Being Deputy Mayor means never having to say you're sorry ...

Deputy Mayor 'shoot from the hip' Joe Ramia tries to defend leaving threatening messages on an opponent's answering machine.

It's rather like trying to defend the indefensible.

And is there an apology? No way. Not from the Deputy Mayor.

Hopefully, he (and the other Councillors) will say sorry to the Toowoomba public after Saturday.


From the Chronicle:

Deputy mayor defends angry message to Morley

26 July 2006

By Sarah Vogler

IT'S becoming very personal in the lead-up to Toowoomba's landmark Water Futures poll on Saturday.

Yesterday it was the deputy mayor in the firing line for comments he left on Citizens Against Drinking Sewage (CADS) co-ordinator Rosemary Morley's answering machine.

But Cr Joe Ramia's outburst had nothing to do with the water debate and everything to do with his family, he said.

Towards the end of last year Cr Ramia left an answering message which told Mrs Morley she and fellow anti-Water Futures campaigner Snow Manners were going to be in for a very, very rough ride.

"It's OK to sit in the back and throw rocks, Rosemary, but one of these days one of these big rocks are going to land on you and squash you and that other mate of yours on the blog site", he said on the answering machine last year.

Cr Ramia was under the impression Mrs Morley was responsible for comments questioning the professional integrity of one of his daughters-in-law.

A blog site carried comment about the woman; comments he said were devastating for his family – so he went on the attack.

Cr Ramia said he received an e-mail with Mrs Morley's name at the top that detailed the remarks, so he was led to believe she was behind them.

But Mrs Morley said that was no excuse for the venomous way the deputy mayor reacted, which she said still shook her to this day.

She said she had nothing to do with the comments which had left her severely depressed.

"To think a city official would leave a message like that ... he took all his venom out," Mrs Morley said.

"At the time I received that message I knew nothing about it (the comments). In the heat of anger people do things, but in the cold hard light the next morning ... he should have rang and said 'I'm sorry' ... and that would have been the end of it."

Cr Ramia said yesterday he understood Mrs Morley found the message distressing, but he did not regret it.

"I was protecting my family," he said.

"In the heat of the moment ... hey, do I regret saying it? No I don't because they attacked my family.

"My family doesn't come into this – keep them out of it."

Cr Ramia questioned why Mrs Morley would choose to talk about the incident yesterday – four days before the Water Futures poll - and not when the message was first left, about nine months ago.

She said she was initially reluctant to bring it back up again, but it was comments made by Mayor Dianne Thorley in The Chronicle on Tuesday that spurred her on.

"The Mayor has now come out in the media and made this a personal thing," Mrs Morley said.

Source - Chronicle - Being DeputyMayor means never having to say you're sorry.


Unbelievable conduct (and no apology) from the man who would have you drink recycled sewage ...