In response to Rebecca Gilliar’s accusations, two years ago Ms. Gilliar was our campaign manager. We disagreed on many aspects of the campaign but were in alignment over the fact that the village needed a change. Some of the young people who joined our campaign efforts made statements about removing signs. My slate and I unequivocally stated that no dirty tactics were to be used to ensure a win. If we were to win, it would be strictly by honest methods.
Last Saturday night, my campaign committee started putting out our signs, keeping track of the addresses and locations of the signs. During the week, we added more. Since this effort, though 150 signs were put out, 15 are missing. The metal supporters are there, but the signs are missing.
My team has not stooped to any tactics such as removing, damaging or vandalizing the signs of our opponents. While we cannot control what individual people, unrelated to our campaign do, we have told our campaigners not to remove or damage any opposition signs or other campaign material. Ms. Gilliar can put up as many signs as she wants. We have no desire to remove them. One of our signs was removed because it was put in an illegal public location. If Ms. Gilliar is putting her signs in illegal public locations, they too will be removed.
It is ironic that Ms. Gilliar complains about “hate and sectarianism.” It is her campaign that has been spewing vitriol and lies in public, including in letters published in your own newspaper. (While I value free speech and a free press, I wonder if you should precede letters of such hateful tones with a statement that our newspaper does not support the bigotry posted in the following letter.) Ms. Gilliar placed on her Facebook page the hateful letter that your newspaper published, written by one of her supporters, David Zielenziger, only removing it after a number of hours. Our campaign has remained positive throughout, not criticizing her and only publishing our accomplishments and plans for the future. Thus, any negativity that is being expressed against her is unrelated to our campaign (she just assumes that people she does not recognize are our associates) and in fact has been generated by her negativity and is likely a reaction to that.
She is crying foul only now that her negativity is being turned against her.
—Pedram Bral
