On Wertz and the Kerfuffle

Wertz's complete response that he posted on the social media app nextdoor.com:

Chris I objected to Nextdoor about your "opinion" on your above linked blog "Ridgefield.PodBean.com" but have not received any response so I will correspond directly here. Chris, My first reaction to your “blog” was that your opinion of yourself is exceeded only by your lack of intellectual integrity and your “penchant” for parroting neo-socialist fall back slander. But it seems you are wrestling with your own personal demons and a few facts might help adjust your perceptions. So in the interest of a “cordial friendship”: 1. The issue of the monument letter was one of jurisdiction. “Activists” shopping a letter to council regarding a property not in Ridgefield that is in violation of the rules of another jurisdiction and asking us to overstep our authority and issue a meaningless dictum binding the name of every Ridgefield citizen to a letter they have not read or had a chance to discuss, - that “friend” is wrong in so many ways and I still feel the letter should not have been signed by the Mayor. Different parts of government have different authorities. Slander for example is handled by the courts. If you want to propose the City annex the subject parcel and then address permitted uses and appropriate zoning then you move into the authority vested in the legislative body that is the City Council. If you want to discuss property security, vandalism, trespass and safety issues we have municipal enforcement and protection authority for those properties in the City Limits. 2. Yes I admit to being responsible for caring about the attractiveness of our City. From arguing for additional streetscape requirements on Pioneer, 45th, Hillhurst -because these entry corridors are the gateway to our home. I also am guilty of instituting the concept of Freewayscape where development along the freeway but in city limits has additional requirements on developers to enhance and not mar the face of our city. But even here our authority/jurisdiction ends at the city limits and the boundary between Ridgefield and the Department of Transportation I-5 Right of Way. 3. With respect to your endorsement of my opponent, I as others have paid a price for your freedom. If you prefer a leader who can recite what has been written over one who has authored and is able to see the need for and author new regulations, then go for it. I am interested more in people and their progress than I am in being tied to unquestioned traditions. Finally Chris, I do not appreciate the insinuation of any character flaws to me. Thousands of years of justice have required at least two believable witnesses to raise a claim Attack on my character is more than “a little dust up.”

My response to Wertz's comment

I waited a full day to post a response in hopes that he would think better of slandering me publicly. Initially, I asked the City of Ridgefield to Censure Wertz in some way in lieu of any other action I might take. I've since rescinded that request and asked that the whole thing be dropped as a sign of respect for Wertz's combat service in Vietnam.

Here was the response I made one day after he posted his comment:

Thanks for the reply. I did not attack your character. I attacked your judgement on a very important issue to me and judging by the huge public outcry, a number of other Citizens of Ridgefield. Judgement should be the primary cause of winning or losing votes. If a citizen, or any affected individual, cannot publicly question a public official’s judgement without fear of denigration, humiliation, and threats of a lawsuit, then how should we express our opinions? As to the appropriateness of the letter jurisdictionally, I would defer to the City Attorney and City Manager who would have, or should have, been aware of it and approved of its legality. As to the appropriateness of elected representatives authorizing an opinion letter without the complete knowledge of the citizenry, that speaks to a problem with representative government and an ill informed citizenry more generally. My memory of your reasoning on that letter was that the monument was ‘part of our heritage,’ and if you’d brought up these other issues in addition, I believe I would have remembered that your reasoning on the matter was more complex, at the least. On a more personal note, I am 100% in agreement that soldiers fought and died for my freedom. I’m not one to pretend that civilization springs from philosophy alone. But political philosophy and the free public airing of different, sometimes discordant, or unwelcome at the first, ideas is also important to democracy, without soldiers of course, but also without the ideas they fight for—ideas cobbled together over centuries from many different opinions—we wouldn’t have freedom. The ideas we inherited, and you fought for, have a long and opposing path in our country’s history. My political forebears are as extant in early US History as their opposites. I wrote the piece for a few reasons. Among them, previously, I thought I’d offended you on a different matter, but when I apologized you said that, paraphrasing, you have a very thick skin, or it is very hard to offend you, or something like that. And, also, I wrote and spoke about that vote in particular because I realized the main reason I liked Aichele was your vote on that letter, so I could lie or tell the truth. I chose to speak my opinion honestly based on my understanding of the issue and about a public official who had voted on the issue and spoken to me directly about the issue. Now that public official is publicly (at least on this forum) questioning my intellectual integrity and my mental fitness. As to the thought that I would support the taking of public property expressly to limit individual speech, I’m reminded of two episodes. The first is the only other time I can recall when I was surprised by and disappointed with how you voted. It was a vote on one of those roundabouts, and you voted for the city taking private property from a reluctant private citizen for the roundabout. I oppose all imminent domain acquisitions other than very rare and very specific instances. The other issue that reminds me of this one, unfortunately, I can’t give any details about. But, it does involve speech and a private organization’s assumption of ownership of public property such that they overrule the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of expression at their whimsy. The only thing I can say on the matter, though I’d take it to court if others weren’t impacted, is that the principal of freedom of speech both my grandfathers (both WWII Purple Heart, Union supporting liberals) the man I’m named after (Vietnam combat veteran) and that I regularly speak about in absolutist terms for, is made meaningless; that is, my professed belief in Free Speech is wasted air if I won’t speak up for it when someone else’s ideas make me uncomfortable. And so I do speak up when Nazis want to rally, etc.. And I speak up against those you have seemingly assumed are my political brethren when they want to limit those freedoms for some fungible understanding of the public good. though I despise what some Americans say, I will seek to defend their their right to say it. As to the Nextdoor guidelines, I’ve read through intently and my understanding is that my posts meet the community standard. If they take them down I will adjust accordingly. The only time these get close to violating those standards, so far, is when someone posts a reply to my original post that restates my opinion, usually to some degree misrepresenting what I’ve said. This despite that I’ve said repeatedly that they can either stop listening before I give my opinion, or correspond with me on the blog off-site, and of course they can also just PM here. I will assume you have no interest in a recorded interview over Skype or Facebook? Considering the anger in your comment, the threats, and insults, I would hesitate to meet you for an in-person interview. Good day sir.