Lobbying Scandal in Westmount?

Most interesting  - the validity of a poll, conducted last spring by Ipsos Decarie  gauging public opinion in Westmount on the proposed arena project, has come under question almost a year by some Westmounters later as the story of a private school's interventionist social media outreach initiative has come to light.

Turns out that at the same time - in fact during - the timeframe of the Ipsos Decarie telephone survey to Westmount residents, Selywn House sent a mass emailing to over 2000 recipients - requesting said recipients to respond favourably to the proposed arena project should they be asked of course.

So is it possible that some of the less than 2500 respondents, 80 some percent of whom were in favour of the project, might have been influenced as a result of the contents of that email? Welcome to the world of power lobbying - and where better than in this microcosm of political hand to hand combat over issues like grass vs artificial surfaces, to Bixi or not to Bixi -   that is Westmount? Check out www.westmountwatch.org for the story of this story.

And now. for the picture of the day...We thought that spring was here and that hats were a thing of closets past! Clearly not. To see the sequence, take a look at the flickr sidebar. Especially for this total and absolute focus on his face as he looks down at the hat as Cathy is admonishing him from above.

Murdoch just can't resist a hat.....