The hockey fans out there are familiar with the custom after every Stanley Cup playoff game. The opposing teams line up and all members of the winning and losing teams shake hands in a tradition that shows what good sportsmanship is all about.
Why do I bring this up? Well, Alan Dankwerth, the husband of the candidate Helen, showed anything but "good sportsmanship." Might Dankwerth's letter to The Explorer be a result of his wife's last place finish in the recent primary election? The election outcome may have been the result of her dismal voting record and not the Democratic party support of Salette Latas a Democrat and Bill Garner, a registered Independent.
I guess it was fine when the Oro Valley Women's Republican Club put Mrs. Dankwerth's web site comment on their literature touting her as a worthy Republican candidate.
Dankwerth obviously thinks: "what's good for the goose is not good for the gander!"
Here's Dankwerth's letter--
Latas and Co. have injected partisanship into OV’s elections
Since its inception, Oro Valley has prided itself on conducting non-partisan elections for Town Council. That all came to an end when Latas and company blatantly collaborated with the Pima County Democratic Party and injected significant monies, phone call banks, and deliberate misinformation into the “equation.”
Recent minutes of a Sun City Democratic Club meeting included (“Mission To Be Accomplished”) the stated goal of supporting all of the Democratic candidates for office- national, state and local, presumably on the basis of party affiliation rather than ability, knowledge, preparedness, decisiveness or dedication.
Such divisiveness, which promotes political ideology above what is in the overall best interests of our town, does not bode well for the future of our citizens.
Unfortunately, we can expect that all future town elections will be pitting Republicans against Democrats now that Pandora’s Box has been opened.
Alan Dankwerth
Oro Valley
6 comments:
The Zeeman has lamented, in several LOVE podcasts, that some partisan support occurred in our recent town election on both sides! Local issues are not national issues and we have much to unite us in terms of issues, regardless of what party we may like nationally.
That said, Helen Dankwerth lost because see lost touch with the people who elected her. She showed disdain for us in many areas, from championing the utility tax to wanting to give a $350,000 "pittance" to Sanofi-Avantis.
Her loss is a good lesson to all who want to retain an elected office in Oro Valley. Never lose sight of those who elected you.
I would expect this type of letter from some involved in town politics but not anybody connected to Helen Dankwerth.
Geez, thought they had more class.
Helen D. is an intelligent and poised women. I was disappointed in a lot of her votes.
Personally I think she did poorly in the run off because of voters wanting to oust the incumbents.
This weeks Explorer newspaper has an article about the elections and the infusion of party politics.
The logic put forth about partisan politics by some makes no sense to me.
If there are more registered Republicans then Democrats in OV, why would a candidate from the minority party want to run or push for a partisan type election. Makes no sense.
In this election I don't recall getting any flyers from either the
Republican party or the Democrat party.
However we did get a call from a
supposed Republican party person telling us to vote for
xyz as he is a good republican.
I don't know about anybody else here, but my fur stands up when somebody uses their party as the reason to vote for somebody.
I want to hear why I should vote for you based on your record not your party affiliation.
I don't want to belabor an issue and I won't comment further on this after this post.
The Oro Valley elections are non-partisan elections. The candidates are not listed as R-D-Lib-Green or any other label. While not illegal, the political parties have always keep out (funding/phone banks/, etc) of non-partisan elections. Political clubs
which normally are comprised of 10-20 people don't do any of the above, but may endorse a candidate. Such was the case two years ago when the Oro Valley Republican Club (18 members) endorsed Al Kunisch, Conny Culver and myself. The gave us no money, they made no phone calls. We publicized that endorsement on a post card that we designed and paid for, with donated funds. It was sent to registered Republicans. We purchased that list, with donated funds, from the Republican Party. The Pima County would not give us the list because it was a non-partisan election.
When that post card hit the streets there was a negative response from some folks, including some people responsible for this BLOG and others that post on this BLOG. That's fine... they have their opinion.
This past election is the FIRST in which an official political party has elected to directly financially support a candidate.
The Pima County Democratic Party donated money to three candidates. There was no negative response from the same people that cried foul two years ago. Why? You decide. I can't answer why questions when it relates to others.
So what has happened is that Oro Valley is one GIANT step closer to partisan elections. If so we will be only the third town/city in the state to have partisan elections. The other two are Tucson and South Tucson. That's not good company.
I think it was a big mistake on the part of the Pima County Democratic Party. We'll see what happens.
So Don Cox publicly identified himself and two other candidates with the majority party, and then sent out postcards to other members of the majority party in order to convince them to vote for him based on party. Obviously, it wasn't a good strategy, as Cox and Culver lost.
To then throw a hissy fit because other candidates succeeded where he failed is beyond sour grapes. It's hypocritical.
OV Mom....You appear to be following the same path as the bolg master.
That strategy got me to within 4 votes of being elected and got one of the others elected. That ain't bad. And I would point out that my attendance record would have been a lot better than the other elected official. It's very hard to be an advocate for the people when you miss 30% of the meetings.
"Hissy fit"??? I think not. In the long run it will hurt those who truly introduced political party contributions to our election process.
"I don't want to belabor an issue and I won't comment further on this after this post."
Obviously, we can't trust Don Cox at his word.
"That strategy got me to within 4 votes of being elected and got one of the others elected. That ain't bad."
Losing on your second run for council after you identified yourself as a member of the majority party with their support? That sounds pretty bad to me.
"It's very hard to be an advocate for the people when you miss 30% of the meetings."
You must be talking about Terry Parish, who I hear missed both budget study sessions this past week.
"In the long run it will hurt those who truly introduced political party contributions to our election process."
I agree. I think it will hurt you. The Republican Party would be very foolish to give money to a two-time loser who identified himself as a Republican. They know that if they do, they will fall even farther behind in contributions.
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