| Doggone lack of horse sense |
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| Written by Rob Bennett | |
| Wednesday, 07 February 2007 | |
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This is a tale of two people. One is yours truly, the other a member of the community. At issue - a dog park; the kind of park where you and fido can roam free without a leash and play and frolic with other dogs and dog-lovers in a city park.
1. In the beginning, the idea was to have the city donate land it owns by the Ron Woods baseball complex for a dog park. We could fence it, put in some landscaping, and just have a low-maintenance place for off-leash dog activities. The proposal the city council accepted was to match $25,000 dollar-for-dollar with money raised by the community for a $50,000 dog park in the end not counting the value of the land. Enter Mr. Tony McGuire, a dog park advocate and patron of other dog parks in the valley, especially Taylorsville. As we were on the same side of this issue at this time, his e-mails to me and back to him were very cordial.
2. While this was going on, the city had been working with the county on a make-good deal to reimburse West Jordan for a portion of the Soccer Complex that they had verbally committed to pay be had not contractually done so. The county at this point was willing to give West Jordan $400,000 to forgive the debt and make it even. From this next e-mail, it is evident that this is an intriguing potential in light of the money needing to be raised to use to build a dog park. Note, tone of messages still very friendly.
Can the county's money count as the community's half to be raised?
3. At this point, the tone of the messages changes. The originally agreed-upon amount of $50,000 is not enough now and it is suggested that doing this will result in an "irrigated weed lot."
4. The McGuires start lobbying the county council (as is their right). They make the case that if West Jordan does not use the money appointed to it from the county for a dog park, the money should be taken from them and be given to some other city in the county. So, in my estimation, they are working against West Jordan now - dealing with money that wasn't theirs (reimbursement to the city for the soccer complex construction costs) and had not been determined by our city council how it ultimately was going to be used.
Working against us, how are you going to get our cooperation?
5. Things started to get a little nasty now. On Tony's web site, www.wjcitycouncil.com a picture goes up next to my name. He took it down after I got huffy with him, but it looked something like this, only black and white. Now I can take a comedic hit as good as the next guy, but when my kids might look at this and wonder why their dad is showing up as a horse's rear end, I
6. Mr. McGuire sent another e-mail to the city council that included me. Our city web site has a single address set up to forward a copy of any e-mails sent to it to every council member. I had previously requested that Tony stop sending me e-mails on this issue since I felt I knew what his stand was. After another one came, I let emotion get the better of me and replied in light of the picture that he had posted of me on his site above.
7. Well, this fanned the fires and resulted in some press coverage.
8. In the meanwhile, I received some letters of support from people who apparently knew of the tactics being used here and did not support them.
9. I felt that Mr. McGuire got what he deserved, but I did feel regret for dragging the city council into it by expressing that "we" felt that way about him when it should have been "me." However, an argument that Mr. McGuire pursued was how in appropriate it was for me to use city e-mail to send my message to him. What he refused to recognize was that he had sent all of his e-mails to my city e-mail address - what was I supposed to do? Copy his text from what I received at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it just for the purpose of responding in a way he did not like? I did not feel that this argument made sense, and let him know it.
"What am I supposed to do?" message (forgive the spelling errors)
However, I don't like mixing it up with anyone, and so I did issue an apology to the rest of the city council explaining my point of view.
10. Time has passed. The heat of the moment has subsided (for me). There were several instances of confrontation later with Mr. McGuire waiting until a council meeting was over and then yelling at the council members for being "idiots" as they were leaving the dais. But all I can do is take accountability for my own actions. I regret that I got into the dust-up with Mr. McGuire and called him names. It is never right to take the well-traveled road and go after someone whether you feel they deserve it or not.
In a spirit of trying to bury the hatchet (not literally), I attempted to approach Mr. McGuire after the end of our council meeting on Tuesday, February 6th just to say I was sorry for my part of the incident. He turned his back on me and walked away, muttering "You have nothing to say that I want to hear" and walked out of the chamber. My parting shot as he left was "I'm sorry."
I guess that will have to do. My intent is to be sure to follow the high road from this point on whether my opponent (whoever it may be) happens to do so. It is the least I should be able to do to show respect for the office which I have been entrusted by the people to uphold. Some lessons are only learned the hard way, but it is important that they are learned.
There is no question that I am still learning.
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decided enough was enough.