I am a casual but interested observer of this year’s Red Deer city council election.

While I have never written a letter to the editor before, nothing I have seen has compelled me to do so until an incident at last night’s city council forum, sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce and hosted by the Red Deer Lodge.

Many of the candidates gave very good accounts of themselves, some better than others, and a few shone in the brief minutes we had with each individual candidate.

When it came time for the questions from the floor, many dealt with important issues about planning, policing, and project spending. Then, however, former city councilor and current columnist Vesna Higham asked a pointed and nasty question to Dianne Wyntjes, who basically demanded to know exactly how Wyntjes had voted, provincially and federally, for the past ten years.

While there must be something that Higham knows or thought she knew about Dianne, my neighbours and I were stunned, both by Higham’s attitude and her assertion that she had the right to know what people do in the privacy of the polling booth.

Wyntjes, to her credit I believe, said that she had supported every party at one time or another. A fair response – answered directly and without hesitation, and far more than Higham deserved.

I’m not a huge fan of her columns, but neither am I an opponent, until now at least. Still, judging by this question at the forum tonight, if Higham felt that a few candidates, Dianne Wyntjes especially, had no place on city council, than why didn’t Higham just run herself, instead of running her mouth inappropriately?

I attended the forum in order to decide how to cast my ballot, and have four candidates decisively selected. By the way she handled herself last night, Wyntjes is one of them.

Yours truly,

John George Hoffman,

Red Deer