Online campaign 'orchestrated,' embattled Wells says

Residents who sign online petitions urging the mayor of St. John's to resign are fooling themselves, and are fools to boot, Andy Wells says.

Wells remains adamant that he will be able to serve as both mayor and full-time chair of the Public Utilities Board, a post he assumes on March 1.

An online petition asking signatories to e-mail Wells and other councillors asking for the mayor's resignation has been circulating since last week.

As well, a group on Facebook — with the blunt title of "Force Andy Wells to resign as mayor of St. John's" — had as of Tuesday afternoon attracted almost 200 members.

Wells said his new opponents are simply the same people who have fought him before.

"These are people who've been after me. I mean, I got no time for them," said Wells, describing many of them as "NDP malcontents and environmental discontents" who prefer scare tactics to debate. 

"They are basically anti-development. They're against the good and proper development of the city. They think they are going to force me out of office," Wells said. "We'll see."

Open line shows and online forums have been busy since Wells announced last week that he can function as both a full-time mayor and the head of the PUB, without any conflict in his schedule.

The provincial Liberals have been pressing for Wells, whom Premier Danny Williams appointed to the PUB job, to resign as mayor, as holding both jobs may pose a conflict of interest.

Wells is staying on as mayor until at least September — he has hinted he may not leave even then — in order to avoid a byelection that the City of St. John's Act would make necessary should he quit before then.

Anti-Wells form letter circulates city hall

At Monday evening's meeting, some councillors said they had received as many as 60 e-mails each since the night before — all of them with the same spelling mistakes.

Grammar aside, Coun. Frank Galgay said supporters of the campaign are right.

"I think the honourable thing that he could do would be to tender his resignation, to thank the people of St. John's for electing him for a number of terms, and to bow out gracefully," said Galgay, a frequent critic of Wells on council.

Wells, though, said he is far from persuaded. He noted that at least half of the e-mails he has received are running in his favour.

"This stuff is all orchestrated and all manipulated," he said.

"Most of this is coming out of the university. One always thinks of the university as a place of higher learning, but they have lots in there that don't know what they're talking about."