Leader Herald Facebook page commenters not happy
By JOSH RESNEK
The mayor likes to tell his supporters that the Leader Herald is nasty, untruthful, and
involved in a personal plot – something dark and illegal – to end his mayoralty.
Our Facebook comments on his two-week Aruba vacation at a time of emergency attracted 3,800 visitors and more than 150 comments regarding the vacation.
This is what is called blowback.
After all, Everett people aren’t blind and stupid.
On the mayor’s Facebook site, under photographs of him all tan and ready to go . . . in the water in Aruba . . . this warning attributed to him is printed for all to see: “Stay at home. It saves lives.”
Whatever the mayor says about the Leader Herald is one thing.
How he attempts to deceive the people of this city writing about the value of family as the reason he took the Aruba jaunt during an emergency is something for the record books.
Many of the visitors to our Facebook site expressed wonder, and some said the mayor should follow the advice he gives on his own Facebook site.
The mayor’s supporters, like Trump followers who can all agree with one an- other that Trump did not incite the crowd in Washington to invade the Capitol, make the case for the mayor deserves a vacation in Aruba, that the Leader Herald should apologize to the may- or for bringing his hypocrisy to light.
So, what if the virus is running amok? If he wants to go away, then he goes away. The city is just fine even if he is not here, the Carlo style Trumper’s apologize for him at every turn.
The mayor’s position here, and everywhere where a mayor serves, is about leadership.
Forget for the moment honesty and transparency.
Leadership matters in Everett at a time like this.
When the mayor posts on his Facebook site: “Stay at home. It saves lives,” and then goes to Aruba at the height of the pandemic, with cases soaring here, with city services, the city budget, Encore, and small businesses and the schools in such a state of disarray, what does this say about him?
To be perfectly honest, the mayor posted that message “Stay at home. It saves lives,” as the city was shutting down last March when he took off for Aruba at that time.
That message remains on the Facebook site.
The Leader Herald was informed that the mayor or someone who vacationed with him, put up about 16 photographs showing him by the water in Aruba having a great family time last week.
We have copies of those photographs – but we never involve the mayor’s family in what we write about him.
Besides, the photographs appear to have been deleted highly likely because of the blowback from so many people complaining about the mayor being away while the little people he pretends to care about, lined up for free food, applied for mortgage and rental assistance, tried to run their small businesses – and the larger ones as well.
The mayor’s vacation is about privilege. It is not about service to the city’s people.
The mayor flaunts privilege. He pays lip service to caring.
The folks who have lost loved ones to the epidemic remain quiet, but they watch, they visit the mayor’s Facebook, and they wait for an opportunity to have their say.
Many of those recovering from a bout of the COVID-19 suffering ongoing ailments that do not want to go away also wonder…is it the right thing to do, to tell Everett residents to “Stay at home. It saves lives,” and then travel to Aruba?