Another Open Letter to Rise Above

In this Fayetteville Observer story Sunday, Mayor Warner was quoted:
“I’ve tried very hard to be ethical, and I want us to have positive, prudent priorities for Hope Mills,” Warner said. 

and regarding her lawsuit against two citizens:
“As far as where we’re moving forward now, we’re moving forward,” Warner said. “I’m moving forward with the attitude that I’m not gonna let this … stop me, I’m going to do the things that I think are important for Hope Mills and stay positive.”

You can be positive, stay positive, declare positivity as a rule, and still, in a lot of issues, be completely wrong.
And people can ignore all the other aspects of reality that impact them, and they will be completely wrong.
You can pave over everything with political blather, and it is still wrong. And in the end, caring only about the results and not the process is not “trying very hard to be ethical.”

Your lawsuit was your failure. You shouldn’t let failure stop you.
But a mature adult should learn from failure, and fix them along the way.
Instead, just like you mentioned in radio interviews, so it’s your plan, not some outsider’s opinion, you’re sticking your head further into the air and “rising above it” by simple declaration.
Same as you’ve done with commissioners and citizen concerns for years: freeze out anyone who asks you tough questions or even contradicts your wishes, and then blame them for being divisive.
Same as you did with the creator of the Hope Mills Bee for finding information about your family business tax lien online.
Same as you have historically done to people since high school. Stories abound. If anyone disagrees with you on anything, you shunt them off and focus on those who admire you in every way. Ask around outside your circle of lackeys. It would be eye-opening but you’re a terrible learner.

And that’s getting to the unconscionable level. Sure, it makes some people admire you for your resolve, but to any objective observer, it shows a resistance to learning and incapability to improve beyond simple declarations and words. It’s all about image, not integrity.

You really could do a lot more good if you weren’t so resistant to listening to anyone else’s perspective. And I’m not talking about telling someone how great you are and then sitting back so they can shower you with how great you are. That’s not perspective, that’s adoration. That’s not what a mayor does, that’s what a cheerleader coach does. That’s not what a leader does, that’s what a desperate political shark does.

You can do things you think are important, and be completely wrong.
You can do “more” than other people who aren’t the mayor and don’t have your position and title and job duties (that you applied for) and make oblique comments on your pages in order to buttress your own self-image, and be wrong again.

You thought that lawsuit was important, and it was wrong. You only wanted to make people stop criticizing you, which legitimately only makes people criticize you more. It was a political shark gambit that failed, because you didn’t control the players as well as you had hoped.
And now you’re stunned by the results, and still too dismissive to learn from it.
You can call it “moving forward” now, if that’s what you want to portray it as.
And that works if you’re not a public figure with loads of shunted-off people and evidence in your past.
But if you’re wanting to build a “community” you’re going about it all wrong.

You’re moving forward, because the courts said there was nowhere else to go. How much did that lawsuit cost you?
And it contained lies and inaccuracies, which you still hold to, because you just simply choose to believe your own lies.

What other choice do you have but to move on from there? “Moving forward now” is not courage. That’s conscious disregard for reality and political spinmongering and pretense. Ethical people don’t live in a pretend world.
But many in your circle will admire your resolve, which is just self-serving political human-manipulative gobbledygook.

In the other article, you said you own your mistakes and shortcomings. This isn’t that. Because nothing is. You never have owned anything. There’s always another explanation that’s beyond your control. “I do not have a vote.” “He didn’t realize the damage this could cause me politically.” “I only brought a small notebook of evidence, she brought a big one” because she’s divisive.

“Move forward” with pride, self-centeredness, hubris, arrogance, purposeful deceitfulness, guile, cunning, and the occasional dumb luck and enough gullible voters to push you over the top, because those are the stock and trade of your political career, in reality. You need to “try A LOT harder to be ethical.”