I thought life was going to be easier when I started to serve the communities of Royal City, Mattawa and Desert Aire and everything in between in October of 2010 with a new newspaper.

I was wrong. There is no such thing as a sleepy little town. As long as you have people, you will have strife. Even tiny Schawana has it. There it's all about water.

Mattawa's current strife centers around the firing of a police officer. It seems everybody has an opinion about him and an opinion about whether he should serve. Some say yes. Some say no.

Those same people want their local newspaper to see things their way, and that can be a hundred different ways. Well, I observed the hearing from the standpoint of the person seeking redress.

The civil service hearing was set up to determine if the city had legally fired John Ingersoll. It was an opportunity for Ingersoll's attorney, Steven Lacy, to attack the credibility of the facts as presented by the city at the time of firing.

Lacy's goal was to find faults in the city's evidence and testimony. That's what I looked for. That's what the community - the taxpayers - needed to know.

I believe Lacy found some cracks. The question is whether they were enough in number and in strength for his purposes. He believes so and plans to take the case to superior court.

I know most of the people who testified against Ingersoll, and I don't consider them to be liars. I don't know Ingersoll, but I found him to hold up well under cross-examination.

The truth about whether Ingersoll should be a police officer lies somewhere between his truth and the truth of those who spoke against him. It's a question of how much weight you give to Ingersoll's words and how much you give to the rest.

One thing fairly certain is that Ingersoll won't be a police officer anywhere again. All of the testimony against him, whether true or not, will follow him everywhere he goes.

It's fairly certain he won't work in Mattawa again although he's seeking the return of his job. There is just too much acrimony.

If this case is worked out in Ingersoll's favor, it will likely be a settlement for money, lots of it.

What we know for sure is that city officials prepared three Loudermill letters with which to fire Ingersoll. It should take only one.

The first two were not strong enough to hold up to challenges. There was a third Loudermill letter with which they did fire him, and it included 11 allegations.

That letter brought Lacy into the case. There appeared to be piling on, and, to Lacy, the firing probably involved some kind of a campaign to "get" Ingersoll.

My best guess is that city officials were not at fault to try to fire Ingersoll. But they may have gone about it in a way that wouldn't stand up in court.

True fault, if it exists, lies within the law. You should never try to fire a civil servant without having reasons that will stand up in court. That means solid evidence at the time of the firing.

It used to be that a city could fire anyone just because the mayor or city council felt the individual was not up to the job. They didn't have to prove anything.

That changed through the years. Chances are, you weren't watching when it happened. Now, some of you probably wish it hadn't happened.

Except for police officers. They have learned from Ingersoll's stand just how well they are protected by the law.