"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

Tuesday 1 September 2015

A PERSON CAN ONLY TRY

Mornin' All 

 Views 477 so far to-day 

I need to apologize to Councillor Mrakas for bandying his name about. It was not my intention to drag him into a knock 'em down and drag him out fight. He needs no defense from me or anyone else for that matter. He puts his heart and soul into the job of Councillor. What I know of Councillor Mrakas' activities, I read in Facebook. Posted by himself. 

By no means do I agree with his position on various matters, I do respect his integrity and phenomenal energy. Indeed ,it would be weird if we shared the same perspective. Our experience is vastly different.

 If an argument is worth having, it has to be with someone who has something to say and believes it . Not with someone who twists and turns in the prevailing wind like John Abel. 

The current argument has been about a denigrating comment to a post about Councillor Mrakas and myself on my blog. I say John Abel made it. True  or not, the author seems most anxious to deny 
responsibility. 

Understandably so.

The comment was a lie.

It has been done publicly before. So innocence is difficult to plead and hardly credible. 

Lying is not a crime.Conventional wisdom has it that all politicians lie. They would call it something else 
but a person always knows when they've  been slimed. 

I think It accounts for much of the  non-voting electorate. Seventy-per-cent in the last Aurora election. 

I suggest lying is not acceptable to most of the thirty- per -cent who do value their right to cast a ballot. 

In time for the election, John Abel and Geoff Dawe brought a V.P. from the town's insurance company to a council meeting to publicize costs to defend the Mormac gang against my complaint that statements  published were with intent to defame my reputation. What other purpose could they have? 
They used their public office and public resources. 

An Integrity Commissioner made a ruling to that effect. 

No matter.

John Abel stated  in a Council meeting ,with Dawe's murmured acquiescence, stated the legal action was all about obtaining millions of dollars in damages. He implied I was a person motivated entirely by greed. 

Not for them to consider facts or await a decision from the court. They had a different imperative. 

Like I said before, I owe them nothing.  Especially not respect. 

When I was first elected and every time since, my immediate thought on election night was always the same. 

Will I be able to fullfil the trust of the people who voted for me? 

I TRIED. 

Views 715

31 comments:

Anonymous said...

Actually, I believe the rep they brought from the insurance company made a number of errors.
His explanation about various individuals who sue the town over accidents was very different from how I have heard it explained. It was not just his comments about Evelyn's case and its cost to the town that seemed wrong.
And I believe he was replaced by another shortly afterwards but could be mistaken there.

Anonymous said...

Is there a peak period for traffic ?

Anonymous said...

There were no errors as far as the rookie politicians were concerned. It was Mission Accomplished.

Anonymous said...

16:08
We are not talking genius-level here. It is quite possible that the target of the evening was Mr Gallo and what
happened to Evelyn a big ' Oops '. Once the damage was done, there was no way to fix it. Not that they tried
from what I gather.

Anonymous said...


The FBI and two other law enforcement agencies raided the Palm Springs City Hall and the apartment of the Mayor under sealed warrants. They can't say anything.

Apparently the Mayor received $200,000 as a consulting fee in connection with the sale of city real estate to a developer.

The City Hall is effectively shut down.

Refer to USAToday for further details/verification.

That could never happen in our town.

Anonymous said...

I saw that meeting. It was quite clear to me the target was Evelyn.

Anonymous said...

Don't be naïve, 16:24. There was no 'big oops' or attempt to "fix it." The presentation proceeded as planned. The damage was deliberate and the skids well and truly greased. On the level of election campaign politics, it was impressive in its execution and end result.

"We are not talking genius-level here." said...

Agreed, 17:47, but it wasn't as clear to 16:24.

Anonymous said...

It was also quite clear the integrity of that VP representative and the insurance company he works for. I saw that meeting as well. As a VP, it was quite foolish to allow himself to be part of that performance.

Anonymous said...

Silly, silly man to think you might forget.

Anonymous said...

Foolish, 18:31? The man was merely presenting facts. The politics involved was no concern of his.

Anonymous said...

Presenting the ' facts ' in a manner which retained the town's business.

Anonymous said...

That representative knew exactly what was going on with his "facts" being presented. It's sad how #'s or stats being presented to the public are always skewed towards a certain purpose.

