2010 grade: D
2009 grade: D
Speaking of speaking style, now we come to Reg Rankin, a fan of dropping Latin phrases and wild hand gestures. I worry that Rankin will one day give a passionate speech about clause 12.2 in Part Three of bylaw N-300, and an emphatic “ipso facto” will knock neighbouring councillor Tim Outhit out cold.
What’s Rankin talking so passionately about? Not much. This stretch of the council oval is becoming increasingly irrelevant, as the three councillors attempt to find a winning rhetorical style—Outhit going full-on John Wilkes Booth, Rankin invoking the spirits of Pompeii, Lund reviving Mr. Smith Goes to Washington—without attaching those pretty speeches to any substance worth listening to.
I’ll give Rankin this: he has an impressive grasp of detail. But it’s detail for detail’s sake, divorced from any over-arching political perspective or social purpose. Rankin had some issues fall on his lap related to the Prospect Community Centre, and he handled them reasonably well, but gee golly, so what? He’s pulling down 70 grand and change for this, he ought be able to do more than get a rec centre through the bureaucracy. And oh: he supported “tax reform.”
This article appears in Jun 3-9, 2010.
Reg voted for “tax reform” because he thought it would put him in the good graces of the increasingly older, wealthier set that is moving into the Prospect area.
I think the man has gotten too comfortable for his own good, he’s lost his edge.
He had an edge? Last time I saw him give a speech it was meaningless babble. And now the man votes against bike lanes. Thanks Reg. I’d like to say he lost my vote, but frankly he never had it.