Olive oil, haircolour make campaign trail slippery

Elections — you gotta love them.
Candidates are throwing money around, putting strangle holds on their own tongues, carrying olive oil on the campaign trail and getting up at the crack of dawn to count words and asking to not turn up in this blog
In Newmarket, Ward 3 candidate John Bissonnette has issued a challenge to opponents Jane Twinney and Victor Woodhouse to match his "if elected" promise to donate the first $10,000 of his councillor salary to Southlake Regional Health Centre.
The ghost of Canadian Prime Minister John Diefenbaker must be coaxing Bissonnette from the grave. Dief the Chief use to try to steal political thunder by refusing to take the PM’s salary.
Guess what Newmarket Ward 1 Tom Vegh candidate did. He climbed out of bed just after the rooster crowed, checked the York Region Newspaper Group’s webpage, clicked on to Election 2006, found the profiles of about 125 candidates running across York Region and counted words.
In readiness for the election section, we’d asked candidates to restrict their platform submissions to 100 words. Vegh respected our request and we thank him for that. It seems we caused the candidate to worry. During a call to make sure we hadn’t changed the word restriction rule, Vegh did a bit of tattle tailing by reporting that other candidates had broken the 100-word rule.
In another conversation, Vegh made it very clear: he’s not a fan of this blog. He reads it, doesn’t like it and ask that  I not comment on him. There’s one sure way to escape this blog: Don’t run for public office.
Here’s a message to an Aurora candidate for mayor. “Oh Phyllis. Oh Phyllis. Would you stop changing the colour of your hair.”
For goodness’ sake, woman, leave your head alone and just get out there and paint the town. Incidentally, the brown with blonde highlights looks very good.
You’d have to be living on the moon not to know King City’s can’t get its head out of the sewer. What is it with King Township? It’s like a dog with a bloody bone.
A few days ago, Ward 1 candidate Stephen Kornblum went to an information meeting hosted by The King Preserve the Village Group. Of course, the subject was sewers.
“It was everything I could do to keep from opening my mouth,”  Kornblum said. “Two of the speakers (mayoralty candidate) Steve Pellegrini and (Ward 1) candidate Cleve Mortelliti delivered the “If I get elected,” line. “
Kornblum is right. It wasn’t an election forum. It was an information meeting.
“I wanted to remind the candidates of that but I decided to keep my yap shut.”
Thank you Mr. Kornblum. Silence can be rewarding.
In Markham, perennial mayoralty candidate Sam Orrico stepped onto the stage at an all-candidates forum, dug into his pocket and produced a bottle of olive oil. Sam has a beef. Since olives need tropical climates, he can’t grow them in Markham, he told the audience.

Comments

[Richard Johnson]

Hi Joan:

I for one love your blog as well as Phyllis Morris's hair colour, but for the record, that is not my primary reason for supporting Morris for Mayor.

Lord knows that we need to change the colour of politics in Aurora, starting from the top down.

RJ

[Bruce]

Phyllis should also change the way she brags about being elected deputy mayor when we know this position is an APPOINTMENT by council to serve only in the Mayor's absence, putting up election signs in forbidden areas on regional roads on weekends, and twisting your recommendation in the Era Banner to enter federal politics into an endorsement for running for mayor.

[Jim]

Well those are some rather petty comments don't you think Bruce? I guess I'll just chalk you up as another one of Aurora's cranky old white men who see conspiracies around every corner and feel threatened by women, children and puppies.

[Richard Johnson]

I hate to wade into this type of low level discussion, but Bruce should be made aware that the Deputy Mayor is the designation given to the councillor with the most number of votes on council, which was clearly Phyllis in 2003 (74.5% of ballots cast) and I think it is a real stretch to say Phyllis ever misused the title once you know the facts. This is precisely the type of petty argument most people in Aurora are fed up with, which is why a change on Council is so desperately needed. FYI… the 2003 election results can be found at the following website: http://www.phyllismorris.net

As far as the sign "issue" is concerned, I know that great care has been taken to follow the sign rules but it is true that four of Phyllis's signs were picked up by the Region. In fact, I was told that there was a huge pile of signs from all of the candidates, including at least three of Mayor Jones' signs and if we are going to wade into this low level of debate further, interested parties may want to read the sign rules that state that signs on Regional roads can not be more than four feet high. If anyone actually enforced this rule I expect that Mayor Jones would loose a whole lot more than four signs, so once again Bruce may want to do some homework before passing comment in an effort to tarnish Phyllis.

As far as the Era Banner "energiser bunny" quote is concerned; anyone that knows Phyllis knows that there is no one that works harder for the people of Aurora than Phyllis. I realise that this may be hard for you to accept, but cutting ribbons is not the only town business that needs to be addressed in a public forum.

I could go on about our current Mayor's closed door meetings, apparent (and possibly real) conflicts of interest, apathy and a lack of ability to restore decorum, accountability and transparency on council but I think people who have watched council know who has been guilty of most if not all of the above and who has tried to roll up their sleeves and represent the citizens of this town proactively.

Should you ever want to actually debate town issues worthy of our time during an election, please feel free to respond. The petty comments that I fully expect the Mayor, his campaign team or his supporters to have planted at the recent all-candidates as well as, I fully expect, in the local media, have been easily and well handled by both Phyllis and Nigel, so with any luck people will cast their votes based on real issues of concern. For the record, I (along with my wife) witnessed two Jones supporters removing their "Jones" buttons before asking the same "Deputy Mayor" question at the recently taped all-candidates meeting at the Town Hall. Why do you think that people well known to be working on the mayor's campaign would remove their buttons before asking a loaded question ? Optics ? Smoke and Mirrors ? I think we both know the games that are being played by some, so at some point I really hope that we can get back to the town's real business in a respectful and well informed fashion.

[Samuel]

I for one, think that you have the wrong info here and I agree with Tom Vegh I do not like these blogs either. Tom is a very kind man and it sucks just reading this stuff about him.

Thanks,
Samuel

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