Anonymous said...

How were they "skewed," 10:16? The plain fact of additional cost to the public can not be denied. That it was incurred in the pursuit of private interests by an elected official created the bad optics for that particular politician.

Anonymous said...

10:16
Like that guy who went on and on about how clear garbage bags would be cost efficient & put the town on the cutting edge
of environmental issues.
Turned out he was wrong and even might have been connected with Glad............

Anonymous said...

We had the same issue with clear bags, Abel and Dawe were 100% behind it, all the way to the end they believed it was a great idea, ignoring people completely. This was not very costly exercise to find out politicians agenda, and if these two will run in the next election it will hunt them down.

Anonymous said...

Hey, 12:36, Mine is 12:29 . You were in my head this morning. Did you go to the dentist too ?

Anonymous said...

Apples and oranges, 12:29.

Clear bags "hunt(ing) them down?" Pffft, don't be ridiculous.

Anonymous said...

10:16- Perfect example of this is in the Auroran. Councillor Mrakas presented some numbers
illustrating the outrageous # of hires from 2010 to 2015. Mayor Dawe tried to skew those facts with a ridiculous statement, something to the effect that the majority of those hires were approved previous to the council at the table now.

Anonymous said...

12:29- He wasn't connected with Glad. The whole idea of the clear bags wasn't entirely a bad idea. It as well as everything else was delivered extremely poorly, and it was not by the representative pitching the idea. I for one did not like the idea of the bags at all, but took it upon myself to find out a couple of things, because something didn't seem right. Let's just say I found out politics is actually more smelly than garbage.

Christopher Watts said...

and just how did you arrive at the conclusion that Dave Douglas "wasn't connected with Glad" 15:39?

Vice President & General Manager of The Clorox Company of Canada Ltd. says otherwise:
https://wattstrending.wordpress.com/2015/03/23/too-bad-so-glad/

Anonymous said...

That demonstration at council sealed that issue. Hard to argue faced with a small bag of really neat timed bombs.

Anonymous said...

Thank you, Mr Watts,
There are a couple of individuals who figure if they repeat a whopper often enough, it becomes accepted.
That was one of the fallacies - that the speaker had no connection to Glad.
It may even turn up again......

Anonymous said...

I spoke to him. I'm one of those individuals that enviromentalist don't like. I've met many that will sell their mothers for a dollar all in the name of saving the planet. And he's not one of them. I'm quite happy that the program died., it was a bad program for many reasons. Watch those video's closely Mr. Watts and you might just catch a few things that raised my eye brows.

Christopher Watts said...

21:52 What videos are you speaking of exactly? I'm unsure why you're placing the onus on me to catch things in some video somewhere that "raise your eyebrows". Instead of relying on some divination or divine inspiration to reveal these oh-so-important details why not just state them clearly in your response?

I have done my research into that issue which included finding a paper trail that shows VisionQuest purchasing thousands of dollars of GLAD product for its program in Durham back in 2009.

I also found that the same VisionQuest contributed financially to the Mayor's re-election campaign. It was Mayor Dawe's motion that this "bad program" even made it to the council table because, in his words "environmentally it is the right thing for us to be doing.".

It clearly isn't.

If you believe that the whole idea of the clear bags wasn't entirely a bad idea then by all means share with the rest of is why it justified the time spent at the council table and the large consultation fee to VisionQuest before engaging the residents.

Onus not anus said...

Mr Watts.. perhaps the onus was placed on you because you disagree. Clearly 21:52 has done his homework, maybe you should do same.

Anonymous said...

Hopefully it's over and I think it all started with that ride-around in Markham to see how they dealt
with garbage. Not sure if there has been a similar ride here but one would hope so,,,,,,,,I do not
want to compete with Markham. Just deal with the problems right here.

Anonymous said...

@ 12:46
Please, do stop showing off. It is so childish.

Anonymous said...

Who let somebody's mom in here?

Anonymous said...

Someone told me today that King has NO bylaws that apply to trees. Apparently the residents there
feel they are good caretakers of the land.
Can that possibly be true ? NO TREE BYLAWS ?????

Anonymous said...

19:36

King is also significantly more rural than Aurora.