To the editor:

The way the Douglas County Commissioners are handling the jail expansion question reminds me of the way President Trump is handing the wall with Mexico. “We’re going to build a beautiful wall and they are going to pay for it,” he says. Our commissioners say, “We are going to build a beautiful jail and all of the people who wanted more mental health services are going to pay for it.” What the commissioners are doing is dishonest and deceptive at best and bordering on blackmail and extortion at worst. To say that the only way we can get a mental health care facility is by voting for a jail we don’t need nor want and then to double down and say, “We will build it either way. But if you don’t vote for it, we will cut funding to key social services and raise property taxes,” tells the voters these elected officials never cared for mental health care services in Douglas County in the first place; they are merely using the worthy cause to get what they want. I’m afraid treating the voters this way, belittling our intelligence and gaslighting us, leaves us with one option only: Vote all of them out of office. We will defeat your dishonest ballot question, and then we will vote you out.