Editor, Gazette-Journal:

If what I read in the press and see on TV is true, the City of Portsmouth is in trouble, big trouble. Its government has simply come apart. All because the Chief of Police filed charges against a number of individuals who were alleged to have desecrated a memorial to Confederate war dead which was on the National Register of Historic Places.

Because of her action, the Chief of Police was “furloughed” by the city manager who later resigned, the city attorney has been fired and the vice mayor and a state senator have been charged with a felony. The vice-mayor has also been charged with violating the city charter by advocating the ouster of the police chief. Two more members of the city council were also accused of violating the charter by advocating that the laws be enforced! What a mess! The people of Portsmouth deserve better.

It seems rather obvious that some public officials, at a minimum, violated their oaths of office. They did not deny what they ...