MARY MARY...QUITE CONTRARY ...HOW DOES YOUR GARDEN GROW ?

 Arguments to respond to: 

I referred  to a fellow blogger as a communication guru. I understand the word to mean a person of  knowledge. I meant it in that context. Opinion is not the same as expertise. Opinion varies; subject to vagaries of personal experience and perspective. 

The second argument is that rules in politics are meant to be exploited for advantage.The reference was to a  call for a re-count after the 2003 election.

The Elections Officer is in charge of elections with legal authority and responsibility to conduct it according to the rules. Municipal politicians do not make nor are they allowed to influence the rules. Nor should they. 

One clause  I the Act rules a division of less than twenty-one votes automatically requires a re-count. 

If the difference is less a re-count may be requested, usually by a runner-up in the election. 

In 2003 , an outgoing Councillor  requested a re-count. She argued she had not agreed the election machines recommended were efficient. Councillors and candidates were invited to a demonstration. The machines had been used successfully in other jurisdictions. Council debated the motion  and a majority approved a re-count.,

The re-count was estimated to take three days and cost $22,000. It took longer and cost more. I was there throughout. It was a grueling and stressful undertaking. Results  were the same. 

Two things were proven :The machines were perfectly efficient.The Elections Officer's recommendation was sound. More than twenty-two- thousand dollars we're needlessly added to cost of the election. 

An apology was  certainly due to the Clerk /Election Officer and to taxpayers. 

It was not forthcoming. 

Second I had  indeed won the right to take a seat at the table. 

A Councillor-elect, in seconding the motion for re-count ,said he did not want to spend  the next three years at the table opposite a person who had no right to be there.   

I did have the right to be there. I won a sufficient number of votes,

The comment was egregious. It was an angry rejection of the result of the election that elected him. 

By any rule of order, civility or grace the result of the re-count called for withdrawal and an apology. 

The comment to the blog suggests politics is about denying and exploiting any and all rules whatever the intent. 

Many would agree.The  idea dominated Aurora  politics since the mid-nineties.A fragment still remains.

My understanding of the function of elected office is not the same. I want to see the dignity of 

elected office return to what it once was and what I believe the community  has a right to expect. 

It's why I came back in 2003.  

When I record past events in the blog, my intent is to move things away from what was, to something better.

It can't change unless the need to change is recognized  

It's not digging into the past so much as cultivating the future. 

A garden flourishes only if it's tended regularly. 

It takes digging and delving,

Planting  seeds and pulling out weeds  

That greedily absorb nutrition. 

And adding fertilizer. 

Ya gotta love it. 

It was the reason I came back in 2003. I think I made a difference.