Mr. Turner:

 I have received your e-mail of  February 5^th which is attached below.

 You say my belief that councillors are elected to serve anyone is a “misconception”, yet in the next paragraph you contradict yourself by saying that councillors were elected to serve the town.  It is a contradiction because the residents are the town.  Staff are not the town.  Council is not the town.  Staff and council together are not the town.

 Your role as defined in the municipal act is “to consider the well-being and interests of the municipality”.  That “municipality” in law is the “inhabitants”, and assuming that “residents” is equivalent to “inhabitants”, your role is then to consider the well-being and interests of the residents”, which means that in law and in fact your role is to serve the residents.

 When you announced your candidacy in 2010, you were in effect promising to serve the residents.  You confirmed that promise when you took your oath of office.  You may well have had your fingers crossed, and it is clear that you never had any intention of serving, but the fact remains that you did promise to serve the residents.   It is also clear that you broke that promise.

 It is not the role of a councillor to sit in judgment of any resident.  Nor to puff up your chest and pretend to be lord and master.  Nor to berate, nor to brow-beat, nor to scold.  And contrary to your arrogant stance, you were not elected “leader”.  You were elected to serve the residents, you collect a paycheck to serve the residents, and you are expected to serve the residents. For someone whose role it is to serve it is just not proper to attack any elector who happens to criticize staff or council, regardless of whether that criticism is warranted or not.

 You say your “pompous, bombastic, arrogant, condescending, scolding behaviour” was well known before the 2010 election.

It clearly was not that well-known.  You got elected because a lot of people were fooled.  Many, having been fooled, are now embarrassed, and won’t be fooled again.

 You say you told residents in your ward what they needed to know, not what they wanted to hear.  You have completely missed the point.  There is nothing wrong with providing truthful information.  There is nothing wrong with correcting someone.  The problem is in your pompous, bombastic, arrogant, condescending, scolding manner. 

 It’s nice that as a citizen you want to protect your fellow citizens from physical harm. I guess we must both be saints, because I do too.  But in your role as councillor you are neither competent, nor authorized, nor required by law, to judge whether someone is threatening staff or members of the public with physical harm, or to judge at all, and you are certainly neither authorized nor required by law to ban anyone, or to apply any other remedy.  In viewing yourself as supreme magistrate and chief enforcement officer you are delusional, and dangerous.

 As I have indicated in my Commentary 3-26 and also in replies to comments regarding 3-26, council had a choice of whether to pay your legal fees, and unfortunately for the taxpayers council made the wrong choice.  In fact council and council alone is to blame for all litigation costs being put on the taxpayers.  Each time legal fees were considered, (including yours and John Close’s and Marilyn Bowman’s and Mike McMillan’s and Rhonda Cook’s), council had a choice, and clearly and deliberately chose to harm the residents.

 Please give my regards to Diana May.

 Yours truly,

 Craig

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From Jim Turner JET

To Craig, Jay Kirkland, Matthew Standen”Janice Jackson”Paul McKenzie”Marilyn Bowman”Karen Klages”Chris Thomas”John Close’

Feb 6 at 4:03 AM

Craig

Thank you for your best regards but given your position on this and many other issues, I find your sentiments, especially where I am involved, to be somewhat gratuitous and self-serving.

Thanks though for recognising telling the truth as “Classic Turner” – I’m flattered.  

I have always enjoyed the banter you and I traded between us, both before and after the election that saw you defeated in your bid for a council seat. The voters, more often than not, show a much higher level of intelligence than you or Mr. Strachan or some of your former council pals give them credit for having. I should say, I enjoyed the banter before your unsuccessful, and very costly to the taxpayers, attempt to have me unseated by a court of law – for doing my job! For all your talk Craig, you don’t seem to believe in democracy as a valid way to choose our leaders.

As a side note and just between us Craig, I told my wife about your attempt to invite yourself into our home for drinks and conversation. She is well known to have a very long fuse and having put up with me for more than thirty years she is certainly qualified as long-suffering, so I was quite surprised when she threatened to divorce me if I let “that ****ing moron” into her home. Also surprising was the number of people who offered to testify on her behalf that I had subjected her to cruel and unusual punishment had I let you through the door.

I don’t want this to devolve into a philosophical debate but I’m compelled, as you knew I would be, to correct your misconception that any councillor is elected to serve anyone. We are elected to represent the residents while serving the Town. That means Craig, I can’t sell you water for a dime that costs a dollar to produce. I can’t refuse to plough the road in front of your house just to keep you from appearing in court when you sue the town. It also means I ‘m required by law to protect Town staff and innocent members of the public from physical harm by banning those who threaten them.

I find it interesting that you and your friends “lash out gratuitously and wildly”;  encourage others to do the same, refer to it as a “wee bit of overreaction” and then act indignantly when I point out there was never anything to lash out at!

I’m wondering how it could be possible that the way that Bylaw 15-2014 was presented, confused “many, many residents…. one former councillor” (actually two)….and John Strachan – but, according to your Craig’s Commentary, it didn’t confuse you!

By the way Craig my, according to you, “pompous, bombastic, arrogant, condescending, scolding behaviour” (others call it telling it like it is) was well known before the election. Yes Craig I told “residents in my ward”, “residents in other wards”, “you” and “John Strachan”  not what they or you wanted to hear but what they needed to know!  Do you think once I was elected I was obligated to tell them they were right when they were wrong? I guess I’m not a good politician because I won’t lie or pretend to be someone I’m not just to get a few votes.

As for the 2010 election and the good people of Ward 1, are you saying that in my first attempt at council I was good enough to have fooled them – or do you just consider them a bunch of idiots easily taken in?

You have no idea what my intentions were! I never promised anything to anyone beyond a change from what we were forced to put up with from your old pals. I think I’ve delivered on that!

I’ve told special interest groups they weren’t special. I’ve told people they were wrong when they were wrong – friend or foe. I’ve fought to maintain what few property rights we have by helping deny Town staff the right of entry to your property without your permission and yes I’ve defended town staff when they got blamed and attacked for doing the job council told them to do.

I’ve given you lots more meat to feed your endless bitching Craig but I’m going to stop now because just like you I’m starting to sound like I’m campaigning and I haven’t yet decided if representing the 98% of people in our town who are good is worth spending the time to “beat up on” the 2% like you!