Victor's recall reflects a culture of suspicion, not governance

Editor's Note: Mike Geraci has previously been contracted by the City of Victor as a communications strategist and has no affiliation with The Valley Signal.

One of the greatest strengths of American democracy is the ability of citizens to organize around issues they care about. Victor "watchdogs" Collective PAC is evidence that grassroots organizing remains alive and well as America marks its Semiquincentennial.

But the Founders didn't just create a system that empowered citizens to organize. They intended a republic that depended on citizens exercising that power through reasoned deliberation, evidence, civic virtue, and the ability to disagree without assuming the worst of one another.

In PAC founder Carol Nowakowski's recent opinion announcing her PAC she frames the recall of Mayor Frohlich as, "... never personal. It was always about culture." On that point, we agree. But she has identified the wrong culture.

Carol says the recall was about a culture of governance. I believe it reflects something equally concerning: a culture of suspicion and cynicism.

The challenge with Carol's case, and the broader case made for the Mayor's recall, is that it consistently, and with conviction, selects the evidence that reinforces conclusions already reached while discounting evidence that points in another direction.

Throughout her opinion, nearly every disagreement is attributed to hidden, vague, and ulterior motives. Unnamed developers' interests. Plans "designed to fail." Behind-the-scenes players. A "growth-at-any-costs agenda." Lawsuits described as weapons.

Engineering reports that challenge the preferred narrative are dismissed. Legal advice is discredited because of nepotism accusations. DEQ guidance is questioned as flawed. Financial analyses are treated as suspect. Consultants become compromised or conflicted the moment their conclusions diverge.

As well, the opinion presents a cascade of broad allegations and insinuations that invite readers to infer a grand conspiracy involving a laundry list of Victor's elected officials, staff, consultants, engineers, and legal counsel.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Suspicion, however sincerely held, is not evidence. Volume, in both senses of the word, does not replace veracity.

To elevate select words and a single sentence from the Mayor's two-page resignation letter into proof of seven years of failed governance illustrates the larger pattern, in which isolated facts are elevated while the broader context is discarded.

Productive civic discourse weighs competing evidence. It requires not just healthy skepticism, but also a level of epistemic humility: the recognition that none of us possesses all the facts, and the willingness to acknowledge uncertainty and revise our views and convictions when new, factual information emerges. Without that humility, healthy skepticism hardens into confirmation bias.

The issue we are now seeing is that this culture of suspicion doesn't remain confined to opinion pages, Facebook groups, or media platforms. It creates a permission structure that finds its way into council chambers and public meetings. Questions are now accusations. The debate tilts towards character assassination. Public comment is treated as open season, and participation shifts from solving problems to threats and assigning motives.

Suspicion is a poor operating system for self-government. A democracy cannot function as envisioned 250+ years ago if every disagreement is presumed to be evidence of corruption, every closed executive session conversation is viewed as betrayal, and every inconvenient fact is dismissed as part of a closed-door conspiracy.

The greatest casualty of a culture of suspicion isn't trust in government. It's trust in one another. And neighbors, once lost, are not easily found again.