To the editor,
Re: Video shows alleged assault at Nanaimo city meeting, Aug. 1.
The lack of professionalism that has been taking place at city hall over the last few years is not only extremely disheartening, but also very embarrassing. Nanaimo is starting to become more and more well-known and it’s not because of our beautiful beaches, lakes and rivers; and it is not because of our light winters, central location or all of our beautiful hiking trails.
Instead, Nanaimo is becoming known for other reasons, wrong reasons. When people from Eastern Canada start identifying your city as that city that is suing their mayor, one simply cannot help but to feel embarrassed, but that is exactly what is going on here. Every week another scandal seems to happen or leak from city hall. News headlines including words such as dysfunction, division and bullying are all too common when it comes to media outlets describing our city’s politics and now this week one can add the words assault and profane public outburst to the mix.
I understand that the elected people of this city and the chief administrative officer all have their differences and their disagreements and I also understand that sometimes there will be certain issues that may take a long time to come up with a common agreement on, but what I simply don’t understand is why these individuals chose to resort to such inappropriate behaviour.
It is time for all the representatives of this city to act professional. A little respect for one another is all they need to stop embarrassing the people of this city who love it so much.
Michael Ribicic, Nanaimo