Letter to the editor

Credit union leader’s views incompatible with his job

I was impressed by Eric Estes’ first column of the year. Estes briefly recounted the history of the Boulder Dam Credit Union and confirmed its mission to provide competitive lending, savings and banking services for its client members. His second column was good, too, more business than that other stuff.

Unfortunately, in his third column, which ran last week, it was Estes as usual, using the resources of the Boulder Dam Credit Union to express his political beliefs. As with promoting the events of his service club, or certain select businesses, these actions are incompatible with Estes’ role as the director of the Boulder Dam Credit Union.

I would add a few things that Estes omitted from his praise of Mayor Roger Tobler, as it was under Tobler’s leadership that the city spent several hundred thousand dollars on attorney fees and court costs to wrongfully persecute eight of our neighbors for exercising their First Amendment right to petition government and sponsor ballot questions. Six of the eight petitioners stayed the course and are suing the city. This whole affair will likely end up costing us well over $1 million.

It was on Tobler’s watch that two city officers were found guilty of ethics violations, and, that for the first time in the city’s history, residents became so frustrated and disgusted with our small-town politics that no one ran for either of the two City Council seats that came open in 2013.

History, once written, is not easily altered. Tobler has earned the infamy that will be associated with his name. Bill Ferrence was the director of the Boulder Dam Credit Union for 30 years, yet you do not hear much about him today.

I do not think it will be too long after Eric Estes has moved on that people will ask: “Eric who?”

Dick Farmer