Hey Newmarket Era...Leave that man alone.

On its Facebook Page, the Newmarket Era is promising to get to the bottom of the story: "Why did Joe Sponga quit?"

The paper is incensed and aghast that Sponga is refusing to provide any comment. The Era is asking its followers to weigh in on the topic. The paper even started an "Is it just me?" promotion to hype the interest in the so-called Sponga controversy.

But the response rate is negligible. The paper's editor and publisher must be wondering why nobody is responding to their incessant demands for public comment.

The reason why Newmarket residents aren't responding is because for the most part Newmarket residents are generally good people. We are supportive friends and neighbours. We generally don't partake in idle gossip. We are discrete.

The people who know Joe respect his right to privacy. We accept and respect his right to resign and we don't feel we are owed any additional comment or explanation. The moment that Joe Sponga resigned, he stopped being a politician. So people in Newmarket will treat him as one of us.

I don't know what has caused this disconnect of the Newmarket Era from the community, but the paper has misread us terribly.

Maybe it's a generational thing. A Generation Y reporter raised in the era where social media has broken down respect for personal privacy could be the cause. I remember when the Era was a much kinder, gentler publication and much more respectful. That Era has long passed unfortunately.

I also suspect that a John Taylor - through his wife, Michelle Digulla, who is vice president of the publication that writes the Era - connection to this paper may have played a part in the Era's obsession with Sponga's resignation. Whenever the paper has written multiple stories about a single issue in the past (or conversely, ignored issues altogether), John Taylor had political reasons for doing so. Does John Taylor have political reasons to motivate the paper's desire to make Sponga appear 'unhinged' in the public's eye?

My advice is for the public to keep on doing we're doing. Joe Sponga is no longer a politician. As citizens, we wouldn't want someone stirring up innuendo about us. We owe it to Joe to do the same.

It's time for the Newmarket Era to move on and leave Joe alone.