Does anyone else feel like our federal and local governments are run by emotional, adolescent, white cis gender boys? If you have raised a boy or spent years in the classroom with that age, you know they exhibit the following traits: a feeling of indestructability, underdeveloped critical thinking skills, no cause or effect reasoning and a sense that they are always right.

Each day our news feed is full of the cruelty that our current administration has for: children, the undocumented, women, LGBTQIA, health care, the poor, the disabled, education and freedom of speech.

It seems that Dickinson County Board Chairman Dan Harrington is channeling this same cruel philosophy. His outright contempt for the 4-H program defies logic. I have asked him on a number of different occasions, “What do you mean by the 4-H being ‘crazy woke’?” He has refused to define what “woke” is to him or why he feels the 4-H program is “crazy woke.” His refusal to hear Michigan State University Extension District Director Paul Putnam’s appeal to the board is not the behavior of a grown man in a leadership position but of a child who doesn’t like the way things are being played so he is taking his ball and going home.

A reminder to the board that Mr. Harrington is only one vote. I thank the other four board members for doing their job and giving Mr. Putnam the time he deserves. It isn’t about the money; it is about one man throwing a fit because of some obscure reason that he cannot or will not disclose.

Your constituents are watching. Please contact your board commissioner this week and let them know your feelings on saving the 4-H program for the children of Dickinson County. Please attend the next board meeting, which is the second Monday each month at 6 p.m. at the courthouse.