It is our belief that a good community newspaper should present a strong opinion page.

 That page should contain a diversity of thought in the form of our own opinion pieces, letters to the editor, cartoons and columns from outside our community.

 We try our best to praise, take to task or to offer suggestions in our own pieces in every issue. Our purpose in doing so is for you, the reader, to think about a community, state or national issue and make your own enlightened opinion or to become involved.

 Occasionally, we receive e-mails and phone calls about an issue upon which we have taken an editorial stance. Some comments are funny — some are downright mean, but most are very insightful.

 We encourage those that contact us this way to make comments that we can attribute to them. Some people don’t want to sign a letter or e-mail because they feel there might repercussions for them because of their honest thoughts. How sad.

 Our editorial board forms strong opinions about how our community and country are run; we have praised and disagreed strongly with some of our elected officials.

 On the national political scene you can be assured that our community is well represented by people who espouse thoughts that cross political spectrum.

 We love to print those thoughts, as you can see by the number of letters we’ve printed on the next page; it’s useful to have a healthy debate in a public forum.

 We believe the community would love to see your thoughts on a variety of local, national and global issues. We all have the right to free speech, so send us your letters and guest columns.