The Night Sierra Madre’s Civility Party Died

– Courtesy photo

Once upon a time there was a slate of candidates who ran for Sierra Madre City Council that called themselves “The Civility Party.” They claimed to be nicer and more polite than the other candidates, and a lot of people bought into that. Then, in November of 2014, all of it blew up, and in spectacular fashion.

I am not sure anyone had ever made such a journey before. To go from being this city’s Mayor to by far its most egregious and frankly cracked offender at public comment, and in just a relative few months, was a pretty dramatic trip.

I had never seen this kind of thing ever happen to any other Mayors in the area. Yet here in Sierra Madre the person who had been The Civility Party’s spokeswoman and Mayor, for whatever reason, went deep and dark.

Nancy Walsh’s disturbing and profanity laced address to the City Council on November 13 of 2014 was a radical departure. Yet only a relative few actually saw her say any of those things at the time. However, on YouTube the video of her speech was viewed thousands of times, all across the country. At the end of this article I am posting a link so you can see for yourself what happened.

To call her use of the words “child predator” to describe the actions of certain elected officials interested in governmental reform “inappropriate” hardly does justice to that somewhat fussy word. That she should then go on to cite these officials by name, and in this very same ugly and disparaging context, was not the act of a reasonable person.

Many of the people I discussed this with at the time believed what she said that evening represented actionable libel, and should two City Councilmembers have decided to take former Mayor Walsh to Court over what she said in this video, they probably would have won.

It also begged this question: Whatever happened to the Civility Party? Perhaps Nancy’s fellow members, John Buchanan, Josh Moran and Joe Mosca, might have wanted to share their views about this. Clearly her talk did not reflect well on those who had supported and elected her to office in 2010.

And after all, this woman was actually elected to the City Council. People believed they were voting for her because she represented a kinder and gentler way of doing political business in town.

Clearly that was now out the window. It was the night Sierra Madre’s Civility Party died. It has never been heard from since.

Video link here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8WtY5W8bko&feature=youtu.be

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