The following letter is written in response to an article entitled “The Issue that Poisoned Anmore Politics” by Mr. Larry Barron. Mr. Barron’s article is part of a series of misleading and disparaging diatribes in which he attempts to discredit many citizens of Anmore. As Mr. Barron is now running for council, I am of the opinion that the contents of this letter should be available to your readers.

Dear Mr. Barron:

Re: “The Issue that Poisoned Anmore Politics”

Even your supporters must grow weary of these same issues being flogged like the proverbial dead horse. Much as children will scare themselves while telling each other ghost stories, you and your adherents appear to have convinced yourselves of the existence of secret plots and sinister dealings. I hold no illusions of being able to change your perception. You have the right to believe what you like, but when, in your drive to expose these non-existent wrong-doings, you publicly seek to destroy the reputations of people who have given so much of themselves for this village you are overstepping the line. It seems that you cannot grasp the concept that someone could possibly run for council or volunteer for the community without having an ulterior motive such as personal power or revenge.

I will use your feeble accusations against myself as an example of how far you will go to support your fabrications. I suppose that I should be flattered that you found my activities interesting enough to warrant a background check. As you indicated, I did indeed belong to the Anmore Youth and Community Services Society in 2005. I attended only three meetings during which we discussed the general idea and set-up of this society which is similar to philanthropic groups that exist in many other municipalities. In 2005 the idea of a daycare in Anmore was never on the agenda. To suit your purpose you have created this non-existent link between myself and the daycare and then surmised that as Councillor Piamonte voted against the daycare, I must have a personal vendetta against him. To further enhance this theory you point out my connection to the Anmore Garden Club. Councillors Piamonte and Sedergreen’s attacks on the reputation of the garden club members were offensive, but as no one took them seriously, the councillors did more damage to their own reputations than ours by making such unfounded, ugly allegations against a volunteer group. Your attempt to slot me into your grand scheme of conspiracies, corruption and power has no basis and in fact it gives a perfect example of the manipulation of facts that you employ.

You need not have gone to such trouble to create some underlying motive for my persistence in questioning Councillor Piamonte regarding his behaviour after the council meeting of August 20th: my sole purpose was to clarify the events which led to his censure so that the true cause of the censure would be known. My questions provided Councillor Piamonte with the opportunity to correct any errors in my account of the facts in which I alleged that Councillor Piamonte experienced a serious loss of control following the August 20^th meeting, that he used violent and threatening language against Councillor Palmer-Isaak and Mayor Anderson and that the police were called in because of it. By omitting these important and key facts in the case he and his supporters deceived the public and then attempted to discredit the Mayor and Councillor by accusing them of bringing an unfounded censure against him. My interest in this case does not involve a personal grudge about petty insults; this is an important issue that concerns all the citizens of Anmore, especially now that Councillor Piamonte is running for the position of Mayor of Anmore. In Councillor Piamonte’s election platform he makes the claim that “Transparency, trust and citizen engagement will be at the core”. If this is true then Councillor Piamonte should have answered my letters, admitted to unacceptable behaviour, accepted the censure and made a public apology. Instead he allowed you, Mr. Barron, to defend his behaviour by calling his appalling language “potty-mouthed” and condoned your distasteful letter which downplayed a serious incident.

Mr. Barron, I think that you insult the intelligence of the citizens of Anmore when you ask us to believe in your conspiracy theories. The behaviour described in this letter is, in my mind, truly representative of what is actually poisoning Anmore politics.

Holly Koit

Anmore

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