Mitchell should be removed from office

Phil Mitchell needs to be removed from office. If he were an honorable man (I have seen no evidence of that) he would resign, write a check to the county for $30,000, and quietly return to retirement. He is a disgrace to the county Board of Commissioners, to the Republican Party and to the law-abiding residents of this community.

I thought that the racist comments he directed toward the Confederated Salish & Kootenai tribes during the water-compact discussion should have cost him his job. Now, he has admitted to destroying $30,000 worth of PUBLIC property — the very same public property which he took an oath to protect. Sadly, he has a history of destroying trees in this same park. The Whitefish Pilot reported some time ago that he was caught cutting down large conifers in the park, and later he was caught building a landscaped “island” at the intersection of his driveway and the entrance to the park. The island was in the county’s right-of-way and it appeared that his intent was to hide the entrance to the park, or to make it difficult for people to enter the park. He was later forced to remove the island.

This is not his personal park and those were not his trees — they belonged to every one of us. And he owes every one of us not a canned apology (which was offered only after being caught and charged with a felony), but a letter of resignation. Immediately.

A recent Inter Lake editorial characterized the destruction of $30,000 worth of public property as a “mistake” by Mitchell. No, a mistake is adding 2 and 2 and getting 5. A mistake is turning on West Edgewood Drive when you’re looking for East Edgewood Drive. What Mitchell did was a deliberate, arrogant, malicious act that the law considers a felony. This from a clown who touted his integrity while campaigning for the office that he has now disgraced. Time to go, Phil.

Brian Wood, Whitefish