To the editor:

Honestly, I intended to let this one go.

When Mehlville Fire Protection District Board of Directors Chairman Aaron Hilmer crowed about the “old lion” who can still “protect the pride and the roar has returned for six more years …” after his recent re-election, I just figured the guy had watched one too many Disney movies — the parallel with Mufasa from “The Lion King” was a bit farfetched.

However, when he and other letter writers started pitching his victory as a win over “devious attacks” and “blasphemous talk,” I just had to sit down at the keyboard.

This is the worst case of the “pot calling the kettle black” that I have ever heard.

Aaron Hilmer has been trash talking the Mehlville firefighters and their union representatives for years — and now he cries foul when a little of it comes back at him.

Consider this quote of his from the Call in February 2009 referencing the “steaming pile of dung that comes out of Local 1889 …”

And this one from August of the same year in reference to an International Association of Fire Fighters representative addressing the board: “He was blathering some nonsense …” — also from the Call.

Even more scathing was an edition of the Hotline, the MFPD newsletter — more like propaganda at the taxpayers’ expense — in which an article appeared accusing the firefighters and their union of “subterfuge” and showing a cartoon of their desire to keep taxpayers “in the dark” in regard to benefits and salaries.

The list of examples goes on and on.

I, for one, although disappointed at Hilmer’s re-election, was heartened by the narrow margin of victory he received. Perhaps not as many of us in Mehlville are as big of fans of the “old lion” as he would like to believe.

Lisa Marin

Concord