Dear Editor:
I am responding to the letter published last week by outgoing Mayor Hal Johnson’s sister Jean Robinson titled, A mean municipal election in Whitewater Region.
This letter is from me and not our new mayor-elect Mike Moore. This letter is without prejudice.
Jean, I am deeply sorry for how you feel about the outcome of this election. The outcome of this election is not a rejection of Hal, but the embrace of Mike and his plans for a new direction. This election was not about the better man as an individual, it was about who offered a platform that voters felt was more appropriate for Whitewater, right now, given our current circumstances. Hal’s vision included far more financial risks than many in our community were comfortable taking as we move forward into the future. It does not make Hal right or wrong, it was a matter of preference and what we felt we needed. If you need a plumber, an electrician won’t do, no matter how proficient and dedicated that electrician is to their job.
As for Hal’s loss to Mike after what you called “…a disgraceful campaign spear-headed by his campaign team” I beg to differ. The questions asked by Don Deer and Gary Younghusband were not co-ordinated on our behalf. These men represented themselves as private citizens and voiced concerns shared by many in this community. You may wish to reflect on the way Hal replied to these men in Westmeath for an honest assessment on whether or not that furthered his cause. While you are doing that, you may also wish to reflect on the way Hal addressed two candidates for council at an all-candidates night in Cobden, regarding the dog tag issue, by singling them out and speaking publicly to the particulars of their lawsuit. Some lawsuits are fair game to speak of, apparently.
Believe it or not Jean, we actually defended Hal on several occasions. When we made the post on October 5th regarding the increase in salaries, Mike edited that post after viewing the comments to ensure that the intent of the post was to question fiscal management, and not to allude to anything that might potentially be interpreted as questionable. As well, we contracted a hip-hop artist to write a song for Mike’s campaign. Two of the verses in the first draft of the song made mildly sarcastic references to the competition, so we made him change the lyrics. As for the now infamous “letter” that someone had tried to circulate in the Whitewater News, we had absolutely nothing to do with that either.
Speaking of lawsuit, did you not notice that Mike never mentioned Hal’s lawsuit or “tractorgate” once on his campaign Facebook page? Did you not notice that Mike never even alluded to Hal’s lawsuit or “tractorgate” indirectly by posting the letters which were written about him in the Whitewater News? Did you not notice that the video of Hal’s profanity laden outburst towards two residents never made it onto Mike’s Facebook page? That video exists and we have direct access to it. Hal’s name never even came up on Mike’s page, his speeches or pamphlets. There was plenty of material circulating about Hal that would have been advantageous to our cause to give publicity to, but we never used it.
This leaves me with a question for you; where did Hal’s name get defamed or run down within our campaign? I do not expect that you will be capable of providing any examples of this; there aren’t any. Have you misconstrued the fact that we brought up Whitewater financial records as some form of smear when that is not only fair game, but crucial to accountability and transparency? Mike’s posts that pertained to that were factual with evidence provided directly in the post. These posts were also done with ample time for Hal or any other member of council to reply. This is called public accountability, a concept Mike is prepared to answer to and live by.
When it comes to defamatory speech, negativity and smear campaigning, Mike too was the subject of that and we found a way to make it work in Mike’s favour. In your letter you state that Hal “…would never have allowed any of his supporters to spread gossip or untruths or cause hurt to another person…”. except everything you said Hal wouldn’t let happen, happened to Mike, and we couldn’t be more thankful.
On August 23rd, a Whitewater resident wrote on Mike’s campaign Facebook page to attack his character and denigrate his achievements as deputy-fire chief in comments that at times were barely legible and tried to incite a mob by tagging some of his friends and peers to join him. This resident’s friends showed up and tagged other friends and high fived each other by “liking” each other’s defamatory comments. If there was any question as to who this man was or what candidate he supported, that disappeared into thin air when he proudly declared that he was the cousin of Mayor Hal Johnson. Twice.
I cannot emphasize enough how thankful we are to your cousin. His stop by the Facebook page to smear Mike was a major turning point in this election for us. We learned a lot about how Facebook algorithms worked as a direct result of our interaction with him on Mike’s page. The more a person comments on a post, the more people who are tagged in that post and the more these people like each others comments, the more Facebook’s algorithms give exposure to that post by pushing it into more and more newsfeeds. Mike’s posts seldom appeared in over 1,000 newsfeeds a week before 
August 23rd, but the day your cousin came by to try and incite a cyber mob, the exposure that Facebook gave to that post as a result of the traffic he brought us swelled to over 2,000 in a single day and 3,200 in a few days. Six to seven people messaged the page directly to condemn his comments and pledge their support to Mike’s campaign. Our team members were individually approached by roughly a dozen residents in public to express their condemnation for his comments as well. Several of these people didn’t even have Facebook, they heard about it from others. We learned from this that the public were not only watching, but they were also talking. This gave us confidence that we actually had a fighting chance in this election and emboldened our resolve to work harder to win. Your cousin
taught us to bring more of our ground game onto social media and to start boosting more posts and running more ads on Facebook. When we paid to boost that very same post a bit later, it only reached an additional 1,700 people. At 3,200 views, your cousin gave us almost twice the exposure that we paid Mark Zuckerberg to give us by running our ads. We didn’t even have to hand your cousin the rope, he brought his own.
As well, we considered banning and blocking your cousin from Mike’s Facebook page, but as soon as we saw that post start soaring into hundreds of more news feeds, we sat back and watched the traffic roll in. In the words of Lord Admiral Horatio Nelson: “Gentlemen, when the competition is committed to a mistake we must not interrupt him too soon.” Please see the screen capture with this letter of our Facebook data analytics that cover the two weeks prior to August 23rd, the day your cousin came by to say hello. Do you see that spike in our page traffic?
Our campaign won in a very fair, clean and honest manner. We cannot be held accountable for the actions of private citizens, other campaigns or even the conduct of members of your very own family. Hal had every advantage at his disposal as the incumbent mayor.
If you truly want to honour Hal’s legacy in office, why not do so by honouring the spirit of his campaign which ran on the word “unity” 48 hours before the end of the election, Mike publicly called upon his supporters to stand behind and support the winners of the election including Hal Johnson, had he won re-election. Show us the integrity and honour of the Johnson name by doing the same.
Elizabeth (Betty) Heubner
Cobden
