Sudbury, Ontario, Canada used to be a peaceful place.  A quiet, God-fearing mining community, it was the kind of medium-sized city where stupid people didn’t lock their doors at night.  A place where one could find figure skater Jeffrey Buttle and figure skater murderer Todd Bertuzzi enjoying lunch together in a fashionable downtown subshop. A place where people trusted their elected politicians, and elected politicians took great care not to violate that trust.

That is, until this announced it was coming to town:

Yes, a recent combination of i) increased local wealth due to booming nickel prices, and ii) the legendary musician’s continued descent into obscurity led to the most hotly anticipated gig in Sudbury since before Green Day fired their manager. 

An enthusiastic mix of John’s fans, low-level scalpers and the just plain (bi-) curious lined up in the extreme cold for hours to get tickets for the Rocket Man’s show this coming Sunday.  Tickets went fast - a little too fast, apparently.  Something was up, and shortly thereafter, the reason was revealed to be…

…politicians.  Always with the politicians.

Surprise, surprise, seems the fat cats in Sudbury’s City Council decided that the extra $50K, city vehicle and 24-hour on demand snow removal services weren’t perks enough for their fifteen hours of work a week.  So they went ahead and gave themselves 120 tickets (eight apiece) to the hottest show in town, which may not seem like a big deal until you realize that the Sudbury Arena only holds 6000 people.

Sudburians were outraged in a way they haven’t been since local boy Alex Trebek shaved his moustache.  Words like “bullshit” and “crock” and “typical” were bandied about willy-nilly.  Angry phone calls were made.  A garbage can was overturned (although that may have been raccoons).

Oh, sure, the mayor has said that most of the tickets have been given back, and that he never would have earmarked them for the Council had he known it would cause such outrage.  But I say COME ON, John Rodriguez!  If there is one thing a blue collar, beer-swilling, hockey-obsessed community of second-generation immigrants can’t get enough of, it’s gay men who write love songs to princesses.

You can give all the tickets back you want.  But there is one thing that can never be returned.  And that is the sense of security and trust that exists when constituents know that their government officials will put the public interest ahead of their own.  That’s been blown out now, like a candle in some sort of weather system.

Oh, and a word of advice, Mr. Rodriguez?  Don’t even think about trying this when Blue Rodeo comes on the 18th.  Or it won’t just be a garbage can that gets tipped over.  We’re talking six, seven cans minimum.