Mayor hopeful questions leadership

To the Editor:

The institutions in our country have gradually fallen apart, slowly, then rapidly these last three years. You can see it when you call a bank. The business model has fallen apart. 20-year-olds who are beginning management careers for banks don’t introduce themselves. They don’t seem to be trained. They don’t know who they are let alone where to send you “in the system” to be helped. It’s also become the case in Van Wert city government.

Since 2020 people from Van Wert have called me in Tucson, emailed me in New York City when I was directing my musical, taken me aside at social events when I return to Van Wert. They say in rotation, “Come back to Van Wert, it’s all falling apart.” Others say, “Your dad is turning in his grave. Linda, you have to do something.”

I do look at the city council meetings these days. In the 1980s when I was elected chair of the Cable TV Commission for Van Wert and I went door-to- door telling people what was coming. Ironically, then, video standards and results were higher than now. How can that be?

Communication was supposed to get better over the years as technology advanced. But as far as communication from the City of Van Wert City Council Chambers: in technology, substance and leadership, when I watched the meeting of June 12, 2023, I simply could not believe what I saw! How far have we fallen, people?

Not the mayor, not the president of council stood in defense of its own elected member of city council who was treated with such disrespect, that yes, the unfolding event would make “any former mayor turn in his grave.” Doesn’t our own city leadership “know who they are?” Doesn’t today’s mayor know who he is? Doesn’t president of council know his role?

My experience on the Pima County Redistricting Committee to reset the boundaries for the new legislative districts in Arizona was probably my best teacher. You had to go in there with full confidence knowing your role, knowing how you could make change, and at the same time gain the respect from your colleagues. I trained leaders under me on how to affectively give testimony in front of hundreds of people. They were prepared for success.

The very morning I took out candidate papers from the Van Wert election board to run for mayor of Van Wert, ironically, I saw the June 12 city council video that night.

I will restore confidence with voters. Council Chambers will belong to you again. I’m known as ‘“door to door” Linda in Tucson, having personally walked and talked to over 3,300 people resulting in winning the Republican primary, August 2, 2022, for State House of Representatives LD 18 in Arizona.

I will communicate, respectfully, with you all today in Van Wert as I did years ago going door-to-door in all wards asking your thoughts, your ideas as I did back then for the Van Wert Cable TV Commission. We need to incorporate success into the fabric of Van Wert, as we go forward to 2026; 250 years after the founding of our great United States of America in 1776. TOGETHER in ALL WARDS: 1st Ward, 2nd Ward, 3rd and 4th Wards. We can do it.

I love this city. It’s my hometown.

Linda Agler Evans
Candidate for Mayor, City of Van Wert