| "Shut your mouth,' says Gardhouse |
| By Morgan Ian Adams |
| Enterprise-Bulletin (Fri, February 16, 2000) |
| COLLINGWOOD - Councillors are looking like "a
bunch of clowns" because one or more of the nine members is leaking
secret information to the media, says Joe Gardhouse. |
| On Monday night, Gardhouse - the one rookie councillor
around the table - took aim at someone he says is revealing council's in
camera discussions of the Enterprise-Bulletin. |
| "Someone is leaking information that is detrimental to
the community, and detrimental to council, and they should have the
courage to shut their mouth," he said during the round-table portion
of the meeting. "(Whomever is leaking the information) doesn't
have the self-confidence and the guts (to keep quiet)." |
| Gardhouse's comments came as a result of two conversations
he said he had - one with a councillor from a neighbouring municipality
and one from a concerned citizen, who both indicated Collingwood council
was being made to look like 'clowns.' |
| "We're perceived as running a Mickey Mouse
operation," Gardhouse said. 'I don't want to go through three
years of looking like an ass." |
| Gardhouse also apologized to the voters for the appearance
of a 'Mickey Mouse operation' and pledged to "try to plug the in
camera hole." |
| In an interview after the meeting, Gardhouse said he had no
problem with the newspaper running stores; it was that the information was
getting to the newspaper in the first place. |
| "I have nothing against you writing stories - that's
your job," he said. |
| "We're in the middle of some pretty important stuff -
we have an organizational review that we can't talk about publicly without
talking personnel, or positions," Gardhouse said. |
| "There is an individual or individuals who are leaking
out Monday's in camera information, and that's just plain dumb." |
