Voice of the People: Don't Ever Cross Walt

On April 9th I retrieved my mail and I was surprised to see I had an envelope addressed to me from the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC). I opened the envelope and the first page was a letter for me from the FPPC that stated: “The FPPC is reviewing an allegation that alleges possible violations of the Act’s campaign disclosure provisions in connection with the City of Grand Terrace’s Measure ‘C’ election.” You might remember the story when Mayor Walt Stanckiewitz became upset with me and attempted to intimidate me when he saw that I was attempting to hand out flyers that encouraged people to vote NO on Measure ‘C’. Walt accused me of being a member of an “unregistered organization” and said that I just made myself part of a lawsuit. Walt, I was en route home from Afghanistan less than 12 hours prior to your rage. I hate to break it to you but no one sent me a Red Cross message while I was overseas ordering me to hand out flyers immediately after I returned from deployment. I exercised my First Amendment rights on my own free will. After my story was on the front page of this paper I received the most incredible outpouring of support. It was special to me because it proved how important and precious our First Amendment rights are to most other citizens of GT. Obviously this was too much for a certain person to handle so I was reported to the FPPC. The message from our remaining Council members is that GT needs to heal, we must not continue to be divided and Measure ‘C’ is over and done with. Clearly Mayor Walt doesn’t subscribe to that idea of unity. I hear he is running for reelection and my question is: What is his platform? To make sure our city stays divided by persecuting those who made the grave mistake of disagreeing with him? Mayor Walt, I refuse to shun my neighbor or his business because he had a “Yes on Measure C” sign displayed. What you are pursuing is tyranny and I never thought that after my four deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan that I would have to take a stand against tyranny here in my beloved Grand Terrace! November 4th, 2014 I will be voting to end you and your friends’ reign over GT once and for all so we can get on with our lives.