Nov 10, 2014 3 min read

School Board Director William Merrell appears to be seeking the spotlight once again by belittling our fine community of Peters Township in his letter in the Nov. 5 issue, “The Destruction of America.”

Last year, Mr. Merrell garnered the spotlight by contributing to the humiliating press, television and Internet coverage about “twerking” at our school dances. Other school districts also have dealt with the issue of inappropriate dancing; they have just done so quietly by working with parents and school administrators.

This time, Mr. Merrell has gone to the local press with our community’s patriotic teen problem. Those teens asked to hang banners and flags on the Arrowhead Trail bridge, lauding our veterans and troops on Veterans Day. Last year, the banners and flags hung, and veterans proudly supported the display, posing as an honor guard at one site.

This year, the teens were told they needed to seek council approval for their display because of “a lighting complaint.” At no time did Mr. Merrell approach the teens or their parents to help on the display or to offer common-sense solutions to his perceived problem of lighting. Instead, he chose verbal bullying of our local council members who voted to support the project, by allowing one of two banners to hang on a trail bridge. Thankfully, the teens requesting council support were not in the audience that night; some of them were volunteering elsewhere in the community, radicals that they are.

I won’t get into a long, drawn-out legal debate with Mr. Merrell on flag illumination; suffice it to say the code and common practice basically requires that the stars and stripes can be seen readily at night from a reasonable distance, and that ambient lighting and encompassing light from other sources is allowed.

As a champion of civics studies, I am sure Mr. Merrell will be proud to know of the education the teens received as they worked to get the second patriotic sign displayed in the township, the one not displayed on the VFW side of the trail bridge, as they requested. The Volunteer Fire Department, they suggested. As the adults in this situation ran for political cover, the teens were asked to “put the display at the VFW or another non-township-owned location, if possible.” Local businesses on Washington Road wanted to hang the banner and flags, but were worried about township zoning ordinances. Yes, I am referring to a sign that reads: “PT Students: Thank You Veterans and Troops.”

Perhaps most disturbingly, the patriotic teens scuttled plans for additional Veterans Day displays because of the political flap. A local printer asked to work on the project lost his potential profit, businesses lost the opportunity to support our teens and our residents lost the opportunity to show our veterans their support.

Yes, sometimes ideological battles have unintended consequences.

I would like to remind Mr. Merrell that our nation was created by “can do” patriots who solved problems with compassion, compromise and common sense, traits I found lacking in his attack on our town council.

While I respect Mr. Merrell’s passion for politics and applaud his military service, I question his tactics. When he chose to politicize a two-week patriotic display by publicly waging war on our township leaders, his “unintended” casualties were our veterans and a group of “now disillusioned” teens.

Martin Fritz

McMurray