Sheila Wilson’s candidacy for the Montezuma County Hospital District board of directors descended into the absurd recently when she publicly claimed to have eavesdropped on an executive session of that board.

The mental picture Wilson’s story presents is amusing, but the reality of the situation is more serious. Although eavesdropping may be a crime, it’s a difficult one to prosecute without making a symbol of Wilson, who has long criticized the way the way the hospital is managed. Whatever else she has accomplished, she’s now provided voters with a very clear basis for the choice they must make next Tuesday.

What Wilson does as a private citizen is her own business, but once she made the choice to seek elected office, a higher standard began to apply. As the Clinton scandal unfolded, we were asked repeatedly whether we could trust a man who cheats on his wife not to cheat on his country as well. Now we face a similar question locally: Should we trust a candidate who is willing to cross the bounds of acceptable behavior while seeking office to behave ethically once elected?

At the very least, Wilson’s behavior is not the kind we’d like to encourage. Do we want a free-for-all of distrustful citizens pressing their ears against walls, doors and windows in an attempt to learn what’s really going on?

No, we don’t want that. What we do want is a climate of mutual respect, which can only come about if citizens elect representatives they trust to do the public’s business, and if those representatives are then honest and open about what they’re doing. Hospital politics occasionally have fallen fall short of that ideal, and the fault isn’t all Sheila Wilson’s.

A little bit of openness could go a long way toward healing this unhealthy situation. Wilson is undoubtedly paranoid, and her actions were overly dramatic for a woman who does have other sources of information about MCHD, if not about Southwest Health System. But secrecy does foster distrust, and in the absence of concrete information, speculation runs much wilder than it should. It’s easy to imagine a conspiracy when you cannot watch your elected officials take well-reasoned action in the full light of day, never mind that they may be acting perfectly reasonably behind their closed doors.

Next Tuesday will tell the tale. Voters are so suspicious that they may be willing to elect a woman whose ethics are, at the very least, disturbing. That would be a mistake, but it would be a sign, as well. Such a vote would tell us that suspicion and fear have grown to dangerous proportions.