They might not have received the solution they wanted, but the large group of people who showed up at last week’s La Grande School Board meeting were participating in the best traditions of American democracy.

The large crowd was on hand to give testimony and protest Gov. Kate Brown’s directive mandating all students wear masks inside Oregon schools this fall.

They filled Central Elementary School’s gymnasium, and the school board listened to testimony from a sizable number of residents who are not in support of the governor’s decision, which was made in the wake of rising COVID-19 cases throughout Oregon.

The individuals who delivered their opinions to the board did the right thing, and the board was quite correct to allow as many people as possible to speak.

The mask mandate, along with just about anything else connected to COVID-19, has become a politicized lightning rod, and it is no different on Main Street USA.

COVID-19 as a disease should never have become politicized. The polio epidemic wasn’t turned into political fodder nor the breeding ground for countless conspiracy theories.

But the U.S. didn’t have Facebook, Twitter or any other forms of social media when polio was raging across the nation and, whether we like it or not, COVID-19 has become politicized.

That means elected leaders from the lowest level all the way to the White House have a responsibility to listen to citizens who want to say their piece. If they do it in a peaceful, nonthreatening way, those residents are firmly within the bounds of the Constitution and have every right to do so.

The school board is caught in the middle. The district can’t very well refuse the orders of the governor, yet there is probably no shortage of people on the board and elsewhere who wish there were more local control over such issues.

The school board meeting also showed clearly that a lot of people, including district officials, are concerned about the welfare of their children.

The political debate over COVID wasn’t solved at the meeting, but what was evident is democracy is alive and well in La Grande.