Last week we ran on these pages an editorial that encouraged voters not to just vote for a candidate because they had a “D” or a “R” behind their name or to vote for a candidate because of the color of their skin.

A person who we respect challenged us on our intentions in that those intentions might have been to address this article to our African American readers.

There is nothing that is further from the truth. If we do an editorial it is meant to address an issue that might affect all of our readers.

If we wished to direct our comments to any particular members of our community we will do so. And we have. When we offer a comment on our editorial pages it is strictly our opinion we do not expect you to always agree. We write editorials and offer our opinions in order to hopefully generate thought by our readers.

If you agree with our thoughts, that’s great and occasionally we hear comments that you do. If you disagree that’s also great, and for sure we hear comments about that too.

Our opinions contrary to some of our local politician’s thoughts are not personal, if you agree with our opinion or disagree; you are always welcome to share your own opinion either in person or by letter.

We have always been willing to listen to different opinions and occasionally those different opinions have inspired us to change our own.

We are human here at your community newspaper. We make judgement mistakes from time to time just as you might.
To have a strong community it is essential that there be a strong community newspaper, neither is going to exist without the other.

Open honest discussion is important to have in order to ensure we have a free society.

We encourage you to share your opinions; we also encourage you to constantly be aggressive in preserving your rights guaranteed by our Constitution and Bill of Rights

Our goal is to be here to help you do just that.

If you agree or disagree with anything that appears on our opinion page feel free to write or call our publisher T. Pat Cavanaugh at pcavanaugh@covnews.com or 770-787-6397.

Our only request is that you make your comments constructive not destructive.