Dear editor,
Ronna-Rae Leonard wrote last week unveiling her plan to guide and control the new City Council from the sidelines (Former councillor echoes sentiment regarding Frisch for RD seat, Nov. 27)
Apparently she sees herself as the coach of the new team.
The full impact of the recent election does not yet seem to have registered with Ms. Leonard. There are three new tombstones on the political Boot Hill at Maple Pool. Former councillors Ambler, Anglin, and Winchester all went down to ignominious defeat as a direct result of their participation in the last council’s obstinate and ill-advised effort to close Maple Pool and evict all its tenants. Almost all those who made the last council dysfunctional and ignored the clearly expressed wishes of Courtenay voters were terminated by those voters.
When the dust finally settles, it will likely become clear that Ms. Leonard’s defeat in the contest for the NDP federal nomination was directly attributable to the disenchantment of many NDP members with her role on a Council which relentlessly pursued closure and eviction at Maple Pool over the past four years.
Another tombstone in the Maple Pool Boot Hill?
The Nov. 15 election constituted the clearest possible repudiation of the incumbents who had thumbed their noses at the electorate for the past three years. The newly elected council enjoys the clearest possible mandate to begin representing the voters who elected them and to end the nonsensical attacks on Maple Pool.
Ms. Leonard has no role to play in the new administration. She was part of the political clique which hobbled Mayor Jangula throughout the past three years. Numerous appeals were made to the public to return a council which would support Mayor Jangula’s leadership and allow him to lead effectively; the public responded by doing precisely that.
Courtenay has no opening for a puppet master pulling the strings of mayor and councillors from the sidelines.
Paul Deeton
Courtenay