Signs have appeared anonymously next to Candidate Pat Gallagher Jette Election Signs. A serious matter for Elections NB.
It bears repeating that in politics seasoned campaigners raise issues that play to their candidate’s strengths and go out of their way to avoid those that don’t.
One of the hot button issues in this Rothesay election has been transparency or the lack of it at Council. As the pictures taken yesterday show, the issue is by no means dead. What is so bizarre is that the Candidate who has the most credibility on the issue, Pat Gallagher Jette doesn’t appear to have been the one raising it so publicly again yesterday.
While the sign was placed anonymously, it is unlikely that Jette’s supporters would have reason to place it juxtaposed to Jette’s campaign sign. The anonymous placing of the sign cries out for further comment… Yes I’m taking the bait…
The flash point for the debate on transparency was what should have been a routine report to Council by Blair MacDonald, the outgoing chair of Council’s Finance Committee. At the March Council meeting Blair advised Council that his Committee had unanimously approved a resolution to obtain expressions of interest for an independent audit of the Town’s financial and procurement practises. Council had previously budgeted the money for a study.
However, MacDonald’s study was ambushed at that March Council meeting. Before the meeting, town staff had prepared a recommendation to scale back the study scope and punt it to the next council after the election. A number of councillors picked up on issues raised in the staff report, questioning the need for more oversight or the cost.
This sign was placed next to a Gallagher Jette election sign adjacent to Fox Farm Road. Its owner was not identified as required by the Elections Act.
Deputy Mayor Grant, who had voted for it at Finance Committee, also apparently had a change of heart and sided with the staff report. She brought forward a motion to have the proposal tabled until it could be looked at by a new council. Grant’s motion failed to get a seconder and was lost. That is where I believe Grant rolled the political dice without considering the the optics of her move. The outcome was not to be in her favour and actions taken after that would look, to some, like political damage control.
What followed was clearly politically painful for those who didn’t support MacDonald. Rothesay voters were treated to nearly four weeks of public indignation that began when the Telegraph Journal published a story (Follow this link if you are a TJ online subscriber) on March 15th. The issue spun further out of control for nearly a month with clumsy issue control, an editorial in the paper siding with MacDonald’s audit, op eds from both sides, and numerous letters to the editor, most supporting the audit. The Deputy Mayor, Nancy Grant, was clearly offside with public sentiment on transparency and accountability less than two months away from the start of her campaign to become Mayor.
The audit proposal was eventually brought back for a vote in the April Council meeting and councillors, perhaps chastened by the controversy and with the door to door campaign looming, hastily voted to move ahead with the audit.
Ironic now that someone apparently unhappy with Councillor Gallagher Jette’s election sign reference to her ongoing support for the audit saw fit to reignite the debate with an anonymously placed sign next to Jette’s at the bottom of Fox Farm Road. That is an ironic take on transparency and probably in violation of the NB Elections Act…
We’ll see if it lasts until election day. Please share this post if you believe others would benefit from the added context before they vote.