We are thrilled with the news from a north-county web site’s announcement Monday that no legal challenge will be made against a petition for the November ballot seeking a vote on the county seat issue.

Prior to this, it was a safe bet that a legal challenge will be made to the recent petition drive seeking a November ballot referendum on the issue of moving the county seat from Hermann to Owensville. Opponents had already began the effort as the signatures on the petitions were being verified.

Unless they fear the vote overwhelmingly will be in favor of the move, we struggled to understand opponents’  objections to placing the question on the November ballot and letting the voters of Gasconade County decide this important and possibly historical event. If opponents fear the vote will go against their wishes, we thought, then they are attempting to thwart the democratic process through legal maneuvering.

Fortunately, that appears not to be the case after all, according to a story prepared by Berger’s Jeff Noedel on the blog site hermannmuenster.com (yes, as in the cheese…a companion site he and Holly Bickmeyer, of Swiss, have is bergerwithcheese.com).

While the desire to keep the county seat in Hermann and incorporate the century old courthouse into an expensive, although attractive, proposal to build a U-shaped addition around three sides of the existing courthouse is understandable, it fails to come close to being practical. Especially when less expensive and certainly more practical alternatives also were proposed.

If the question actually makes it onto the ballot this time and voters reject it, then one of the other two alternatives to solving courthouse space problems will indeed warrant intense scrutiny. Even if voters should approve the proposed county seat relocation, much will remain to be done to make the transition as smooth and painless as possible.

But the decision ultimately should be made by the people any change will affect the most — the residents of Gasconade County. At least for now, it appears it will not be made by only a few who seek to make an end run around the democratic process.