[Summit] On the Recall Kevin Jackson Steering Committee Letter
Martha Fraenkel
mfraenkel at gmail.com
Tue Jul 11 12:22:40 UTC 2017
i don't like the letter that was mailed out either, but how are a
candidate's past actions irrelevant?
On 7/11/2017 8:03 AM, Robert Mathiesen wrote:
> I've read the letter now. Annie,
>
> I think you've substantially misrepresented the content of the letter
> when you speak of "the candidates' positions on the recall." How each
> candidate voted in that election is indeed moot now.
>
> However, what in not in the slightest way moot is whether a candidate
> actually bothered to vote at all in the recall election. That fact
> does bear on each candidate's "engagement in the ward." The same
> Democratic candidate who did not show up to vote at all in that
> election, a lawyer named Dan Chaika, also did not bother to show up at
> the very recent question-and-answer session at the Rochambeau
> Library. We were told that he had a last-minute scheduling conflict
> -- the same sort of excuse he gave for not voting in the recall
> election. This does indeed give one a sense of his "engagement in the
> ward" -- or rather, of his lack of engagement in the ward.
>
> I would even say that by his absence on these two crucial occasions he
> has shown contempt for the concerns of the mass of individual voters
> in our ward. This feels to me like the contempt that the privileged
> routinely display in their doings for the rest of the populace. It is
> despicable. -- Bob M
>
> On Tue, Jul 11, 2017 at 5:31 AM, Michael McGlynn <mmcglynn at gmail.com
> <mailto:mmcglynn at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> Let's ask the recall committee directly if they were the source of
> the letter. I've CC'd their communications person, Art Norwalk, on
> this message.
>
> On Tue, Jul 11, 2017 at 1:18 AM Robert Mathiesen
> <rmath13 at gmail.com <mailto:rmath13 at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> I'd like to know whether the letter really is from the Recall
> Steering Committee, or whether it is a piece of deception
> coming from some other source. We live in an age of
> behind-the-scenes political manipulation and disinformation,
> after all. -- Bob M.
>
> On Tue, Jul 11, 2017 at 12:20 AM, Annie Voss-Altman
> <ahava27 at telus.net <mailto:ahava27 at telus.net>> wrote:
>
> We received a disturbing letter in the mail today, as did,
> we assume, many others in Ward 3. It was in a plain
> envelope and bore no return address. When we opened it,
> we saw that it was a letter from the Recall Kevin Jackson
> Steering Committee, purporting to inform us of the Ward 3
> candidates' positions on the recall. We are writing this
> letter to the community to object to the Committee's
> decision to engage in politics in this manner.
>
> First, despite the Committee's claim that the candidates'
> response to the recall is "indicative of their engagement
> in the Ward," it is nothing of the kind. While the
> Steering Committee's hard work admirably bore its fruit in
> the Spring, that work is now done, and the candidates'
> positions on the recall are no longer relevant. This
> letter rehashes an old vote without substantively engaging
> current concerns.
>
> Second, asking the candidates how they voted on the recall
> is effectively creating a simplistic litmus test based on
> that vote (and tacitly violates the privacy right that
> attaches to the fundamental right to vote) without asking
> the candidates to substantively address the important
> issues the Jackson debacle raised -- such as what they
> would do to fix the ethically broken system that resulted
> in the recall in the first place or prevent it from recurring.
>
> Third, this election is about our shared future. The
> house meetings, town hall forums, and personal visits that
> have been going on these past two to three months have
> emphasized the issues of concern to Ward 3: our schools,
> our community, public safety, affordable housing, and the
> overall quality of life in our city. Asking about -- and
> publishing -- their opinions on Mr. Jackson's recall
> offers little substance to us, the voters, and has the
> potential to negatively influence the tone and direction
> of the campaign.
>
> We applaud Ms. La Fortune's decision not to respond to the
> Steering Committee's request. We also lament the Steering
> Committee's decision to probe the candidates for this
> information in the first place, then use its time and
> resources to publish it in a mass mail out. Given the
> many important issues at stake in this election regarding
> our future, we are sorry to see that the Steering
> Committee is still mired in our past.
>
> Howard & Annie Voss-Altman
>
>
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