"Cowardice asks the question...is it safe? Expediency asks the question...is it politic? Vanity asks the question...is it popular? But conscience asks the question...is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because it is right." ~Dr. Martin Luther King

Wednesday 26 June 2013

A Little Backgroud

Marshall Dillon has left a new comment on your post "Implementation of the Code of Ethics": 

11:37..

"You get elected and do your best"... but heaven forbid if your best does not conform to the perception of those that have been councillors since Jesus was in High School. You will be taunted and lectured until your only defence is to add some hard-fast rules. You try to bring the Town in to the present instead of wallowing in the pioneer past. Then you loose the next election and everyone that has been rounded up in the posse wants to hang you from the tallest tree in the land. 

This Town is F'ed up.

******************************************

When  I ran  for office  in 2003 aftr  fourteen yar absence, Al Wilson was also a candidate. For the 
second or third  time without success. 

He didnt  make it. came in at the bottom of the poll. 

He took advantageof public  forum to hurl  abuse  at me, his voice rising to a shriek as he went on.
First time,  I  had a  word with  the Mayor. Told him it was not acceptable conduct.

Second time, I told him if it happened again I would not be responsible for my reaction and he might find it  harder to  handle. 

A couple of Councillors  thought he had a right to abuse a Councillor in  the Councl Chamber. 

Considering rules of order and requirement for civility to each other, I thought that was an odd understanding of how a Council functions.  but it wasn't the worst. 

After the next election Wilson took my place at the bottom of the poll. A need  for a re-count was not suggested. 

But at the first meeting Wilson and MacEachern formed a tag-team to interrupt with spurious points of order ,every time I spoke. 

I apologized and promised to do better.

Then , later. a family member asked; What's up with Wilson" 

Apparently  when I spoke  the Councillor would slide down in his  chair .roll his eyes  until  only the whites showed and let  his tongue hang  out the side of his mouth.

I was glad not to have  seen  that.

But I couldn't help wondering if any of them thought about the people at home who were seeing it.  And  knew quite well what to make of it without a word needed  from me. 

As long as the camera was running  I knew I was never alone. The dirty tricks were amplified. 

I did not start writing the blog until August 2007.

When it became  apparent I would not be permtted to participate then I decded to create my own 
function. 

I would write a blog. I would keep  whoever might be interetsed informed about events from my perspective. 

Like Topsy. it grew. 






11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Where were the cameras last night? I know you like to take a breather after a meeting & have no idea what transpired. It is weird that everyone at the table argues that they want more participation & yet somehow the communications simply doesn't work. Isn't just Rogers as a couple of the streamings were absent too.

Anonymous said...


I always kept hoping that Wilson, tongue, whites of eyes and all, would recline himself so far that the chair would give way and he would flip out backward, landing on his head.

This might have improved both his appearance and his performance.

If some people are slated for failure, he would surely be at the head of the list, but not at the front.

There were five other members of council who would have been running neck and neck with him.

And all six are being sued by you.

WELL DONE and the BEST OF LUCK.

Anonymous said...

Everything was blamed on you and the Blogs. They were quite mistaken. The footage of Council meetings went viral before we even knew that word and Ron Wallace kept saying, " If you write it, I will print it. " Morris could have had a column anytime she wanted. In trying ' to bring the Town out of the pioneer past " as that comment you just posted goes, they ignored the modern social media on their doorstep.

Anonymous said...

And then others were trampled by that man and tongue lashed because he thought they were supporters of yourself.What he did to one citizen at the Town Park was the act of a low class bully.

Anonymous said...

It was bullying on a scale few of us had ever seen. No one was exempt. Staff, councillors, residents lacking clout- ever the new newspaper reporter, Brock Weir got targeted.

Anonymous said...

@7:01 PM
Instead they turned to a big-name law firm in TO to enforce the rules.

Anonymous said...

8:36am.... If they went to a small local law firm it would be okay? I just need to understand you point. Was because it was a big-name or because it was Toronto?

Anonymous said...

8:36... BULLYING!!

What about the then Deputy Mayor that yelled at a member of the public who was doing a presetation to the council because he did not like the content?

Or the councillor that took a rolled up newspaper, walked over to another councillor and wacked him with it? The councillor has recently been named citizen of the year!


They have all been the same.

Anonymous said...

I say that if all lawsuits were dealt with local firms it could be a boom to the local economy. The Town is interested in promoting business development why not start there. Every time the economy slows down start another lawsuit. ;-)

Anonymous said...

11:42 AM
Didn't realize that I had to connect the dots for you. My apology. The point was that they turned to the law, which just happened to be a firm in To ?, instead of dealing with the problems in-house.


Anonymous said...

8:08 PM

Then why say how big or where in the first place?

You could have said "Instead they turned to a law firm to enforce the rules." But with your comment there is an air of anti-entitlement that they used a "Big Firm" or a big city firm.

It's all in the perception of what you write.