>>Valley Patriot>> |
Over the last two-and-a-half years, after having worked for Marie Gosselin in her last run for political office, I have learned much about this so-called hard–working, former councilor. In my experience, Marie Gosselin has never worked hard for anyone other than for Marie Gosselin. Any time Marie worked for anyone, it was only if - at the end - there would be something in it for Marie. As stated in Tom Duggan's column in The Valley Patriot, Marie was defeated in the last election because the voters were sick of her "bullying and arrogance." I have seen these virtues in action. Marie is a cruel, vicious and conspiring individual. This may sound like sour grapes coming from a former candidate, but let me explain further. During this campaign, as a candidate I had to sit back and take all the low-level gutter politics thrown at me by Marie Gosselin while I attempted to keep on track with the issues facing the city over the next two years. Marie Gosselin stooped to all kinds of lows during this campaign. She even stoop-ed so low as to attack a member of her own family. Yes, I’ll bet many of you didn’t know that Jim Hoole was actually related to Marie Gosselin by marriage. Well, it’s true. My first cousin is Marie Gosselin’s sister-in-law, mar-ried to her husband’s brother. But even this didn’t stop Marie Gosselin from stooping to a new low of calling both me and fellow candidate Jim Stokes names that are not printable in this newspaper - and probably wouldn’t even be printable in the Enquirer.
Marie Gosselin began her campaign for city council by telling constituents that I had been vacationing in the Dominican Republic with Willie Lantigua. This simply never happened. It was just another attempt by Ms. Gosselin to garner a significant portion of the Anglo voting population to support her candidacy. State Representative Willie Lantigua and I did meet one time (about 3 weeks ago) at the city budget hearings in Lawrence City Hall. Prior to that, I had never even met Willie Lantigua and certainly never vacationed with him anywhere. For someone who wants to be a professional and represent the voters of Lawrence Marie Gosselin certainly does not behave in a professional manner. During the campaign she has resorted to verbally slan-dering both myself and fellow candidate Jim Stokes to voters as she walked through the neighborhoods. Gosselin's language was more than appalling, and her apparent views about certain groups of people leave a lot to be desired. On many occasions Gosselin referred to both myself and Jim Stokes as homosexuals using slurs that would make anyone with class shudder in disbelief. Yet, having campaigns to run, we had to keep concentrating on the issues important to the residents of Lawrence on the campaign trail, trying to keep this campaign as clean as possible. Apparently, some voters listened, as it seemed to have taken its toll on the voting results. It is well known that Marie Gosselin has harassed and threatened people with her contacts at city hall if they didn’t fall in line with her way of thinking. Even at the polling stations on election day, Tuesday, Sep-tember 27, she was overheard threatening a city employee to have his job taken away and give it to someone else because he was supporting another candidate. Just who does Marie Gosselin think she is? So, yes, I have witnessed first-hand the bullying tactics of former city councilor Marie Gosselin. Keep in mind that I worked for Marie during the last campaign as a supporter. And it was only after that harrowing experience of witnessing these tactics myself that I decided to challenge her this year. How could I have been so wrong and why didn’t I see it sooner? This only cuts the surface. This doesn't even touch on the corrupt practices she engaged in during her last term of office as a city councilor, which has been well-documented in the Eagle-Tribune. Even as recent as this year, I have witnessed over 40 violations of city campaign sign laws which prohibit political signs from being attached to trees. Apparently, Marie feels the laws are made to be broken by her and only need to be applied to other people. According to her friends from the city inspectional services department who called into a local radio program, she is a "hard worker and everyone should get off her back." Apparently they feel the issue of breaking signs laws are "no big deal." Well, I beg to differ. When political candi-dates violate the law, regardless of the level, it only leads to bigger and more costly viola-tions as they see just how far they can go and just how deeply they can get into tax-payer’s pockets before they are caught. Everyone should obey the law or be held accountable for it, especially politicians. Her same friends at Inspectional Services issued Jim Stokes a fine for violating campaign sign laws. How funny that he was the only one to be fined while she and others were allowed to get away with the same violations. This is not the first time that Marie has used her friends at Inspectional Ser-vices to get back at individuals she didn’t like. Please keep in mind that the Department of Inspectional Services is charged with the responsibility of enforcing the campaign sign law. This same department refuses to enforce the ordinance and refuses to cite Marie Gosselin. We need to ask ourselves: WHY? We need to fight for integrity in city government and consider those candidates that have not had their hands in our pockets. I encourage you to seriously consider voting for Reverend James Stokes on November 8th. Jim has a history of doing good works for the community and the integrity that goes along with it. He has worked for Toys for Tots and, contrary to Marie Gosselin’s accusation, Jim has never stolen or other-wise misappropriated toys to anyone. In fact, there is very tight control over the distribution of Toys for Tots, procedures that need to be followed to insure that all in-volved are kept at their highest level of integrity. He has also worked extensively with the Boy Scouts of America and many other organizations catering to the Lawrence community. Keep in mind that it was Marie Gosselin that sponsored the city ordinance that now prohibits the Boy Scouts and other organizations from collecting for their causes on the street corners, as the Fire Department boot campaign was often allowed to do. Jim’s integrity has never been compromised. He has never tried to dig into our pockets for his own personal gain. Seriously consider him when you vote on November 8th for your next city councilor from District F. Let’s fight for integrity in city government. *Send your questions
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