About Last Night...

Steve Smith spoke before the board last night and among other intelligent cogent
things he said he also said this speaking directly to Vicki Snell:

“Mrs. Snell, a recent CPRA request revealed that in a January 18 e-mail to a taxpayer

you wrote the following about Sandy Asper, a respected member of the Newport-Mesa community:

“QUOTE The latest ‘Sandy’ posts….a joke…especially her
cartoons. I believe she is losing it. UNQUOTE

And he said more regarding what else she had written including the word "haters".

Then, much to my surprise (his calling out of Vicki Snell was also a surprise), he wrote this in his blog:

"Before continuing, I want to make something very clear: Sandy Asper has one of the sharpest minds of anyone I know, and I know a lot of sharp minds. Asper is constantly focused on ideas, concepts, and solutions, unlike Snell, who would rather talk about people.

Asper doesn’t need me to come to her defense and as she reads this, she will probably bristle at my doing so. But I’m not writing this for her, I’m writing it for me– so I can tell Snell that not only is she out of line in sharing this thought with a taxpayer on the public record, she is wrong."

First, I want to publicly thank Steve for recognizing my brilliance. And I am not prickly about it.

Second, I want to confess publicly, that I have from time to time referred to people in my private communication in not-so-nice terms which I don't care to list here.

Third , I want to explain to Vicki the difference between being an elected public servant and just some person out there writing. When the ordinary citizen writes things that are targeted for a certain person or people, it is just that...their private thoughts revealed in actual words. When a publicly elected and taxpayer paid person writes something stupid than it is quite different. And even though I am sure that Vicki did not intend to have this correspondence revealed publicly, she should have known in this world of Facebook, Google, Twitter et. al. and going back even further to private letters of politicians being made public in the 70's that anything she writes or says can and might be made public. Steve was right to call her out.

OH THE UNFAIRNESS OF IT!

Also, last night and I've got to say many many many (too many many's?) times before the president of the union- Britt Dowdy has made his statement in his allotted three minutes and the board has remarked and often refuted or given a lame explanation regarding something he said. This often happens as it did last night when Britt talked about measures that should be taken on hot days.

The problem is that it really doesn't matter how wrong and/or misleading the board is in their response, Britt does not have the opportunity to respond. Nope! Never! So the lie/ misunderstanding/ uniformed/ comment from the board lives forever.

And even if he was allowed to respond, he has no mic. The Harbor Counsel PTA President, not only has a mic at her disposal throughout the meeting, but has no limit to the number of minutes she can talk!

I call B.S.!

Give the person who represents 1,216 people the mic, the time and the ability to set things straight.

P.S. I love my cartoons

P.S.S. Four members of the board are up for re-election in November