I wrote the below letter to the Editor of the Comstock Chronicle about Karen Woodmansee’s use of an inaccurate quote made by Sam Toll at a recent Commission meeting. She used this inaccurate quote to kick off her article about the treatment of women and splashed Sam Toll with the implication that he was a misogynist. The below is my submitted and as yet published letter and below that Sam Toll’s response in The Storey Teller.

Letter to to the Editor:

I’d like to correct an error you made in this weeks excellent editorial about the treatment of women.

At the onset of the article and as it’s example you ( mis) use Sam Toll’s comments at the last commission meeting. You also got the context of the quote completely wrong. Both of these mistakes paint Sam Toll in a misogynistic light which is inaccurate and which he does not deserve.

The quote you use is inaccurate. I know this because I was there and you were not. The audio which I’m sure you listen to might have been too low for you to catch what he actually said.

What Sam ACTUALLY said was:

If I sat where you sit I would also shred up Mr. Nevin’s contract, Mr. Hames Contract and I would fire Mr. Whitten. We’ve got people in this country who are losing their careers for pinching people’s fannies, we fired Jason Van Havel for a similar indiscretion and yet our pockets have just been picked to the tune of $215 grand. In my mind that’s criminal.”

As you can see, he said this within the context of objecting to the lack of appetite on the part of our commissioners to enact disciplinary action against Pat Whitten for misappropriating over $215,000 of county funds for bonus payments to three of the highest paid county employees. Whitten did this without approval. This fact, a serious accounting issue, is noted as part of the independent county audit performed by a third party.

Sam merely stated that people are being fired for inappropriate behavior and questioned why the commissioners aren’t acting on what can be construed as theft.

Karen, you’re a good writer and I know you like to get it right…..so please make this right and publish a correction.

Read Sam Toll’s response in The Storey Teller here….. click on the picture

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