September 28, 2011
Deputy mayor steps
down
by Vance Gutzman
There's another vacant seat at the Deep River council table.
Deputy Mayor Mary MacCafferty tendered her resignation from council on
Friday.
Citing personal reasons for her departure from municipal politics,
MacCafferty was also upset with the coverage she received in the pages
of the NRT.
"You were one of the straws that broke this camel's back," MacCafferty
told the correspondent who covers Deep River council meetings for the
NRT, when asked on Sunday for comments regarding her resignation.
MacCafferty made that remark in response to an article that was written
over a month ago.
MacCafferty read from a prepared statement during a heated debate with
Mayor David Thompson at the August 17 council meeting over the
manner in which the mayor was communicating with a neighbouring
municipality.
At the end of that meeting, MacCafferty was asked by the NRT
correspondent for a copy of her remarks, in the interest of accuracy,
and she emailed them to him the following day.
Although he did not read from a prepared statement at the meeting,
Mayor Thompson, unsolicited, also emailed comments to the NRT
correspondent the following day, which were subsequently used in the
story.
When the story was published in the NRT's August 24 issue, MacCafferty
took issue with the mayor's emailed comments, saying they called her
integrity in question, and emailed further remarks to the NRT's
correspondent, asking that they be included in a subsequent article.
Both the NRT correspondent and the NRT's editorial board suggested,
instead, that the comments in her email could be published as a "letter
to the editor."
MacCafferty chose not to let the comments be run in that fashion,
saying the mayor was not required to submit his comments as a letter in
his case, and that he seemed to be receiving “special publication
status” for his comments.
"I thought that was salacious journalism," MacCafferty said on Sunday.
"You denied me a response."
Then, at the end of the phone interview, MacCafferty cited "personal
reasons" for her departure from politics.
MacCafferty was first elected as a Deep River councillor, was
re-elected to that position in 2006, and was subsequently elected as
deputy mayor in last fall's municipal elections.
MacCafferty was a strong proponent of inter-municipal cooperation and
economic development issues during her eight years on council, and
Mayor Thompson says her contributions to council will be missed.
"We're sorry to see Mary go," Thompson said on Sunday.
"She made significant contributions to our community over an extended
period of time."
As the only hold-over from the previous council, Thompson said
MacCafferty provided "continuity" for the current council which took
office last December.
"It's her decision to make," the mayor said.
"We wish her the very best in any future projects she wishes to
undertake."
|
