I have been thinking about the past six months and what lessons to take away from ‘Twittergate” … in which I was found innocent of violating s. 11 of the City of Waterloo Code of Conduct. For the most part, I have chosen not to comment on this episode. However, Waterloo Council is planning on reviewing the procedural bylaw and there will likely be a temptation to ban all electronic devices – smart phones, bb’s, laptops – and social media from council chambers based on this one event. In my opinion, that would be a huge mistake.
As a result, I feel it is important to provide some context to the June 20th council meeting. The media has never provided a full accounting of the events … and I’ve had a multitude of people ask me what was said that upset me so much.
These are the tweets that I made in Chambers:
• Winchester Drive infill project: 55 high-end Cook Homes condos in a @citywaterloo Beechwood neighbourhood. Neighbours are furious.
• Delegation identifies himself as from #communitech and then proceeds to argue that only Beechwood single-family homes say “Waterloo” #shock
• Delegations angry that the development doesn’t have its own recreational facilities, like a pool. “They” may want to use the neighbours!
• I am aghast. Embarrassed. Furious. #notimpressed #this is NOT my Waterloo.
• About to revisit my prairie girl roots, connect with Tommy Douglas and share some very honest and blunt thoughts about community
These tweets were made in response to comments such as these made in chambers by delegations such as this one (a very small sample taken from the publicly available transcript):
“We are all three the kind of international immigrants that any city would kill to have move to their city.”
“I can speak for the neighbourhood, no one has appreciated how Mr. Cook. Mr. Adelson and Ms. Passy have talked to us like we are eight year old children while trying to spin their greedy profiteering into something it is not.”
“The one issue we would have fought to the death on: Having homes backing onto our pool and tennis courts.”
The public record shows that this delegation was specifically warned by Mayor Halloran, as derogatory comments about city staff and the developer were made repeatedly.
My public statements in council chambers and in the press mirror my twitter statements:
“I am going to try to be very brief, very measured, and likely too blunt for some of the people in the audience because I am quite upset about what we have witnessed here tonight and concerned about what it says about our community. My Waterloo does not subscribe to the notion that single-family, double-car garaged homes in a neighbourhood with exclusive use of swimming pools are the norm and the future of Waterloo.”
The Record reported it as: http://www.therecord.com/news/local/article/550917–beechwood-townhouse-plan-approved-despite-objections-from-neighbours
As noted, many of the delegations that night brought forward really relevant information and concerns about storm water runoff issues – perfect information for us to be aware of and deal with. In retrospect, I wish that I had left the room after Mayor Halloran warned the delegation. I knew that I was getting angry and I could sense that my tongue was about to unfurl … I was so aware of that reality, that I wrote down my ‘official’ statement so I wouldn’t go off track when the time came to comment (see above).
To this day, I will not apologize for having a strong opinion and taking a public stand for values that I believe in. It is not okay to evoke inflammatory images of killing and death in public dialogue about community pools and neighbourhoods. It just isn’t. Our public chambers are not a venue for members of the public to berate and attack our employees or other members of the community. I believe that there is something fundamentally wrong with a system that expects comments such as these to be ‘respected’. I will not apologize for believing that these comments were not acceptable.
However, any given experience must be about what you learn and take forward:
I do understand that using Twitter to vent my frustration re: the delegation’s presentation was not the best choice.
People wonder why I haven’t apologized. I asked for and would have welcomed the opportunity to speak to the complainant via mediation, but I was not allowed to.
Would I do it again? I hope not. Will I continue to push the limits of what is accepted as traditional? Yes.
I will continue to advocate for the use of social media to expand our ability to communicate with our constituency. This episode has provided me with the opportunity to really think about the power of social media. Yes, Twitter is fun and cool … and it is also very powerful. There must be a very purposeful and beneficial way to use it for the good of the community. We have some big plans in the hopper to do just that.
