Rusty: fit for office?

[occasional thoughts]

Someone has raised, on another post, in a somewhat incoherent way, a valid point about one of our candidates for West Kelowna council. Is Rusty Ensign a fit candidate for public office?

Rusty has suffered a lot in his personal life, obvious to anyone who has met him; he lives in a wheelchair, the victim of an unfortunate accident on the rugby field. Rusty has also contributed reasonably much to the community in terms of Royal LePage Place, et al. Should he be rewarded in terms of election to public office?

With every chance that he will no longer talk to me or smile at me, I have to say that I do not think he should be elected. Rusty has some legal baggage vis-a-vis his family that surfaced during his recent attempt at securing the Conservative nomination in our (federal) riding that he has not come clean on to my knowledge. Rusty made some incredibly ignorant comments when he ran for mayor four years ago over watching porn channels (Bestside probably remembers exactly what he said). Rusty has shown an attitude towards community over gravel pit applications that says to me he won't be a fair and competent arbiter of broader community interests when it comes to development. Although not a legal impediment to running, Rusty doesn't live in the district municipality any longer. And so on.

I don't think he'll be elected, and I don't think he should be elected. Not at this time at least.

[Bestside]

Sorry, I never heard exactly what he said...

I believe he made a locker room joke at a hockey game about watching chicks on Chan 25...
and those that laughed were later sorry they they did so when it was revealed that it was porn after midnight...

I don't know if he was referring to himself, or possibly to his main rival who was having some gigantic chick problems at the time.

I think bad locker room jokes should be laid to rest after a short period of mourning...

[1Westside]

I won't comment on whether or not someone is fit to hold or run for an elected position as that just falls into the same kind of petty bs that we read on these forums over and over.

I will however comment on his performance at the two all candidates forums I've attended.

The first one October 28th I thought Rusty did very well. He spoke to the Mission Hill development and that over it's construction life of the expansion the DWK would bring in $10 000 0000 in DCC's. That is a lot of sewer, sidewalks parks or at least the start to being able to do them. Some councillors were against the project not sure of all of them but Neis was one. His experience with roads and sewer were reasons enough for me to vote for him.

The second all candidates forum last week I found Rusty came across as a bitter man with a huge chip on his shoulder. Telling the audience he doesn't believe the figures reported to be in our reserves. Telling the audience that they have no idea how much business that the current council and Mayor have chased away. I'm not sure how that type of attitude or mind set would work in a team setting such as a city council.

After seeing the candidate on two occasions I'm leaning towards not supporting Rusty. I really do want to support him because I do believe that his experience is something we as taxpayers could benefit from, but the bad attitude is something that at this point I can't get past.