I don’t usually respond to those who publicly disagree with my views.
But I am making an exception for the Mayor of The Gympie Regional Council, Councillor Hartwig.
Mayor Hartwig is mistaken in his statement (Gympie Today, 7 November) that in my earlier letter I had suggested he “failed to have the stomach” to contribute to the recent coverage by the ABC’s 7.30 Report of the Council’s decision to cease fluoridation of the town’s water supply.
I expressed my disappointment that he was not a participant in the television interview on the controversial decision, and I do not resile from that statement.
After all, he is the Mayor, the leader and most highly-paid member of the Council and, as such, should be its primary spokesperson.
And he had voted for the cessation motion.
So it was a reasonable expectation, for all those reasons, that he would have been the one to explain the Council’s momentous, five-person decision on the dental health of the community for generations to come.
Surprising that he was not the first person contacted by the ABC!
Surprising, too, if the two Councillors who were interviewed (Councillors Jensen and Lahn) didn’t make him aware beforehand of the ABC’s interest in the controversy.
If indeed he had advance knowledge of the interview, he should have insisted on participating.
That is surely an obligation which goes with the role of Mayor.
As for the admonition that I should have contacted him to ascertain the ‘facts’, I reject it entirely.
My comments were based on what happened before my eyes- both on the ABC and at the Council meeting that produced the five-person decision to cease fluoridation.
My letter was an honest reaction to those facts.
I make no apology for its content.
– Merv Welch,
The Palms.
