’ decisions – they are made without a thought of us here! We are
calling on the Commissioners to do what is prudent for Benton County; they are elected to a
very well compensated position, as a public servant, and ought to conduct themselves
accordingly…
Lower Valley Assembly 