On the front page of his website as at 10:10 pm 05 11 13, Mayor Haime writes: "Leanne Veres was the only one who sent a message expressing regrets."
As a matter of fact, after waiting 6 days for the Lantzville Log Society (the Treasurer of which is the Mayor's wife and candidate for Lantzville councillor, Denise) to select a moderator for me to consider in terms of suitability and capability, I sent, on Thurs., Nov. 10th, the following email to Linda Robinson, the member of the Lantzville Log Society board who had invited me to participate:
First of all, thank you for the invitation to the Candidates' meeting you have arranged for Sat., Nov. 12 at Costin Hall. As you know, I and others have already expressed serious concerns about the lack of impartiality on the part of the majority of the Lantzville Log Society Board, which is sponsoring the event. Also, I have yet to be informed of a moderator being chosen who is acceptable to all potential participants. Our team of candidates, who came together because we share a common concern that the wishes of the majority are not being respected in Lantzville, are out daily knocking on people's doors and hearing their concerns/issues, we have an office in Seaview Plaza where information is posted and people are welcome to drop in when someone is there, we have two internet presences where people can read about the issues and leave their comments, our phone numbers are all listed in the local directory and we are having our third opportunity for residents to meet us at Costin Hall mere hours before your meeting is scheduled, so I feel the public already has ample opportunity to get to know us as individuals, ask us questions and share their views with us. Therefore, once again, thank you for your invitation but I will NOT be attending the meeting the Lantzville Log Society has arranged for this Saturday night at Costin Hall. Based upon this, could you please arrange to cease referring to the meeting as an 'All-Candidates Meeting', in both your signage and any other advertising of the event.
While I technically did not use the word 'regrets' in my reply, I think you will agree that I did respectfully state that I would NOT be attending and I had never said that I would. I have also seen a copy of an email which councillor candidate Mark Wilson sent to Ms. Robinson and in which he says much the same thing and that he also won't be able to be there. You will need to judge for yourselves whether or not I should be held responsible for someone else's decision not to tell the residents of Lantzville this simple fact. Why can't Mr. Haime just be truthful about these things? I note further that I was ultimately only informed of the moderator candidate at 4:10 pm on Friday afternoon, a mere 15 hours before the start of this meeting.
I also think that it is worthy to note, in terms of assessing impartiality of the sponsor, that the previous editor of the Lantzville Log, Lyndon Allbury, was a sitting Trustee of the Lantzville Improvement District, serving with much of the current council.
If you want to 'blame' me for choosing not to attend, please consider that I have formulated my own campaign strategy based on my limited resources of time and money and, above all, I wanted to keep my focus on running a positive campaign. Also, you don't hear me complaining that they're not out meeting residents on their doorsteps, do you?
Sincerely,
Hans J. Larsen
Lantzville councillor candidate
