Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Out and about and around town

Well, I've been out and about in the heat. That means I'm suffering, kids.

Anyway ... I was in contact with people and a couple of them made comments about posts on the old blog here.

One, a woman I will not identify said that she thought it was courageous of the Current to print a story about Jim Roy's new paper because "it is news, after all." Good point; it is indeed news. Not sure how much good business it is, but it is news.

Two, Greg Earls, who I have to identify because he was clarifying his vote last week of "present" on putting the debt exclusion on the November ballot. He explained that it was because he thought since it was 10:30 at night, no one from the public got to put their 2 cents in before the Council took a vote.

And also, if I recall correctly from the actual meeting, he had said the issue was overshadowed by the Cushing Park vote and he was not entirely comfortable voting for or against the ballot question under those circumstances.

Went to Mr. India for lunch; their lunch buffet is excellent, by the way.

Oh, yeah, and Brian Derrivan asked me if I own stock in Andre Dubus. Heeeee's a funny guy. (He wasn't at Mr. India, he was at City Hall. Not that he doesn't have the right to be in Mr. India, if he wants.)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi, Gillian,

Recall our recent conversation about comments left that were not ultimately posted (right)?

In addition to the one about the greenheads, did "posit" to your post (in which you pondered why Councilor Earls voted "present" concerning approval of the ballot question on the debt exclusion) ---

And commented that when watching the City Council meeting --- we ourselves had "intuited" that Councilor Earls voted "present" based on the stance he had previously taken about the lack of debate on council floor ...

Which is/was consistent with Greg's promotion of civic (and civil) discourse ...

And is now confirmed by the source himself.

Comity

Gillian Swart said...

Yeah, that one went right by me! I think I need to brush up on what voting "present" means. I thought it meant you had a conflict of interest. Thanks!

P.S. I hope no one else has had problems leaving comments on here. For the record, I publish all comments (so far, anyway).

Anonymous said...

In this instance, we surmised that a conflict of interest was not the case, since the councillor would not have been able to join in the discussion to begin with.

But must admit we could "intuit" a bit because we have had exchanges with Greg about public discourse, et cetera --- especially given the public "town meeting" forums during the budget process(es).

Of course, the Knowing Ones (who ask good questions and question the answer) might ask:

Was his position so strong, Councillor Earls would have voted "present" (on principle) even if three other councillors voted no or present in some combination? For then they would not have had the super-majority (8 votes) needed.

Comity

P.S., Not certain what was amiss with prior attempts to comment, but posting anonymously seems to be better than using name/url, so will simply use that means of commenting. Thanks, Gillian.