Wasaga Beach Politics

Well if there's one thing that I learned when I was running for Mayor of Wasaga Beach, it was that nice guys finish last. During the campaign I was told that I should go negative and attack Cal Patterson, the current Mayor. I decided that I would NOT run a negative campaign and just focus on the issues, which were many in our small town of 16,000 full-time residents.

The last weekend of the campaign, Cal Patterson decided for whatever reason to purchase airtime on the local radio station and make several false allegations against me. He claims that I was behind a letter to the editor back in 2006 which resulted in several people from the local newspaper to loose their jobs, and it attacked the then Deputy Mayor, George Shaffer, his long-time friend and buddy on council. First off I would never, and repeat never resort to this type of politics. He further claims that because of this letter his buddy lost by a little over 200 votes to David Foster who the Mayor to this day dislikes, most likely for this reason.

He also went on to say that I was behind a letter that a group of residents sent out in this campaign. The residents have had a on-going dispute with the town and a local developer who sucked their water wells dry and now refuse to dig them another well. These residents have launched a lawsuit against the town and the developer. In their letter they do attack the Mayor for not helping them out and siding with the developer. The Mayor even called these residents promising to sue them in court for attacking his character.

The true colors of Cal Patterson have come to the surface. He's a very bitter man who resorts to American style politics to win an election. Our voter turnout was the lowest in the region at 27%, and he received about 17% of the vote. To me that's not much of a mandate when less than 1/5 of all registered voters actually voted you into office.

When I was told what Cal Patterson did, I had a good laugh as he wasted about $ 1600.00 of his campaign funds, which were most likely donated by the local developers, to attack me, and make false statements. Some residents have told me that I should sue him, and while it did cross my mind for about a second, he's not worth wasting my time and energy. He's just a small bitter man who will always be angry at the world. Not a good sign of a leader in my books.