I am compelled to respond to some misconceptions that Ed Fitch misstatted in the June 7 Spokesman story ”Wide open race for mayor.”

The statement that I “misinterpreted” the city charter is a false statement. There is one city attorney, and it is not Ed Fitch. I always seek the attorney’s opinion when I rule on council protocol. For example, Ed has violated the Oregon Open Meetings Law on several occasions. Our attorney has informed him as such, as have I. Just because he doesn’t like the law doesn’t mean he can violate it. He then blames me! He has not been city attorney for years. And since his tenure, we have written new ordinances that cover council roles and responsibilities, and we also now have council rules which cover council behavior.

As Ed pointed out, he was mayor more than 20 years ago, and only served a very short time (He was force to resign as he moved outside city limits). Redmond’s population at that time was about 13,400. It now exceeds 36,000 residents. It is a different city. In addition, we still suffer from some poor decisions during his tenure; closing the old Juniper Golf Course and putting Redmond in debt for millions of dollars to build a new one, selling prime airport property to a private developer and closing a needed railroad crossing (which he now advocates opening).

Councilor Fitch seems to forget that the council is a deliberative body made up of seven members. By democratic procedures, the majority rules. Ed’s problem is that he finds himself on the wrong side of votes on many of the issues he pushes.

I am sorry that Ed feels there will be friction as the election approaches. Actually, there has been friction ever since I soundly defeated Ed in the 2018 election and he was subsequently elected to city council. My thought is that he believes his way to victory is to denigrate those councilors who disagree with him. My advice is to look in the mirror and see who is on the wrong side of many issues not related to core functions of city government.

George Endicott

Mayor of Redmond