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LETTER: Mayor's good intentions paved way to defeat

Good intentions are sometimes not enough to make a successful mayor

Re: Helps edges Fortin in mayor’s race (News, Nov. 19)

I think the rise and fall of Dean Fortin is one of the saddest sagas in the history of Victoria municipal politics.

Fortin is clearly a very decent, hard-working and well-intentioned man, and he performed admirably both as executive director of the Burnside Gorge Community Centre and as a city councillor.

But when he became mayor, while he did some positive things, he never really seemed to be able to get a handle on the big-ticket issues and ultimately he got hoplessly bogged down in two of the biggest messes in the city’s history: the Johnson Street Bridge boondoggle and the sewage treatment fiasco.

The main lesson to be learned from the Fortin years at city hall is that while hard work and good intentions are important, they are sometimes not enough to make a successful mayor.

If, as the old saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, so also, it seems, is the road to political defeat.

Gordon Pollard, Victoria