As a former Fayette County reporter for The Citizen and as a former county resident, it's tremendously heartening news to hear that Harold Bost is the new commission chairman by the election of his peers.

It puts a New Year's, eve-of-a-new millennium smile on my face because I have witnessed Bost work with fairness and dedication to enlist the understanding and actions of others on important issues. His own actions meant he was forced to work against the grain of the majority of the commission, three members, on several occasions.

That was hard for a newly elected commissioner with no political experience to become such a quick study on the complicated, sometimes underhanded, way things worked.

In trying times for the commission, such as during the ethics ordinance controversy, Bost actively sought as many sources as possible on both sides of the issue to give him perspective and inform the public. His attempts to bring balance set him up for persecution by the majority of his fellow commissioners, but changed the commission for the better.

The leadership he exemplified his first year on the commission separates conscientious public representatives from crony politicians of whom Fayette has had too much.

Lana Middleton
Chattanooga, Tenn.