Keystone pipeline fliers not really from Tim Leavitt
For some, this news about Mayor Tim Leavitt will come as a disappointment, and others will be relieved.
No, Leavitt didn’t sneak out in the middle of the night to drop off fliers about the Keystone oil pipeline and sport utility vehicles on your doorstep last weekend. Yes, you read that right.
However you look at it, though, the situation is still pretty amusing, even to the mayor himself.
A number of fliers with phony signatures from the mayor were dropped off outside homes in parts of Vancouver sometime over the weekend. In three paragraphs, the note goes from praising Democratic U.S. Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell for opposing the pipeline to meandering into a series of observations about drivers wasting gas around the city.
“When I was at the convenience store I saw another gal who bought a pack of cigarettes then got in her Pathfinder and took off,” the note reads. “She came all that way to buy one thing.”
Word of the note first came to The Columbian newsroom Sunday afternoon from a reader in the Vancouver Heights Neighborhood who woke up to find one on his doorstep that morning. Here’s a copy, for your viewing pleasure:
On Tuesday, the city released a statement on its website, assuring everyone the note was a fake.
Some found the fliers tucked under their copy of The Columbian and mistook it as an insert from the paper, said Marc Dailey, the paper’s circulation and production director. Full disclosure here: No, the fliers aren’t from The Columbian either.
“It’s obviously somebody using other people’s names and identities to do this,” Dailey said. “I’ve asked our home delivery team and our carriers to keep an eye out.”
And the mayor’s response to the fliers? Come on, guys, try harder.
“If crazies like whoever’s doing this are going to take on this stupid stuff, I wish they’d be better at it,” Leavitt said. “If they’re going to falsify my name, at least get the spelling right.”
The “A” was left out of his name in some of the first notes reported to the city.
“And the signature doesn’t look anything like what I would sign,” Leavitt said. “I mean, there are plenty of documents out there in the public realm with my signature, and you’d think that they would at least try to somewhat better emulate my signature.”
While the mayor’s keeping his sense of humor about the fliers, he finds the situation a little offensive and worries some folks who don’t know him so well might take the message seriously.
This isn’t the first time fliers with fake signatures from city officials have made their way onto doorsteps in Vancouver. Last month, the same thing happened to Mark Johnston, the president of the Vancouver Firefighters’ Union IAFF Local 452.
The fliers said the union supports the Affordable Care Act and President Barack Obama’s policy on immigration. As former Columbian reporter Stephanie Rice wrote, the union has not taken a stance on either issue.
