“Fire, Ready, Aim” is a song by Green Day. Lyrically, it showcases the band mocking how people often act without thought.

That is exactly what Dianne Price intended when she wrote her letter, “Waste of time.”

“Is that how you run your work? Your home? Your personal life? We need to hold elected leaders to the same standard to which we hold ourselves.” She was expressing her frustration about the ill-informed manner in which the new councilpersons were making decisions.

Ready, fire, aim is a commonly used expression; it has nothing to do with guns or death threats. The Times editor must not have considered Dianne’s letter a threat as their policy states: “Those [letters] that are judged as personal attacks or complaints about neighbors, businesses or other letter writers will not be considered.” Hence, the letter was published as submitted.

Nearly one month after Dianne’s letter was published, Allen Skillicorn called MCSO to report receiving death threats. The officer’s documentation included: “[Skillicorn] also admitted he thought he had seen the letters when they were first published” and he “thought nothing of it” until someone brought it to his attention. When asked if he felt threatened, Skillicorn said “he was more concerned for his wife.”

A day later, MCSO reported “at the conclusion of this investigation, no probable cause to support the allegations of threats being made were found.” However, over a month after MCSO concluded there was no threat, Skillicorn and his Illinois-based PR minion issued press releases stating, “Dianne Price and (another resident) have taken to social media and letters to Fountain Hills Times to use gun and threatening language in reference to Skillicorn.”

Might this all have been a scurrilous act to help attract the kind of publicity that would advance Skillicorn’s political ambitions beyond Fountain Hills?