I’m still scratching my head about James Crosty’s letter (NewsLeader, Oct. 4) equating an alleged drama in New Westminster’s council chamber with the factionalized U.S. political campaign. Nothing could be further from the truth in this city, where consensus has been the byword for many years. This latest “drama,” manufactured by Voice, the political party, is an old, old tactic: if you feel your defences might be weak—attack.

Mr. Crosty deliberately avoids the central issue—the calculated press leak by Voice of in-camera property information which might have prejudiced the city’s negotiating abilities to acquire long-desired waterfront lands for park and civic use. This represents factionalism at its worst and was nothing more than a blatant attempt to smear Mayor Wayne Wright only for trying to facilitate a valuable land acquisition for this city. What evidence does Mr. Crosty offer to illustrate that Mayor Wright “tells us what to do?” The answer is “none,” because city council operates as a democracy where the mayor has but one vote.

If councillors were always being told what to do, why did Betty McIntosh and Bob Osterman not raise their concerns earlier?

Far from being a vigorous opposition “exposing the mistakes of government,” Voice is engaging in the lowest form of gutter politics with smears and innuendo, while offering no concrete ideas or policies of their own. Instead, they are jeopardizing a wonderful property acquisition opportunity simply to score cheap political points.

The two councillors who have chosen to align themselves with this new political party have indeed drawn their own line in the sand by launching personal attacks on the mayor and a fellow councillor. The remaining councillors have certainly disagreed with one another in the past and do not operate as a bloc.

Clearly, it is councillors McIntosh and Osterman who have taken sides with a party organization. It stretches the limits of credulity to think they were unaware of this damaging press release being issued by Voice. Surely the councillors should have known about or could have predicted this embarrassment engineered by Voice in disclosing sensitive negotiating matters.

Rather than attacking the mayor and a councillor who raised a legitimate concern on behalf of the citizens of New Westminster, these two councillors should be chastising their own party’s executive for issuing press releases without consulting them.

As for decorum in the council chamber, Mayor Wright has consistently chaired meetings with the respect for all speakers. He would have been quite in order to lower the gavel on these two councillors who tried to shout him down when it was his opportunity to speak.

They know there is a proper protocol for challenging rulings of the mayor; the question is put, “shall the chair be sustained?”

If the chair is upheld, the challengers must either sit down and behave or withdraw from the meeting. Instead, these two councillors brought schoolyard bully tactics into chamber where such behaviour should in future be ruled “out of order.”

There’s only one faction in New Westminster and that’s Voice. They owe it to the citizens of this city to come clean and declare themselves for what they are: a political party.

Alison Kirkley

New Westminster