“You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.”
That quote from 15th century poet John Lydgate, is still highly relevant as an old adage applied to political life in modern times. It’s also a lesson the reeve and councillors at Westlock County are learning first-hand.
County council had an opportunity to hear a presentation at its Feb. 11 meeting from David Woynorowski regarding the Internet survey he created. While we were pleased to see that some councillors came out and thanked Woynorowski for his efforts, taking the negative results in relative stride, we were also glad to see reeve Lou Hall take a stand and defend the county’s practices and positions.
The survey’s 133 respondents voted unfavourably towards the county at almost every opportunity and the meeting provided a chance for the first official response from the county on the subject, so we were hoping there would be some sort of retort to Woynorowski’s findings.
The reeve gave Woynorowski, not only a piece of her mind, but a piece of truth and clarity on the state of the county and its struggles to reach out from the “abyss,” since this council took office in October 2017.
Things are bad, but Westlock County is in a much better position than it was just a few short years ago, reeve Hall admitted, acknowledging there is still a ways to go.
Maybe there really was “no epiphany” in the survey, as she said.
As Coun. Fred Slobodian noted in the meeting, those who are happy aren’t likely to express their approval, but those who are dissatisfied will go out of their way to let whoever will listen know that they are not pleased.
It may be hard to believe, but as people who work in the media, we can sympathize and relate to the county councillors. We are also under advanced scrutiny, almost all of the time. That’s part of the business, as it is part of politics, at any level.
That said, while it is council’s right to question and disagree with the results of the survey, some also seem to be taking it to heart and we really hope they are going to keep it in mind when making future decisions about what they spend taxpayers money on and the decisions they make on behalf of their constituents.
To disregard it would be foolish.
