Newmarket Cares - A Town of Newmarket Initiative

Lately I've been noticing the fine art of "exclusion" being played out by certain political factions within Newmarket as we ramp up to the next municipal election. 

For example, when the Glenway Preservation group launched their twitter account, it should be no surprise that who they chose to "follow" are prominent supporters of Dalton McGuinty's "Places to Grow Act" including former candidates (Taylor and Bisanz) or active members of the very party that passed the legislation that doomed the green space at Glenway to the development.  

Why not follow MPP Frank Klees?  Its not because he hasn't been successful at saving communities before, because he has.  It's because he wears the other team's colours.  Like I said, this is a prime example of politics of exclusion.  Its not about preserving the Glenway community as so much as it is about earning brownie points for the next time voters head to the ballot box. 

Its one thing when a private citizens' group wraps itself in party politics.  Its quite another thing when the actual government does it. 

Newmarket Cares, as reported in the Era newspaper here: http://www.yorkregion.com/news/article/1549337--newmarket-fire-victims-lean-on-each-other , is a Town of Newmarket initiative.  Newmarket Cares recently launched its own twitter account and chose to follow 15 people:

1) Jane Twinney (Ward 3 Councillor)
2) Teresa Latchford (Era Reporter)
3) Debora Kelly (Editor in Chief, York Region Media Group)
4) Newmarket Main St. BIA
5) @kwdubeau (No description but she tweets predominantly about technology)
6) Tom Hempen (Ward 4 Councillor)
7) Wes Playter (Roadhouse & Rose Funeral Home)
8) Tom Vegh (Ward 1 Councillor)
9) Chris Emanuel (Ward 7 Councillor)
10) John Taylor (Regional Councillor)
11) Tony Van Bynen (Mayor)
12) Toddy Kyle (CEO of the Newmarket Public Library)
13) Newmarket Public Library
14) Town of Newmarket
15) Newmarket Chamber of Commerce

Did you notice any conspicuous omissions? 

How about Ward 5 Councillor, Joe Sponga?  I know that he doesn't tweet much (but the @tomhempen account has zero tweets).  If you re-read the Era article I linked to, you'll recognize that it was Joe Sponga's initiative to raise donations for the victims of the Timothy St. fire.  Why was he excluded by the Town of Newmarket's "Newmarket Cares" follow list?

Or how about Ward 6 Councillor, Maddie Di Muccio?  She too tweeted about the Timothy St. fire donations.  She was also the only councillor to speak out against the racist graffiti (the rest of this group kept silent -- like they did during the c-word fiasco, like they did when Councillor Emanuel was arrested and convicted, etc. etc, etc).  She too isn't on the list of "following".  And, as the Era story says, Newmarket Cares was founded in the aftermath of the racist graffiti in Newmarket last winter.

In other words, somehow the only two Councillors who bothered to get off their duffs to actually do something that Newmarket Cares was supposedly going to address, are the victims of the politics of exclusion by the Town of Newmarket? 

This is a scandal in the first rate.  Shame on you, Town of Newmarket.