Hold your nose and vote in the council race

As a veteran T.O. City Council watcher/participant, I find this year's race to be truly hilarious and hideous at the same time. As one who will have to hold his nose to vote, as vote we must, here are some facts:

I asked several times that Mr. Masry, who was so generous with his money, should put aside $100,000 in escrow for an election to replace him should that become necessary. Neither he nor his political chief of staff, Louis, ever responded.

The city clerk used inflated costofelection estimates to justify not having an election, even if Fox and Gillette felt compelled to fill the seat. They should have listened to the will of the voters and appointed someone who held Ed Masry's views and not a crony who is the antithesis of the former councilman. Or they could have appointed him on the condition that he run for the seat in the first regularly scheduled election.

It's true that council people do not have chiefs of staff. But Louis Masry was the eyes and ears for the councilman. In the 2004 election, he installed Ed's signs-I wrote him and talked with him about removing the signs that violated the ordinance.

He ignored the law while candidate Jacqui Irwin promptly complied, making me support her.

How can you support lawmakers who would break the law? Louis Masry also is sneaky in saying that he is president of the Chamber, a Chamber which competes with our local Chamber.

It is true that $320 won't buy a vote or influence. But when you have cumulative money from many, that amounts to thousands of dollars like the Auto Mall, and they have issues (that go before the council such as) parking for new cars, as well as customer parking.

There is a rotten egg here.

It is a shame that the minority has painted only the developers as the so-called bad guys while there are many special interests that come before the council asking for favors that make them lots of money. (Other entities need) to be kept in check by good council people.

The bogeyman of slow growth is a fraud as most dirt in this town has been paved over for a decade now. Saying no to small 5 or 15unit projects does not improve our quality of life.

Everyone says that they support housing for our children, firefighters, etc. but Janet Wall and Claudia Bill-de la Peña insist on perfection for these muchneeded small homes by voting no or asking for amenities that make the projects losers for the (developers). Either they do not understand how business works, or they are no growth people.

On the Fox/Gillette side, John Glenn has embraced the good ol' boys by even giving $320 to Andy Fox. Bob Wilson, who ran with Claudia and then stabbed her by going to the other side, is playing the role of spoiler but could pull enough votes to have the net result of no change on the council.

A vote for Elaine McKearn or Jerry Goodman would send a message to the powers that be that you can't fool all the people all the time.

Lord help us in T.O. Nick Quidwai Newbury Park