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Mr. Janyk deserved better

Letters

Editor:

I attended the recent meeting at Gibsons town hall where former mayor Barry Janyk received an official apology from the town for the malicious rant by chief administrative officer Emanuel Machado directed to Mr. Janyk and others, last June (“CAO’s comments trigger apology,” Jan. 16).

This was a brief affair, in which Mayor Beamish punted the recitation of the three-sentence apology to Mr. Machado, who read it aloud in the third person (i.e., “Mr. Machado and the Town of Gibsons … offer a complete and full retraction of the statements”). As reported, no further apologies or comments were offered by the mayor or council members pertaining to others so maligned by Mr. Machado, and the discussion ground to a halt almost as soon as it began.

The silence that followed spoke volumes. There, in the council chambers, I observed the mayor and councillors staring out like pigeons on a wire, and waited for one of them to find the moral compunction to speak and confirm that, in the future, should such a situation arise, they will not remain mute, as they did last June, but they will step up and block any such egregious indiscretion.

At the least, isn’t this a requirement of office to take a moral high road and help ensure all citizens are protected from public slander, especially when it emerges in its own chambers? Had one of them done so, last June, this action would have been nipped in the bud and injuries minimized. The town, that is, Gibsons taxpayers, would also have been spared the legal expenses to resolve this “civic dispute,” as the mayor phrased it.

The silence by mayor and council, on both occasions, is highly disappointing. Most of you are entering the second year of serving Gibsons, with new job titles and responsibilities. Mr. Janyk served the town honourably, and without scandal, for five terms. He deserved better from you.

Michael Maser, Elphinstone