GREY SKIES ARE GONNA CHEER UP

The weather has not improved. Skies are gloomier than before but I feel better.

The lead weight in my chest has lifted. 

Comments can stil be made but discretion being the better part of valor, t'were  better for me not to publish. I still need  to hear from people other than the predictables.

I have conferred lawyerly a couple of times.  The decision can be appealed to the Supreme Court

The bar is high for an appeal to be successful.  Certain circumstances must prevail. 

1.Error in law

 2. Incorrect facts.

3. A mix of both. 

Original  purpose in pursuing the litigation remains the same. It was not done for myself alone. 

To be effective, an elected official must be free to represent. 

Democracy means the majority rules and the minority must be heard. 

A lawyer retained  at public expense, to examine utterances, super-impose interpretation and put all  in writing over a signature bearing legal credentials, is not conducive to frank and free expression in discussion of town business. 

Lawyerly oversight definitely throws a spanner in the works. 

In such circumstance, no Councillor or resident could  ever feel safe to speak his/her mind, save and except, for echoing the majority. 

In Aurora, I enjoyed support and encouragement over a  long period of fifty years

As writer of letters to the editor, elected Councillor then Mayor and County Councillor, writing a weeklycolumn in local media for eleven years.  Mayor and Regional Councillor the Councillor again and after an absence of fourteen years, Councillor again for a further eleven years and with social media a blogger on town affairs for seven of those years. 

Competence well beyond apprentice level . Standards and principles firmly engrained. Confidence grown from opportunity to exercise judgement was the advantage No university course

provides the  breadth of  experience  of service on a municipal Council. 

I always actively encouraged citizens to contemplate a bid for office. The task is worthwhile. 

The chance  to make a difference is  for anyone  to compete. A campaign itself is a broadening experience.  

To be at risk for taking a  principled  stand on town issues is unthinkable. 

It never happened in the half-century before Phyllis Morris' term as Mayor. 

It has not happened since. 

Policy re- established in the nineteen -nineties established no elected member has authority to retain or instruct a lawyer at town expense for any purpose. the policy was re-affirmed in the last term of Council. 

As long as Councils are elected with intention to do no harm to others, the situation is unlikely to be repeated.

Potential for the opposite is not a good thing.