Letter to the Editor

Hello, my name is Jim Rowe and I am a lifelong citizen of Arkansas County.

Our judge, quorum court members and sheriff are all elected members of our community, who we entrust to represent us in the various matters that occur in our county.

A few months ago, we started to hear about this crypto mine and a lot of questions and concerns started to circulate. Since then, there have been a number of meetings held and there has not been much participation by our elected officials. I wonder why.

A few weeks ago, we learned that the county had been named in a lawsuit for discrimination against the crypto mine. Well now the county officials are trying to decide whether to countersue or roll over and give up.

I don’t think we want to give up! So now we are going to find out who our elected officials really support.

We are not the ones who broke the law, the crypto miners are. They have not complied with anything yet. So why would we not countersue?

The entire state is watching to see how we handle this. Let’s not disappoint them. At some point you have to say enough is enough. We can’t sit back and wait for ADEQ or anyone else to take care of this for us. If we are not willing to fight for ourselves, would they want to fight for us? If a bully starts pushing you around and you just stand by and do whatever they tell you to, there is no end to what they will make you do.

It’s time our officials fight for us and understand that we will back them up. If they support us, they are going to ask where the money is going to come from to fight this in court.

We, as working citizens, are taxed for everything we buy or acquire many times over and over. Yet we have no say in what that money gets used for. I feel like some of it needs to be used to fight for what we want in this crypto case.

I think it’s high time that we give our officials the chance to do their jobs and if they don’t, they should resign.

I’d like to close with this quote from the Bible. “For what does it profit a man, to gain the whole world and lose his own soul”.

Thank you and have a good day.

Jim Rowe