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October/November
2000 Newsletter
Bizarre
Accusations Against Friends of Red Hill
On
October 12, one of our members made a bizarre discovery
on the internet. He did a search for Friends of Red Hill
Valley and turned up a strange link that said our group
was pro-expressway.
The
first item on the search list read: "Friends of Red Hill
Valley Hamilton Ontario An independent group of people supporting
the completion of the Red Hill Creek Expressway (Lincoln
M. Alexander Parkway) in Hamilton Ontario Canada". This
led to a page of the website of the Get Hamilton Moving
Task Force which was titled "Friends of Red Hill Valley".
The text began: "Our main opponent, Friends of Red Hill
Valley, is a terrorist group disguised as an environmental
group. Their mandate is to stop construction of the expressway
at any cost, including the cost of total destruction of
the valley."
It
went on to accuse us of preventing the 'bio-engineering'
of Red Hill Creek and said the creek is now forced to erode
its banks which "will cause the destruction of the entire
valley and could, within a very short time, affect even
the urban development on either side of the valley above
the rim." The page ended with the following sentence: "In
addition to their total disregard for the well-being of
the valley, Friends of Red Hill Valley has threatened
to 'booby-trap' the trees in the valley so that any worker
who attempts to cut down a tree for expressway construction
will be killed or seriously injured."
The
Get Hamilton Moving Task Force was established in
April 1999 at a closed meeting at the Chamber of Commerce
addressed by regional chairman Terry Cooke. Its website
lists three individuals as contacts for the group, including
the President of the Chamber and its Executive Director,
and includes the phone number of the Chamber.
The
offending page appears to have been removed on October 13
after a number of officials, including politicians and members
of the media, were notified. On October 19, Friends
issued a press release about the offensive material and
sent a letter to the Chamber asking for an apology and a
promise to desist from these offensive activities.
The
Get Hamilton Moving Task Force issued a press release
later in the day apologizing to the members of Friends
of Red Hill Valley for the offensive accusations. Their
release said they had "taken full responsibility for the
inadvertent appearance of material on its web page which
painted a somewhat less than complimentary picture of the
'Friends of the Valley'." It went on to quote the Task Force
chairman as saying: "Although it was on the page for just
a short period of time, and had been put there without Task
Force authorization or knowledge, that does not excuse us
from accepting responsibility for the contents of the page."
He went on to say that the material "had been inserted inadvertently
by an individual who had access to the page. The individual
assured us that no malice was intended. Rather, while electronically
transferring information to the page the offending material
had somehow been dragged along." The release also stated
the Chamber of Commerce did not have anything to do with
the offending material.
Friends
also received a letter from the chair of the Get Hamilton
Moving Task Force stating: "the Get Hamilton Moving
Task Force (GHMTF) is not a Committee of the Chamber.
It is a coalition of dedicated organizations and individuals
working collaboratively to improve transportation infrastructure
in this region. We are nevertheless very proud that the
Chamber is one of our founders. They remain a very active
participant in the group, and leaders of the Chamber do
voluntarily serve on our Steering Committee..."
It
further stated: "We confirm that Doctor PC was in fact the
webmaster for the GHMTF. We are given to understand the
referenced page was never an integral part of the site.
We are told that an individual at Doctor PC wrote the referenced
page as personal file, without the knowledge or consent
of the GHMTF. Unfortunately, the page through inadvertence
was annexed to the GMHTF site during a reconstruction of
the web site on or around October 10, 2000. As soon as the
individual became aware that the page was 'on line', he
removed the page within 48 hours of the accident." Both
the media release and the letter were faxed to us from the
Chamber of Commerce.
The
Chair of Friends thanked the Task Force for its prompt
reply and explanation and accepted their apology. He noted
that "Part of a sincere apology is an explanation of how
the events occurred, and we appreciate that you included
an explanation with the apology. We think your explanation
is a plausible description for the majority of the issues
that we were concerned about."
He
noted a continuing concern that some coding on the Task
Force website was mis-directing internet searches for Friends
of Red Hill to the Task Force site. We have observed
this since early September but are hopeful that this problem
is also now being addressed. We are also hopeful that the
discussion about the future of the Red Hill Valley and the
proposed expressway will focus on facts, and not be undermined
by inflammatory statements by either side.
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