We always take politicians with a grain of salt, but we can't deny that Coun. Nick Volkow gave even us a surprise this year when he told a shark-fin protester to "piss off" in an email.
Volkow's always been the shoot-from-the-hip sort who still talks more like a working class truck driver than a glossy politician.
Frankly, it's usually a nice break from the hoity-toity political jargon that tends to reign at city councils around the province where many elected officials come from legal or professional backgrounds.
But Volkow got (and deserved) a hefty backlash when he crossed the line from down-to-earth and familiar to rude and temperamental.
On the upside, he at least offered a thorough (if somewhat weak) explanation: turns out a petition set up online was sending notifications to him each time someone signed it, with his Blackberry going off every time one came in - in all, he said, more than 300 times over the course of a few days.
That's a heck of a lot of buzzing, beeps and rings. As a "late adapter," Volkow said he was frustrated with the constant interruptions.
Technology can certainly be irritating, but that doesn't excuse poor behaviour from an elected official - so we're hoping Volkow spent some quality time with the Blackberry's instruction manual over the last few months and sorted out how to turn off the notification settings.
