By Shari Johnson
As Publisher of the Ridgeview News I have made it a policy since I hung my cyber sign in 2022 not to remove information from the Ridgeview News site because of pressure or requests from those involved. Twice I have made an exception to that rule, once was because of a domestic victim, and yesterday at the request of emergency service staff because the people in that article must continue to work together and protect the people of this county and each other.
That being said, I laid awake for several hours last night pondering my decision. In fear that people would assume it was because of false information. It was not false information, it was conflicting information between agencies and I did not do my due diligence to insure that the facts were relayed in clarity.
I’m not going to go over the story again, if you missed it, ask someone who didn’t. But I am going to tell you how something like that happened and why I know.
For greater than 30 years my husband was involved in Emergency Services. He served first as an ambulance driver, then EMT, Fire service, Dive team, and in his closing roll as Chief of the Grantsville Volunteer Fire Department. We are seasoned emergency service family. I was at home to pick up the pieces of a broken heart when emergency scenes went bad as they sometimes do. But what people on the outside of emergency services don’t see is that, just as there are in almost every organization, emergency services has people with superhero syndrome. People who forget their purpose is to serve this community. If you become an emergency service member for any other reason you’re in the wrong business. For the record, 90% of the people in emergency services are there for the right reasons. Very few people are willing to spend thousands of dollars from their own family budgets to be called out of bed to rescue someone without having a good heart.
But then there are those in paid positions and county politicians who stick their nose in where it doesn’t belong and create havoc at the expense of volunteers. And a few volunteers who feel they are above the law and unaccountable because they’re not paid.
If a member of emergency services or an elected official believe that they are not accountable to the people they serve they’re wrong. If those people have private meetings where they conspire to disregard the safety and liability of the offices they hold then they don’t need to hold those positions.
In this editorial I am making a wide swath statement to whomever it hits. This county has grown weary of self serving public servants.
I realize that an article without names isn’t fun for anyone to read. But I want the community and the government to know, that we are watching. And that Ridgeview News woke up this morning with a greater commitment to gaining back the trust (that I don’t take lightly) and I feel I lost yesterday when I removed the 911 story.
I will never regret helping people and preventing ill will in the community. But my suggestion to all parties that were involved in this fiasco is that a team building exercise take place where every emergency service agency is brought together for the purpose of restoring professional relationships and maybe even friendships. The people of this county rely on you.
