There's Something About Mary...

I don't suppose any of you saw that movie. Did ya? It was a hoot.

Well, this ISN'T about "Mary", but I see you are bound and determined to make it so. Okay. I can deal with it.

"Mary" is extremely lucky to have supporters like you. You are all very loyal to her, and loyalty is an admirable quality - in most cases. Perhaps she can learn a thing or two from you - about loyalty.

I don't know about "Mary's" professional life, nor do I care. It's none of my business. She might be the world's greatest counselor, for all I know. That's not important to me. That's NONE OF MY BUSINESS.

What matters to me is that after all my years in the community, and after all the time I spent listening to her personal problems (like a friend would), when I needed all the LOYALTY I could get, "Mary" betrayed me. Maybe "Mary" was used... (City Hall was strategically stacked with Nexus "ringers" that day), but if that were so, it was still her choice to stand up before the city council and support the relocation of Mille Lacs Academy to my neighborhood. And in doing so, she may have been loyal to her employer, but she was very disloyal to me. If it had been anyone BUT "Mary", it might not have hurt me so badly. Again, she wasn't a stranger, but someone I'd known and trusted for a long time.

She could have been loyal to both, had she simply considered my neighborhood's wishes about not wanting the MLA here, and suggested that it be built, certainly, but on a different location. She could have. She didn't.

Naturally, I support her right to her opinion, as well as her right to free speech. I can also understand her loyalty to her job. However, personally I was disappointed in "Mary". She chose to mind MY business; had drawn conclusions about my life and imposed them on me - disgarding my life, taking away my right of self-determination, (a thing we should all hold dear). And she did it for the betterment of her own life - and she was zealous in her cause.

In our Petition, we gathered signatures from people who opposed the relocation of MLA to the Grosslein/Bye property. These people would be directly affected by the Nexus deal. "Mary", who had NO stake in the 38 acre location, gathered signatures (for the mayor's counter-petition) from her friends and relatives, including those living in southern Minnesota. She actively pursued the placement of the facility out of her own neighborhood - and into mine, despite knowing of my opposition.

Of course, when the facility moves from it's current location, property values in the Crosier neighborhood will go UP, while ours, if it's located here, of course will go down.

I realize that nobody reading this will "get it." At least you haven't so far. No matter what I say, you will twist it, attack me, make your accusations against me; accusations which keep getting bizarrer and bizarrer... Obviously, none of you know me. And is it true that someone is actually threatening to kill me, or suggesting that I should be killed because I don't want to live next to a juvenile sex offender facility? Wow. What a country.

Nope. I won't apologize to "Mary". She could have stood up for her own beliefs without imposing them upon us and without making judgements about our lives.

Just like you could, if you'd abandon your lynch-mob mentality and realize that in this conflict we have here, THERE IS NOTHING ABOUT MARY.

"Histories are more full of examples of the fidelity of dogs than of friends."

Alexander Pope (1688-1744)