Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Legislators
and Law":
the comment just sent should have been sent a couple
of minutes before the "appointed to the bench" one.
Either I didn't send
it or you didn't receive and display it.
If you do receive it now can you
please put it in ahead of the "bench" one. Thanks. That way they make sense.
****************
Sorry I cannot accommodate this request
I don't know which "comment was just sent."
Even If I did ,I don't know how to switch placement.
I just published three comments related to the latest development of the former Mayor having to pay more money to the defendants in the SLAPP suit.
The first has suggestions that Councilor Ballard should be required to follow to correct misleading comments he made in a Council meeting.
Authority is absent there as well.
Councillor Ballard is responsible for statements he makes.
Unless he accuses another Councillor of lying. ...or assigns motive to another Councillor...or uses unparliamentary language or fails to behave with appropriate decorum,Councillor Ballard has authority to make whatever inaccurate and misleading statements he chooses during a Council meeting.
Such statements can be refuted by other Councillors. It's the purpose of debate.
Members of the public listening to the debate must decide for themselves which position makes most sense.
At the same time, questions on the table for Council debate must relate to town business.
Whether or not the former Mayor was defamed by comments in a Blog was never town business.
It's my understanding the Council of the day, or those present at a meeting where business being discussed was not town business were informed of that fact.
I also understand the former Mayor had. that morning..obtained legal advice,also at the town's expense, that it was in fact possible for the town to sue.
It became town business by payment of legal fees incurred to process the SLAPP suit on behalf of the former Mayor. .
The current Council cut off funding. But sought and received legal advice from yet another legal counsel at a cost of $8,000. that the town should pay fees outstanding.on behalf of the former Mayor of $55,000.
So the town did.
If you are counting, another instance of my disagreement with professional advice received.
But Hey, who listens to me.
Councillor Ballard won enough votes to take a seat at the table and state his views.. He is perfectly free to take
Half a pound of tuppeny rice
Half a pound of treacle
Mix it up and make it nice
Pop goes the weasel
Round and round the mulberry bush
The monkey chased the weasel
The monkey stopped
To pull up his socks
Pop goes the weasel. .
Wednesday 9 January 2013
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8 comments:
"Pop goes the weasle" is right !
That is funny.
I seem to have selective hearing when Councillor Ballard goes on a rant. So this is just a paraphrase. I think I heard him say that Morris would re-open the case if Master Hawkins awarded any more money. So, we shall have to wait and see what transpires. The defendants must still be out an enormous amount of money. But I think that damn thing might be over -unless she appeals - again.
Morris needs grounds to appeal. If she has no legitimate grounds then an appeal will only cost her more money.
I'm not 100% sure what was said, but I did see Councillor Ballard state that Morris may appeal and this case is not necessarily over. We can only guess where Councillor Ballard got his information to lead him to the conclusions he came to and the public statements that he made. Maybe he can enlighten us further and provide some proof to back up his public statements at the next council meeting. What will he say next ? I can hardly wait to find out.
I also can't wait to read Mr. Vander Veen's next letter to the editor given that his current letter appears to lay some form of blame on the defendants for commencing what Morris herself called a "town initiative" which was actually, as far as I can tell, a town funded private defamation lawsuit which failed on numerous counts.
Christopher Ballard, ersatz member of Council, has three strikes against him: motor mouth, loose lips, and an inability to think before speaking. I'm not certain how to rank these in priority.
In a blog post of his dated December 19, 2012, he refers to an $8.5million lawsuit launched against the town, a town employee and former Mayor Tim Jones. He states: "I am not going to speak to the merits of the case because it is before the courts. However, I am gravely troubled about how Council could be kept in the dark about a lawsuit of this magnitude, that was launched back in August."
For readers of the local news and this week's Auroran they would have learned that the judge hearing this case dismissed it with costs awarded to the Town of just under $4,000. And the amount sought was $5.8million.
Dollar amounts sought in lawsuits do not relate to magnitude. What does are the principles, the laws, issues such as defamation, that are the subject of litigation. A couple of taxi licenses is hardly of a like magnitude. Ballard may be correct in that Council should have been advised of the matter, but surely we do not have to read a speech about the subject.
In a blog post dated the same day on the SLAPP motion, Ballard makes the outrageous statement: "It is a matter of public record that this Council has not been unanimous in how it has handled issues regarding the lawsuit between the Town of Aurora and those possibly responsible for allowing defaming postings on the Aurora Citizen blog."
Since when was the town a party to this lawsuit? It was between the plaintiff Morris, three named defendants and some unnamed bloggers. How is it that Ballard uses the phrase "defaming postings" more than a year after a Superior Court judge found that there was no defamation? His use of that phrase could see him the subject of defamation litigation.
We in Canada have the right of freedom of expression.
But this freedom must be used in combination with thinking clearly and carefully about what one wants to say before saying it.
To Anonymous 9 January, 2013 2:06 PM
You hit the nail on the head !
Ballard even took a not so subtle shot at Master Hawkins in the last council meeting by suggesting that some people were writing something unflattering. It was hard to know exactly what the heck he was saying the inference was, but I think that the negative tone to the passing comment was clearly there. It's too bad that no evidence or clarity was provided.
Ballard also appears to ignore the little fact that governments can't legally sue for defamation (as the Charter of Rights - but of course the previous found a way to achieve the same end) and the code of conduct says that public office is not to be used for personal gain.
Ballard also seems to miss the point that people are usually assumed to be innocent before proven guilty and especially when any given case has been dropped with no guilt found.
I'm sure that some people feel that the facts shouldn’t get in the way of a good political dust up. How much smoke can one blow before the alarms go off should be the real question.
Could Councillor Ballard be convinced to direct interested parties to the source of what unflattering statements have been made about the SLAPP decision of Master Hawkins? Because I truly cannot locate any material of that kind. Now if he is referring to something written by Morris' lawyers, that might explain why it cannot be found. I quite understand why they would be upset with his ruling. It's their job.
I did not vote for Councillor Ballard in the last election.
Every time he opens his mouth he justifies my decision.
The legalistic councillor's Blog-site has been cleaned up. All he has left are some moralistic pontifications on the evils of wine with lunch. The choices on his poll were designed by a total goof. Childish stuff.
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