Mr. Turner:

I must say that I am not at all surprised at the letter you sent to constituent John Strachan (below). It’s classic Turner.

You were elected to serve the residents, not yourself, and not staff, and not council. Yet every time a constituent criticizes a staff member or a councillor, you hoist your little councillor badge up the flagpole, ring the town-hall bells, and lash out gratuitously and wildly at the very ones you are supposed to serve. You’ve done it several times to residents in your ward, you’ve done it to residents in other wards, you’ve done it to me, and now you’ve done it to John Strachan.

It is irrelevant whether or not the February 4 agenda item (by-law 8-2014) was actually trying to remove mail-in voting. The fact is that the item was presented in the agenda in a manner that made many, many residents, including at least one former (and future) councillor, believe that someone was trying to eliminate mail-in voting. It was clearly not just John Strachan who read it that way. The people that voiced the concerns are the residents, the electors, the constituents. They had every right to voice their concerns, and they were right to voice their concerns. Some, like John Strachan, may have overreacted just a tad, but under the circumstances that reaction was perfectly understandable and reasonable.

In any case, a wee bit of overreaction on the part of a few good citizens does not make your pompous, bombastic, arrogant, condescending, scolding behavior the least bit acceptable.

You owe John Strachan an apology. And anyone else you beat up on this issue.

And you owe all the people in ward one an apology for promising in the 2010 election that you would serve the people, when in fact you had absolutely no intention of doing so.

My very best regards,

Craig

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On Wed, Feb 5, 2014 at 2:09 PM, Jim Turner <jim.turner@southbrucepeninsula.com> wrote:

Mr. Strachan

Re. “Angie cannot be trusted with something that should be a council decision!”
????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Take a minute from your email writing career and re-read the legislation that empowers the Clerk/Returning Officer, NOT the council, to run an election!
It has escaped your notice that once council has decided by bylaw, (67 & 68-2006) what the voting method will be, it is then the legal responsibility of the Clerk to run the election by the rules specified by that method of voting!
Any further action by the council such as instituting an election policy, or any interference by a candidate such as trying to get council to institute such a policy, would be viewed legally as an attempt to influence a vote and could nullify the election results!
Is that your goal? Do you want to be able to challenge the election results if you don’t like who the people vote for?
If so, let me assure you the Clerk/Returning Officer and this council will not give you the opportunity to replace democracy with what John Strachan wants!

All your assumptions about the 2014 election have been proven wrong – in law!
Every straw man you raise has been knocked down!
Your desperation to salvage something rather than admit your mistakes is showing as you’ve been reduced to baseless personal attacks on staff members.

It’s time to stop now John – before you lose all your credibility!

J. Turner
Councilor TSBP