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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Huckleberries Online

Mary Defends Dan’s Meltdown

On the Coeur d'Alene Press Online thread Friday afternoon, Mary Souza was busy defending Councilman Dan Gookin's email outburst at City Administrator Wendy Gabriel that was originally printed at Huckleberries Online: "Dan is unveiling the culture of intimidation at city hall, and he's doing it with a bold dose of humor. Look at the problem: Dan is an ELECTED city council member. Elected by the people of this city to represent them. Yet a major decision was made yesterday at a non-public meeting of Team McEuen, where the only council member present was Mike Kennedy. It was a decision that changed an item the city council voted on last month, but Dan and the other council members were not informed, they had to read about it in the Press online. That's not good management. And this was not the first time these kinds of things have been kept from the other council members.Who's running this city anyway? Is it our elected representatives or is it a small group of powerful insiders pulling the strings? So now the Mayor and Wendy are pointing fingers at Dan? Ha. They are showing poor leadership and management of our city. Dan is standing up for his responsibility as our elected representative on the council. Thank you Dan!"

Question: Did Mary know that Dan had apologized profusely re: his email to City Administrator Wendy Gabriel? So what happened here? Did he exhibit a "bold dose of humor"? Or boorish behavior? And what would Mary be saying if Councilman Mike Kennedy had sent that email to a city employee?



D.F. Oliveria
D.F. (Dave) Oliveria joined The Spokesman-Review in 1984. He currently is a columnist and compiles the Huckleberries Online blog and writes about North Idaho in his Huckleberries column.

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