When next The Pilot elects to bestow one of its kudos on an elected official, it might place a laurel on the head of Mayor Pro Tem George Hillier of Pinehurst who alone refused to vote to continue in place a badly flawed Municipal Service District.

Thanks to the Mayor and Council's vote to keep the MSD alive, 22 retired and mostly elderly fellow citizens will be forced to pay to the village $261,000 for excessive repairs to a dam, which was defective when acquired by the municipality and negligently maintained.

The village is passing along dam reconstruction costs to these good and innocent citizens, who had opposed the MSD from its outset. They realized both dams were suspect (and not properly inspected before accepted from ClubCorp), and the municipality should pay each of these abused citizens about $11,000 for "mental pain and suffering" for having had to endure dealing with a mayor who rudely dismissed them, and a council that insisted on its pound of flesh throughout the negotiations.

A much fairer solution would have been to recognize the proponderence of right on the side of the "ponders" and put an end to what can only be deemed a seriously flawed process. It would have cost the average taxpayer about the price of a good ale at Dugan's Pub to have had the village pay for its past incompetence and serious errors in judgment.

Now the village will get its blood money. In return, the "ponders" will receive unending responsibility for an already leaking dam. The way this was handled demonstrates clearly why Pinehurst needs a significant change in its governing body.

Paul R. Dunn

Pinehurst