10-07-2020, 07:37 PM
The following is based on not knowing you know the staffer in question outside of purely professional matters. In my opinion, they are complaining about tone, while completely ignoring the substance. In principle, they are right, in that staff should be able to exist in public (going to the store, riding their bike, posting on the Internet) without having to deal with unwanted work-related communication from the public. But it’s ridiculous that the only engagement they will make is to tell you off for what is essentially a matter of politeness, while not even deigning to say “no comment” about your actual concern. I can’t say how others will perceive it, but I hope that people will notice that the City is distracting from the actual issue: I think your question is very fair; Council should not be able to get political points for having pro-cycling (or maybe we call them anti-death?) policies, while constantly undermining those same policies every time an actual specific design is approved.
Given that you know the person, that makes it even more unreasonable (although to be fair they might not know that).
If I were in your place, I might respond by saying that I referred to the person as a community member, not as a City staffer, and by the way, what about the substance of my question, which is a very reasonable question for me to ask? But I don’t claim any expertise, so I’m not going to call this a recommendation.
Given that you know the person, that makes it even more unreasonable (although to be fair they might not know that).
If I were in your place, I might respond by saying that I referred to the person as a community member, not as a City staffer, and by the way, what about the substance of my question, which is a very reasonable question for me to ask? But I don’t claim any expertise, so I’m not going to call this a recommendation.