Pot, Kettle, Black - Pat Riley Dosn’t Get It

Pat Riley (Ivan Court’s co-campaign manager during the 2008 election) has attacked the Deputy Mayor for meeting with the port manager to discuss port matters.

In today’s newspaper, Stephen Chase responded to these ridiculous allegations.

“There’s an assumption that I’m involved in strong-arming people into forming their position, which is absolutely not true at all,” Chase says.  “They’ve met with other councillors. What’s the difference?”

The difference is that Pat Riley doesn’t understand the following phrase:  “pot, kettle, black“.

While trying to attack the Deputy Mayor, he admits to meeting with other councillors himself, including his buddy Ivan Court.  He also admits to meeting with councillors Bill Farren, Carl Killen and Donnie Snook.

Stephen Chase also explained what the meeting was about:  “Bill gave an overview of issues at the port, including federal funding going into Quebec ports, cruise ship terminals. The conversation also included the proposal for Long Wharf.

“There was no ask for commitment. Part of my role there as deputy mayor was not only to facilitate that meeting but to make sure everything stayed above board.”

Chase says that part of his job is to meet with stakeholders in the community.

“As deputy mayor in a leadership role, if I can facilitate dialogue, then I’ll take that opportunity.”

“It’s important for members of council to be engaged in the community; sometimes that’s over toast and coffee, sometimes it’s fish and chips and sometimes it’s just a telephone call.”

There you have it.  Our Deputy Mayor is being attacked for doing his job!

Just take a look at the various comments posted on the Telegraph-Journals website, seems I’m not the only one that strongly disagrees with Pat’s statements:

“With all due respect, does Mr. Riley not have anything better to do than point fingers and whine about this deal? The only activity at Long Wharf in memory is the cruise ship berth which leaves a substantial part of the land untouched.”

“Riley is implying heavily that the mayor is on his side. Which smells of backroom dealings.”

“Bottom Line People …. Saint Johner’s have two directions to go:

1. New development and new excitement for the city.

2. Union controlled city affairs - everything from how we spend our ever increasing property tax dollars to what beautiful buildings we can put up.

If we continue to be strong armed by unions and capitulate to them - we might as well move away.

What sickens me is so many union people like longshoreman’s and fire live outside of the city - yet have a hand in our politics. My dad was a hard working carpenter for 35 years and lost alot of money and had food taken from his children’s mouths by firemen “working” on the side building decks, etc…

Pat Riley is the face of old Saint John - we need to move on.”

“This is rediculous to say that the deputy mayor shouldn’t be meeting with people. He was elected to get things done. If the deputy mayor decides that it is within the interests of Saint John to have the development, he should be meeting with anyone who will listen to try to get this done.”

“Thank you Mr. Chase for acting for the taxpayers in researching what is best for us, not what is best for Pat Riley and his union buddies.

Does anyone not understand that Pat Riley, Able Leblanc and the municipal union leaders who supported Ivan Court have the ear of the Mayor? They should, the unions bought and paid for a stacked council.

This Mayor hears only what he wants to hear, and that is not anything to do with cutting costs or saving money or allowing the Irvings to go ahead and pay a whole lot more taxes. He doesn’t like the Irvings and has made his feeling known so often no one in their right mind would believe he is impartial.

The Deputy Mayor on the other hand has no axe to grind and is to be congratulated for listening to all points of view.”

“I, for one, would rather see the ILA rot than see Saint John’s growth not happen. The ILA represents the past for this city, and their position on port matters should just simply be retired and abandoned, as well as that whole union.

Whether anyone likes it or not, Saint John must grow to be successful. We just simply cannot continue to live like it’s 1978 anymore, and start growing a pair when it comes to improving this place. And if there are those who don’t want to see improvement in this city, you can move out of Saint John, and not return.

Cause you’d just simply be useless surplus population at that point, harming this city by your apathy and your ignorance instead of looking for ways to be active in your community all the time.

I’ll admit, I voted for McFarlane a 2nd time back in May, and even with the controversy surrounding him with the LNG thing, I figured Saint John might have been forgiving and not have been so harsh to him. Sadly, that never happened.”

It’s about growth, progress, and doing what is right.  Our Deputy Mayor is doing just that, and he should be congratulated.  Keep up the great work Stephen!