The king deigns to speak to a commoner

I was rather insulted last night to be spoken down to by our mayor Bill McKay.
Shakespeare's words about the 'insolence of office'  bubble up.  Watching the mayor preside over council and respond to my words,  what came to mind immediately was the Peter Principle.  

You might want to view my slideshow presentation for a more fuller context.

If email addresses are given out as a way to communicate, then they should be honoured.   John A.  MacDonald used to personally answer letters sent to him. The mayor and all his support staff seem unable to do either.

This is from the city's own webstie.

In the two-and-a-half minute one-sided exchange I had to endure,   the mayor revealed an indefensible ignorance and arrogance.   My commentary appears in yellow   While reading this, keep in mind two important words,  sarcasm and parody.  

Mayor:    A couple of questions for you.  Do you have a telephone?   This unusual rhetorical question took me aback.  Has the mayor never heard of 'telephone tag'?

Me:  Yes I do.

Mayor:  If you go on our website,  every one of our telephone numbers is on our website.   Is this supposed to surprise me?  What's the point?  So if you look behind you,  there is a gentleman  sitting in the first row,  his name is Matthew O'Donnell. Of the Nanaimo Cannabis Coalition protesting the City's recent crackdown on marijuana dispensaries.   Mr. O'Donnell has been granted an audience by this council twice in the last week on very short notice.  Sounds very regal "granted an audience" with his majesty.   And council has given him the respect to do so.   At the end of our previous meeting,  Mr. O'Donnell came to me and asked if he could have a meeting with me.  I granted that meeting the next day.  Ah yes, your majesty,  at your discretion,  at your bidding.    So for you to stand in front and suggest that there is no way to have a conversation with council, that's absolutely wrong.   His majesty obviously didn't listen to my presentation.

Me:  No,  I didn't say that.

Mayor:  Well, that's the way I received that.   This makes me want to seek a quote about how power makes one blind and deaf.

Mayor:   The other one is that in that in the last thirty days there has been (sic) twenty-seven media releases,  which is significantly higher than what it ever was before prior to us bringing on a competent and  dedicated communications manager.  Which was exactly my point on my 5th slide.  Did he miss it?!  Did he also miss my definition on slide 7?  Communications is two-way, not one-way.    On the bottom of every one of those twenty-seven media releases there is a contact name and most of the time an email address or a telephone number.  If anyone in the public wants to get those media releases,  they simply sign up. Do I really want to add to my already overburdened email inbox? This was Councillor Kipp's point, which the mayor again seems to have not caught. Nanaimo is so sophisticated (love this word)  with communications with its citizens, in fact you can get, if you sign up,  you can get alerts by telephone, should there be a special notice, like a boil water advisory.  Done.  Email notifications in case of emergency like boil water advisories,  Colliery Dam floods, and Tsunamis.   In fact,  I can even get an email if I sign up that will tell me that tomorrow is garbage day.  Oh yeah!  This puts me in mind of Kramer on Seinfeld.   That's how we communicate with our, with our (the mayor struggles here for a noun ... "no, not peons")   citizens.

Me:  (Sticking to my point)  But how hard is it to add at the bottom of a notice on the website the contact information,  how hard is that?  How hard is it to put on the city of Nanaimo website information about the eForum?  It's not difficult.
No it's not.  It's a systemic flaw,  a paradigmatic flaw.

Mayor:  So that's one thing.  A very long thing.  I can see why city council meetings run long into the night.  I just told you about twenty-seven media releases where anybody could contact the writer of the media release or the contact person and have a greater conversation with them. I must try this. We're not afraid to communicate.    I never said you were.  We have the largest Twitter account in all of Nanaimo, the largest Facebook account
in all of Nanaimo,  and I was hoping that perhaps our communications manager can help you with some of your other questions that you have.

Me:  I hope to follow it up, but remember perception is important.

This exchange can be viewed to verify it's accuracy by going to 
http://www.nanaimo.ca/meetings/VideoPlayer/Index/COW151123V

and advancing to 03:38 to 03:40:31