Distric 2 City Council Forum Cancellation
To the Editors:
As the persons involved in planning the October 24 Candidates’ debate for the District 2 City Council election, we take specific exception to statements made in Councilor Linehan’s Press Release dated October 21, 2013, which attribute the cancellation to the personal politics and bias of one of our Committee members. These statements were published in your paper and we feel that clarification is required.
Our debate planning committee included representatives of all 8 South Boston Neighborhood Associations. Committee members included supporters of both Councilor Linehan and Suzanne Lee. All decisions about the debate were made and approved by the entire Committee, and were not determined by any one individual or biased by any member’s personal politics.
There was no refusal by the Committee or any of its individual members to accommodate the Councilor’s late -arising conflict. There had been no notice of this conflict until after the time and place of the debate had been confirmed and approved by all involved. Confirming changes in the calendars of a large group of heavily-scheduled people with less than 2 days’ notice takes some time. The Press Release was issued while this process was still going on.
Councilor Linehan’s decision to withdraw was made unilaterally, for his own reasons. We don’t intend to question here whether his reasons were valid and necessary. Instead, we object solely to his statements that the debate planners refused to co-operate with his request, attributing this refusal to to the personal politics of Committee Member Joanne McDevitt. These statements inappropriately impugn the good-faith effort that went into planning the debate by Mrs. McDevitt and all the other committee members and their respective neighborhood associations.
Very truly yours,
Sheila Greene
Peter Golemme
Michaele Morrow
