Editor, Gazette-Journal:

Leadership is a difficult role to fulfill. It is equal parts character, integrity, experience, skill, empathy, and compromise. Our next board of supervisor candidates must embody these qualities to fully embrace the demands of the role. Our leaders should not focus on the negative but rather draw on the strength of the other board members and the community to make decisions that affect our common goals.

Mathews is a small, tightknit community of hard working, family-oriented people who are patriotic, and dedicated to our county and country. In this spirit, we should dedicate ourselves to elect like-minded officials to guide our community. Our leaders must rise to the challenge by transcending petty in-fighting and dedicate themselves to our county’s future by being constructive, rational, unifying and fully engaged.

These qualities must be the focus of the electorate during the upcoming board of supervisors’ election in the fall. Candidates who have m...