Dear Editor:

I am writing in regards to your article concerning the “County GOP leaders resign.” It appeared to me that the resigning leader’s actions were a premeditated and staged event.

Although it was not mentioned at the meeting, they had distributed a “Partial Transcript of the Park County Republican Party Executive Committee Meeting that was held April 16, 2019” to all members prior to the start of the Monday meeting. (This is the first time during my seven years of serving that I have ever seen this happen!) In this transcript it appears that two precinct members that are not members of the Executive Committee decided to attend and Chairman Martin Kimmet advised them that the meeting was open. While the bylaws don’t address this situation, at the regular meetings, visitors are welcome but are not allowed to speak or vote. To me this seems to cast a huge shadow of doubt on the claim of the chairman behaving like a dictator! I would also point out that anyone who knows Martin Kimmet would be hard pressed to view him as a dictator.

The item that seemed to be the most troublesome was the appointment of Vince Vanata to the position of secretary and the supposed failure of ratification. I was on the committee that prepared the draft revision of the bylaws that were adopted by the main body. I find it quite ironic that some of the people that were most vocal in support of the motion to interpret the requirement of ratification were also on this committee and were very upset at anything that was proposed to limit the chairman’s power or authority at that time. We know that liberals are most concerned about “intent” and since these people are the more liberal members of the group, I cannot understand why they don’t accept the intent of the vagueness of the bylaws.

I was one of the vote counters and I would say that the distribution of members voting proxy votes was fairly even between those in support of the motion and those opposed.

Sincerely,

Jacob Dillinger

Powell