A recent Reader Opinion letter appeared in this newspaper accusing the state Legislature, and Representative Heintzeman along the way, of misappropriating Legacy Amendment dollars. I wondered why this wasn't all over the news, since Legacy Amendment dollars are constitutionally required to go to Legacy-appropriate uses. Something didn't seem right, so I did some research. It turns out, this accusation simply isn't true.
After a little looking, I found out that the $22 million dollars in question wasn't "transferred to the general fund." That would be extremely unconstitutional. In reality, the funds were actually allocated to local soil and water conservation districts to ensure the health of our bodies of water. If that doesn't fit with the Legacy Fund's mission to support clean water, I don't know what does.
Other than simply trying to confuse the public with fake news, it's hard to know what the letter writer's goal could possibly be. What's alarming to me is that this sort of misinformation is so blatant that it looks like a deliberate deception. Maybe the moral of the story is that if something sounds so too outrageous to be true, it probably isn't. Now, more than ever, the truth matters in politics. If we can't even agree on what the truth is, how can we have a rational discussion? Inflammatory accusations, like these about Legacy Fund misuse, will get us nowhere fast.
Gordy Hardy
Merrifield
