Dear President Obama:
We are going through a rough patch here in Rowan County, N.C., and some of us wondered if you would consider intervening in a dispute among local elected officials that is getting a bit out of hand.
We realize you have bigger issues on the table than small-town politics. However, in the past you played host to a “beer summit” to promote reconciliation after a famous Harvard professor was arrested for attempting to enter his own house. This situation has nothing to do with race relations or breaking and entering. It involves real estate, geography and holes in the ground.
To cut to the chase, relations between our county commission, city council and school board have grown testier than a pack of rutting wolverines — and that may be insulting the wolverines. Basically, the city council wants to put a school office downtown, but the county commission balked, claiming it was worried about holes in the ground. Then the commission decided it wanted to buy a failing mall, but the city manager tweeted that it has holes in the ground, too, so nyah, nyah, nyah. Things got so bad recently that a county commissioner told the city manager he could take his concerns about the mall and stick them where the sun doesn’t shine — which, in Rowan County lingo, isn’t a reference to a leather briefcase.
This raises some questions. If the city manager had complied with the commissioner’s “stick it” recommendation and suffered injury as a result, how would that be handled under the Affordable Care Act? Given the antecedent hostilities between these groups, would it be covered as a “pre-existing condition” or an “occupational hazard”?
Also, exactly what is the diplomatic protocol when a commissioner invites someone to stick something where the sun doesn’t shine? Should this be submitted for a countywide referendum? Is it proper to make such a request without a quorum present, or should it be moved to the county’s consent agenda? Not to jump to the conclusion, mind you, that the city manager is consenting to anything.
As a Washington politician, you’re of course no stranger to elected officials engaging in a bit of salty dialogue. During the Gulf oil spill a few years back, you told a TV reporter you were looking for “whose ass to kick.” Folks getting insurance cancellation notices are asking the same thing.
Who can forget Vice President Joe Biden’s congratulatory comment that the signing of the Affordable Care Act was a “big (effing) deal.”
Or Vice President Dick Cheney telling a U.S. senator that he could “go (eff) himself.”
Or then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush telling Cheney that a certain New York Times reporter was a “major league a–hole.”
It’s not that we’re a bunch of prudes down here. We understand that boys will be boys, and sometimes it’s great fun to use vulgarities and contemplate creative uses for bodily orifices. But this is North Carolina, after all, which has always taken pride in its civility and governmental sanity, especially compared to its hotheaded neighboring state to the south. Our motto, you may recall, is “Esse Quam Videri” — which, if I remember my Latin, does not translate as “stick it where the sun don’t shine.”
Whatever their failings, we do expect at least a modicum of good manners from our duly elected officials, especially the family-values oriented attendees of a Republican breakfast. Blunt talk is all well and good, but a verbal flogging doesn’t go well with eggs and sausage.
Please let us know whether you can work this beer summit into your schedule. If so, we’ll be happy to ship the relevant parties up to Washington. Lord knows, it would be reason for celebration just to get them out of town for a few days.
If you just can’t work the summit into your busy schedule, we understand. Riding herd on tech support can be a handful. Perhaps, however, you could at least see your way clear to send us a few cases of Scotch, if you have any to spare. Folks here are desperate for some relief any way we can get it.
Respectfully yours,

Chris Verner is editorial page editor of the Salisbury Post.