Thursday, 24 May 2012
The Letter From John Abel
To: Chairperson of AFA Jazz+fest 2012
Att. Susan Morton-Leonard
Good day Ms Morton-Leonard;
Residents have asked me to respond to a troubling trend with regards to communications from Board Members and/or organizers of this year's Jazz+fest.
I have reviewed 2 such communications this month, and ask for comments from you as Chairperson, before I respond to the residents.
1) Ontario Visited Newsletter, called the Insider, a monthly publication, May 2012, front page, written by Gary McWilliams.
The article is titled " What were they thinking?"
Mr. McWilliams has stated that the AFA Jazz+fest has advertised with his site for the last few years.
He has also stated that his article was published using information supplied from the organizers of this year's Jazz+fest.
The article portrays the Town, and its Council in a negative light.
The site advertises this year's AFA Jazz+fest
2) GSK Blog ( George St. Kitts ) has 2 entries on May 15th. His blogs are offensive, if not just plain vulgar. George St Kitts was hailed in the Auroan last year as the festival's primary organizer. The letter was penned by you.
His blog features an advertisement of this year's AFA Jazz+fest.
Summary
You have stated numerous times that the AFA Jazz+fest attracts thousands of visitors to our town and that they bring dollars to the Town's merchants.
You have stated that your advertising is read by tens of thousands of potential festival visitors.
If we refer to the month of May, is this sort of commentary from the Board and/ organizers, partnered with AFA Jazz+fest 2012 advertising campaign, what the residents of the Town of Aurora should expect for the coming months leading up to the festival in August?
I look forward to your reply.
Regards
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6 comments:
Where are her answers? Just read the reaction and anger. If she cannot controt her own board, who can?
Evelyn not sure what has happened to your web-site. shut the thing down until you can sort it out. It appears as though you are taking a lot of hits & we cannot help.
MAYBE DO NOT POST JUST HOUSE-KEEPING STUFF
This should be so simple. Lost the damn fence & the right to lease space can be negotiated with Aurora being a partner. Not space science. Common sense to protect the town from lawsuits and free up the unused part of the park. Get on with it & stop making a councillor who asks questions a monster. He was elected to ask questions.
Hi Evelyn -
Well done to both you and Councillor Abel for asking reasonable and important questions on behalf of your constituents. Concerns were brought to attention, and questions were posed to the person in charge of the event. Seems sensible to me.
The response from Ms. Morton-Leonard, much like the Cllr Ballard-fueled cultural centre circus that reared its ugly head at council a few months back, is again outrageously disproportionate to the questions asked. It has been my experience that when a hysterical, over-the-top reaction is received in response to a reasonable inquiry, it generally indicates that the responder, fearing exposure, will utilize this tactic in an attempt to deflect from the question and cloud the issue. I see nothing in Ms. Morton's response that gives a sense that she, as the spokesperson for the group, has any intention of fostering any element of goodwill or trust with the Town and its citizens. It smacks of elitism. Rather than be upfront and deal with the issues brought forth by Cllr Abel on behalf of the citizens, she dismisses his comments and retreats into a childish rant in which she tries in vain to paint her group as the injured party.
She goes on to state that the AFA is "not interested in personal blogs". The GSK blog recently posted juvenile and vulgar attacks on one of our democratically-elected Town council representatives. According to Ms. Morton-Leonard, GSK has been re-appointed as the artistic director for the festival. In this position, he represents a senior role in the AFA's operation. So while Ms. Morton-Leonard may not be interested, the rest of us sure the hell are. GSK represents the AFA, and I am therefore at a loss to understand why anyone else involved with this group, especially the person charged with the group's "communications", would not take immediate action to apologise on behalf of the organization and take immediate steps to distance themselves from the offending comments and the person(s) responsible.
Although the vulgar posts were quickly deleted from the GSK blog, I have sent you a separate email with the screen grabs. You may forward these to Ms. Morton-Leonard in case she decides that she might want to show some interest in the thoughts and comments of the AFA's artistic director - thoughts and comments posted not when the microphone is on, but when they think no one's looking.
Regarding the festival, there has been some talk of an "occupation" by citizens in response to having our Town Park fenced off and blockaded, with the only means of access requiring each citizen to fork over money to a private entity. While I admire the passion involved in such an idea, I do not endorse or support any form of mob rule or mentality. This would make us no better than those with whom we take up the fight. Rather, I will protest as an individual Aurora taxpayer, as is my right as a free-born citizen.
Matt Maddocks.
Thank you for posting the email.
I agree with Matt.
Reasonable questions were asked and the response was very similar to the method used by the former Mayor. Respond by going on the attack and deflect.
As for the GSK posts, he also did them via twitter, and the headers are still there but the content on his blog was removed. Who’s the Horses A@@ now?
I think that the town should pull the plug on the jazz festival. Let them hold the event in Snowball.
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