To the editor:
My sister, Sara Inch, was elected to North Bay City Council with a desire to change the status quo and help to reverse the city’s decline – starting with better governance and administrative accountability.
To accomplish this, especially for a new member of Council, requires both assertiveness and asking tough questions. Sara has always been outspoken – she learned to be, growing up as the only girl in the family with 3 older brothers! Unfortunately, she has faced a wall of resistance at City Hall on multiple levels.
Effective leaders welcome and solicit input from others while encouraging open discussions that are without risk of intimidation and outright bullying. Sadly, this does not appear to be the environment at City Hall.
Elected councillors should be able to speak their minds honestly and objectively without fear of reprisal. I found nothing “offensive” in anything Sara wrote or said. (Indeed, all of us have much to learn from people 15-20 years older than ourselves.) Sara apologized – I am not sure why considering she wasn’t allowed to share her experience or express her feelings – which still resulted in her unfair and frankly bogus discipline.
Many of us are sick and tired of public figures who censure others’ opinions with fake professions of being offended while knowingly twisting both meaning and intent – all of which has nothing to do with the job!
North Bay should not have wasted $36,000 of taxpayer money on some Integrity Commissioner report for such a trivial matter – where is the integrity in that!? Sadly, it reflects how current elected leaders all too often continue to work for themselves instead of the taxpayer.
John Inch Jr.
Callander
