Timothy D. Leavitt, better known as “the Liar” for his winning the Mayor’s office in 2009 by blatant lies and who has heard or seen things at City Council meetings others don’t seems to be at it again.
The February 4, 2013 Council Meeting was played up to be a “Clash of Titans” due to potential legal matters stemming from the city’s denial of a petition to place before voters a vote on light rail from Portland, Oregon that this blog covered at CRC Petitioners Put City on Notice. Due to previous restrictions by Mayor Tim ‘the Liar’ Leavitt on just when and what citizens may exercise free speech before the City Council, last evening wasn’t the night they were permitted to speak on that issue.
Undaunted, Debbie Peterson did mention the petition and requested the city “do the right thing” and allow a vote and avoid costly litigation for both sides. She was ignored with efforts by Tim Leavitt to stop her talking, but she finished her words anyway, well under the 3-mimute time limit citizens have to speak.
Since the evening did not go off as CRC Petitioners had expected, the Columbian paper, wholly in the bag for forcing Clark County Citizens to accept the financially failing light rail from Portland covered the meeting as Light rail fight fizzles at Vancouver council meeting with the admonishment, “A valuable lesson was learned Monday: Before announcing a public fight with the Vancouver City Council, check the meeting agenda.”
Apparently not content with efforts to stop Ms. Peterson from speaking, Tim Leavitt left the comment under the article linked above,
“Sadly, there were young boy scouts in the audience to watch their city council at work…but had to witness and hear the shameful behavior of Peterson and one of her colleagues. Besides disrespecting the rules of the Agenda, there was vulgar language coming from the audience. I hope this behavior at a public meeting isn’t remembered by such impressionable young minds…”
Leavitt makes it sound very disruptive and unruly which piqued my curiosity as I know Debbie to be soft spoken and a very calm natured person. My curiosity was further piqued after Leavitt replied to a comment made by me of “we’ll see just how much it ‘fizzles’,” meaning the issue of voting on the light rail,
“Lew: You condone this behavior….and in front of children, to boot. Wow. Actually, I’d encourage you to spend a few moments and review the meeting video. You’ll notice that as Peterson finally stopped her diatribe, I pause and scan the audience, looking for an acknowledgment from the culprit of the foul language. As is typical, that individual didn’t have the guts to stand up and man up. That’s weak sauce…”
On Leavitt’s recommendation, I did just that and not only viewed the video but present those portions of the video below for your perusal.
As you can see, even though maybe Debbie shouldn’t have mentioned what might singe the Mayor’s ears, anything in opposition to or not supporting light rail, she hardly engaged in what one would normally label “shameful behavior” to the point of harming any young minds in attendance.
Also, what “vulgarities?” Instead of pausing and scanning the audience for someone speaking foul offensive language, wouldn’t someone responsible have admonished the audience against such outbursts or said something about it, not just assume someone will immediately stand up and say they did it?
Leavitt is known for hearing and seeing things not quite as they happened, even whether or not they really happened, as he did with Josephine Wentzel accusing her of “glaring” at and “intimidating” someone who came to council meeting to support light rail. Like this accusation of “vulgarities,” CVTV footage does not bear the claim out.
Admittedly, CVTV does not always capture what might be said in the audience, so I asked. Not one person I have had to chance to speak to heard anything remotely close to a “vulgarity” from the audience and emails to all City Council members earlier this afternoon with not one coming back in support of the Mayor’s allegation.
What is odd was seen prior to the Council Meeting in the City Council workshop where council members including Leavitt decided to demean recently elected County Commissioner David Madore for his efforts to fulfill his campaign promise of streamlining government and ending parking fees for the many parks.
Council Member Larry Smith claimed,
“I’m not sure where the County Commissioners are, certainly one of them needs to be educated in what Parks & Recreation are all about.”
Council Member Jack Burkman said,
“We have a County Commissioner who is very outspoken and only needs one more vote. And he has said that, uhhh, they are going to do dramatic cuts, involving administration, involving programs.”
Laura Hudson, interim director of Vancouver-Clark Parks & Recreation said,
“Commissioner Madore has come to a couple of the Parks & Recreations Advisory meetings and he stated basically that he would like to see access to parks be free. Umm, he’s opposed to the parking fees that are charged in regional parks now.”
Tim Leavitt got his turn with,
“Much like Council Member Burkman, my feeling right now, at least the rhetoric coming out of, uh, one member of the Board of County Commissioners is more of a slash and burn type mentality.”
He also said,
“I think uh, maybe uh, a little bit more feedback from the Board of County Commissioners’, let’s see if they take action on this concept of eliminating user fees by making up those costs through the Parks & Rec program, which is essentially to me a shot across the bow, with a statement like we’re not going to pay for our portion of a Parks & Rec Director, that there’s not an interest in having a collaborative relationship. So, uhhh, hopefully that rhetoric doesn’t stand true in action, but, umm, I think there’s probably a bit of, a little bit of time that needs to pass here before we march immediately ahead, ahh, down a certain path.”
Knowing that Commissioner Madore is not well thought of by much of his fellow City Council members, Bill Turlay spoke up for Commissioner Madore with,
“I take exception to speaking about a duly elected local official. These comments are best made one to one instead of in a public forum like this and maligning someone who is trying to fulfill his campaign promises and I do not like this in a public forum to be addressing an individual who is a duly elected official.”
Not one other Council Member agreed or said anything about their demeaning of a public official in a public forum. And in fact, Mayor Leavitt looked around the Council and then added, “Anything else?”
You can view the entirety of the exchange at Parks and Recreation Update and clicking the link of the same name. It is in the last half of the Workshop meeting.
As can be expected, the usual slate of cheerleaders and suck-ups flocked into the comments at the Columbian article to hold the Mayor’s hand, pat his precious little cheeks and pamper him on how well he conducts himself, how sad he has to put with such “shameful behavior” and what have you.
None even mention the Mayor’s own shameful behavior in demeaning a duly elected official in the earlier workshop, though.
Maybe in the future, Mayor Tim ‘the Liar’ Leavitt should make sure shameful behavior actually occurred before launching into his usual rhetoric and attempts to play as a victim of those who do not support his efforts to ram Portland’s finically beleaguered light rail down our throats.
Then again, this is why we call him ‘the Liar.’
