"Cowardice asks the question...is it safe? Expediency asks the question...is it politic? Vanity asks the question...is it popular? But conscience asks the question...is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because it is right." ~Dr. Martin Luther King

Tuesday 17 November 2009

If It Wasn't so Hostile

It would be comical. Last night at a budget committee meeting, I referred to Cash In Lieu of Parkland ,(eleven and a half million dollars), as a slush fund.

The Mayor promptly interrupted to direct a query to the Treasurer.

"Do we have a reserve known as a slush fund. Mr. Elliott? she asked.

"No Madam Mayor" he responded with suitable deference.

A chuckle emanated from somewhere.

The mayor declared emphatically, "I don't think that's funny."

"Aye, there's the rub". I thought and then said : "You are remarkably lacking in humour, Madam Mayor."

True to her oft repeated goal of bringing decorum to the proceedings, she shouted me down in mid-sentence.

In similar context, Councillor Collins Mrakas recently exploded in exasperation and exhortation called upon the deity as witness to her trials. "For God's Sake" she implored.

Whereupon the Mayor declared "profanity is against the rules". The Councillor took the "Lord's Name in Vain"and that's an offence punishable by "exclusion" from the Council Chamber.

I suppose the question might be...how great a punishment might it be to be excluded from the Chamber in the current circumstance

That must have been the mayor's reference when she recently explained to a reporter how she had brought "light" and decorum to Council and "had to believe it was right"

5 comments:

Heather said...

Hahahah! I'm happy I wasn't there. They would have tossed me out to the sidewalk for laughing uncontrollably. Sounds like it could have been a Monty Python skit!! :)

Anonymous for a Reason said...

I'd have been laughing along with you, Heather.
If the same comment had been made by Granger or Gaertner, the response would have been different. Self-indulgent, false bonhomie would result.
Adjust the target on your back, Councillor Buck.
Make Morris work for every shot at you she thinks she's making, because they just boomerang back on herself.

Anonymous said...

I love the boomerang comment! It is so true

White Knight said...

Our mayor has turned what should be responsible proceedings into a comedy, a farce... or even into something as combative as a Punch & Judy show.

White Knight said...

I think what makes me want to puke about all of this is that we know for a fact that the mayor uses foul language far more inappropriate than taking the Lord's name in vain. One only has to be half decent at lip reading and listening carefully when her mic is off to know this is true.