If you have ventured into the Minden Walmart or Brookshire‘s lately, you have undoubtedly seen the petition drive to put an alcohol proposal on the ballot.
To some folks, it may seem as if a group of local people got together and decided to exercise their rights to get something up for a vote. However, according to the Ruston Daily Leader, the same thing is happening in their community, just 40 miles to our east.
In fact, if you look at the signs in their Walmart, you will notice they are duplicates of the signs we see in ours.
According to the story in the Daily Leader, these petitions are being coordinated by a consulting firm out of Texas.
This begs the question, why do outsiders care if Minden or Ruston or any other town has alcohol or not?
Where you stand on the sale of alcohol in our community is not the argument we need to be having as a result of this.
I have a problem with people who do not live here nor work here trying to fashion policy for all of us.
Just as I do not like it when national organizations get involved in local elections smearing candidates, I do not like this petition drive because I feel it is disingenuous.
If the citizens of Minden want to bring alcohol to a vote, then they should organize themselves and create a petition drive. Or, they can petition the city Council and get it put on the ballot. This effort by outsiders to get their way in our community, and the subsequent division it has created along this issue is simply wrong and unwanted.
This effort should be rejected because the messenger has tainted the message. At the end of the day, we should make our own decisions without outsider creating unnecessary conflict in our community.
David Specht Jr. is Editor and publisher of the Minden Press-Herald.