C08b. THIS MAYOR AND HIS ADMINISTRATION

C8b.:

A necessary response to the Mayor’s letter dated Oct. 06, 2008

Dear Wolfville Resident: Vote for Change!

There are only a few days left before you will elect a new Mayor and a new Council.

The open questions here are:

• Was the production and mailing of this letter based on the unilateral decision of the Mayor?
• When was this letter discussed with Council and when had Council carried a motion regarding its content and its way of distribution?
• Was this letter of the Mayor used poorly for self-serving purposes to enhance Mr. Stead’s chances to become re-elected as Mayor?

During last Wednesday’s public debate at the Wolfville school it became clear that at least some of the new candidates seem to have quite a different understanding on “transparency” and “accountability” and “leadership”. These are the differences that hopefully will inspire you - as a Resident of Wolfville - to vote for change.

To the dismay of Mayor Stead and certain Town staff I am the one who decided to share with you, Residents of Wolfville, some outrageous pieces of information on the “Brideau Issue”.

At my own expense I made copies of a shortened information flyer and used the costly postal service to make sure that my flyers reached all of you. This became necessary, after I had witnessed that my piled-up copies at the Post Office had landed in a trash can just after the Mayor had been the only visitor and at a different point in time the Town’s Director of Finance had grabbed the pile in front of my very eyes and had destroyed them. “Thank you” Mr. Mayor and Mr. Director of Finance for ignoring my Charter Right of “Freedom of Expression”.

You, the Residents of Wolfville, have a RIGHT TO KNOW what is going on at Town Hall! Our Town should be run as an open and transparent democracy and not as a dictatorship.

In addition to the “Brideau Issue”, I have questioned the qualifications of the Director of Planning, Mr. Gregg Morrison. At this point in time he holds a very important and powerful position on the Town staff without being able to show credentials as neither an engineer nor a planner. Even last week he presented at Council his very personal and “in-correct” interpretation of the law by quoting his understanding of relevant sections of the MGA, the MPS and the LUB.
If this Mayor sees it as impugnment on Morrison’s qualifications after I did document that Mr. Morrison had “knowingly” violated the Environment Act at least once and if the Mayor feels threatened by the fact that I got the Department of Environment to re-investigate possible additional violations and actions, which have caused damage to my property, those will be his problems alone and I will be unable to comfort him on his reported “sadness”.

This Mayor could have shown leadership and vision and along with the Council taken responsibility to alleviate the ongoing flooding problem at my property months/years ago. He has chosen not to.

The Mayor’s terms “at least inaccurate”, “misleading”, “only half true” or “completely false” and taken out of a specific context cannot be taken for an excuse of the Town’s and/or the Mayor’s “wrongdoing” or inactivity.

Lutz E. Becker / October 09, 2008