Thursday, October 7, 2010

Crowsnest Pass misconceptions, and the picture the authors paint

Today my fellow blogger and candidate for Mayor talks about one of the local papers in the Crowsnest Pass and the picture they paint.
http://blog.johnprince.ca/

Well this raises a great opportunity to talk once more about the great bogeyman of the last three years the 4-3 vote.
If I was a complete stranger coming in to this town I would assume based on what I have read that every decision made by council over the last three years was by a vote of 4-3.

I will try to clear the picture for those that have been brain washed, we had four councilors that stood for "change" in the Crowsnest Pass, three that stood for Status Quo. And that's fine everybody gets to stand for whatever they like (its called democracy).
But yes those four councilors voted the same way on issues that involved "change", (Crowsnest Centre, Arena's, Cleanup's, Eliminating new positions at the town, building our reserves back up, stopping members of council from promoting private business) the other three members that didn't want change for the most part voted against "change".

Does that come as a big surprise that people that wanted change voted for it? of course not, no more than people that opposed change voted against it.

But the local paper with the support of those that did not want change, knowing that neither of them could come up with sound facts or arguments to oppose change did the only thing they could, they created a smoke screen the 4-3, the issues were no longer the issue the vote was.

For the information of the taxpayers, councils here and most other places have been spilt for one reason or another forever. The issue here, was and is "change". It will be the same on the next council, , look at the list of candidates, we all know some will fight for "change" and some will oppose it, I do not expect seven to be elected all in favour of change or against.

I challenge anybody to look at the local newspaper from 2004-2007 and find one mention of the 4-3 as a big issue, guess what we had a 4-3 council three councilors believed in change four believed in Status Quo, and believe or not when the issue of change came up it got voted down 3-4.

A while back I reviewed all motions of council, well in excess of 90% were decided by something other than 4-3. Why because they dealt with something other than change.

Its no different than the corporate reviews on council, all three of them gave council a less than impressive reviews, three different councils, which all had only one thing in common the leader Mayor Irwin, as that ever been spoke about in the local paper?

Yes in my six years on council I have seen the Mayor as the Chair of council allow certain people the opportunity to rant and rave in the council chambers, with not a word said by him or the local paper.
I approached several members of the media when I first got on council about reporting these types of performances, they told me that they did not want to take sides, I told them I didn't want them to, I only asked them if somebody ranted and raved like a lunatic report it.

Anyway lets decide this election on real issues, do we want change or not?

8 comments:

Chloe said...

For sure the media in CNP have no shame or perhaps they simply don't realize how moronic they look when pulling their 'Poll' stunt. An unknown brought in as their candidate to maintain the 'old ways' and they think the good folks can't see through this crap? All the best with the campaign Dean, CNP sorely needs to boot the old out and bring on some fresh thinkers. Take care.

Anonymous said...

Dean Dean Dean....

You are dealing in 'facts'

The Herald, for as long as I've lived in the pass, doesn't care about 'facts'. It's a tabloid based on emotions and the opinions of the publishers.

It's about as far away from journalism as it's possible to get and still have the ink stick to the paper.

We all know what the deal is with the Herald -- it's like the Mad Magazine of community newspapers.

Anonymous said...

"A while back I reviewed all motions of council, well in excess of 90% were decided by something other than 4-3."

Is this data available to us?

Crowsnest Pass Home said...

A lot of this data is available on the Municipal web site, under council minutes, the only issue is it shows you all the motions that were unamimously or defeated on the motions that were carried I go back to my notes where I recorded who voted which way on the ones that are marked carried.
Bit of work involved but its a good opportunity to read all the minutes.

Anonymous said...

Wow, that's crazy man. They should really try to do something to fix that.

Don said...

I realize the poll is closed regarding advertising in both papers; BUT.... when this becomes an issue its certainly shows the sad state of the finances of C.N.P. treasury! Whats with that.

Don said...

If the issue is about the money that coucil is spending on 2 papers to keep the locals informed; the state of the finances looks pretty sad..... WHATS WITH THAT! Don

Anonymous said...

Wow, that's crazy man. They should really try to do something to fix that.