Editor:
Re: W.R. council axes email-explanation request, June 17.
White Rock Mayor Wayne Baldwin’s vindictive off-topic attack on Coun. Helen Fathers for trying to clarify the situation regarding ‘emailgate’ during the June 13 council meeting was appalling.
The email “silliness” that the mayor wants to end (End this silliness: Baldwin, June 3) all comes from the mayor himself.
He made the silly attempt to block residents’ emails. The only silly, abusive emails I have seen are the ones that he has written to residents.
The right to free speech is not silly. The right for citizens to make legitimate representations to those they elected is not silly. The right to submit Freedom of Information requests is not silly, it is the law.
It is silly to claim that any of this constitutes cyber bullying. Democracy is not silly.
A new council motion and new bylaw on governance is necessary to prevent mayors from saying and doing whatever they like, when and wherever they like, without council approval.
Keith Knightson, White Rock
