Vince Onorato Says Goodbye UPDATED

Supervisor Vince Onorato left with a bang last night.

First, he apologized to the people in the Lee Hill District for not setting a new course in government.

“Four years ago, we set out on a course and we didn’t get there,” he said. “We didn’t have the votes and the development community wanted to, let’s just say improve the majority on the board, and they have done a very good job doing so.”

Vince then said his mother always told him that if he didn’t have anything nice to say, then say nothing.

“I will take her advice,” he said.

Vince then went on to attack several people in the community.
 

To Free Lance-Star editorial writer Paul Akers, Vince quoted Adlai E. Stevenson II:

“Newspaper editors are men who separate the wheat from the chaff, and then print the chaff.”

For his successor, Gary Skinner, he quoted Stevenson again:

“He who slings mud generally loses ground.”
 

I spoke with VInce and he confirmed the quote for School Superintendent Jerry Hill, along with the School Board and especially Ray Lora:

“The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie–diliberate, contrived, and dishonest–but the myth–persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.”

And for himself, Vince quoted Stevenson again:
 

“If we value the pursuit of knowledge, we must be free to follow wherever that search may lead us. The free mind is not a barking dog, to be tethered on a ten-foot chain.”
   

Vince said that if you don’t like what he has to say, then plug your ears. And then he walked off into the sunset, briefcase in hand, leaving behind five public hearings and a closed session.

I am just glad I didn’t get this Stevenson quote:

“Journalists do not live by words alone, although sometimes they have to eat them.”

I am writing a story about some more reaction and more comments from Vince, so stay tuned.

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