Last Updated on: 21st April 2015, 10:20 am
Update: Updating to correct a massive oversight on my part. How could I have forgotten this?
Ahh, much better.
Whether it’s due to somebody taking the time to explain what a joke is to them or because bad press isn’t good for future election prospects, the city of Guelph has decided to do what should have been done in the first place and not sue the business owner who wrote the Three Stooges email or the newspaper that reported on it.
“The City of Guelph will not be proceeding with litigation,” Mayor Karen Farbridge wrote in an email to Marc Black, owner of Hempire on Carden Street, where large-scale construction projects have choked off traffic and weakened business much of the past five years.
The mayor later confirmed in an email to the Mercury the city has also dropped the idea of proceeding legally against the Guelph Mercury newspaper.
Farbridge even offered to put together a meeting between Black and Don Kudo, the city planner named as head stooge in the offending message. Black said he would take the meeting and likely apologize for doing what he did. I still personally maintain that he shouldn’t have to, but hey, if they can make nice without unnecessary lawsuits, I’m all for that.
But all is still not well. The city’s chief administrative officer Hans Loewig, not knowing when to leave well enough alone and apparently having missed it’s a joke/good press and doing the right thing class, still felt the need to drop another dose of butthurt whiner on the poor guy.
Black was less impressed by a subsequent, “less amicable” email from Guelph’s chief administrative officer Hans Loewig. In the email copied to other members of the downtown business community, Loewig accused Black of defamation, libel and slander before decreeing the city would not sue him. In an emailed response to questions from the Mercury, Farbridge confirmed it was Loewig, as chief administrator, who initiated the libel notice.
Why do I get the sense that Loewig was told, in a much nicer way, to shut up stupid, would ya please? That section reads like he was ordered to do the sensible thing, had sour grapes about it and felt the need to get in his one last shot.
At any rate, hopefully the Mayor can reign in the stupid and everybody can start getting along and get these projects finished without much more hardship being visited upon small businesses that are just trying to scratch out a living.
Speaking of Carden Street, don’t forget to flash some cash down there this afternoon, or at your earliest convenience. They could really use it.