I use the title of this post to demonstrate that things sometimes not what they appear to be at first glance.
There are some people in the City of Orange who for some reason simply hate Councilmember Denis Bilodeau. At least one of them has posted a comment in response to Mike Lawson’s post earlier this week about the court hearing regarding charges that Mr. Bilodeau broke the law by removing a campaign sign of one of his opponents in the November election, Carol Rudat. In Mike’s post we provided a link to a website that has some pretty outrageous allegations against Denis. The link was provided to demonstrate the “allegations” that were being made about Denis, and was not meant to be considered an endorsement of those allegations.
Last night, Councilman Bilodeau stopped by the weekly Drinking Liberally event at Memphis in Santa Ana. He stopped by specifically to meet Mike Lawson and I and share a little of his side of the story. You’ve got to respect a person who is willing to step into what some might think would be a hostile group, and engage in a dialogue.
For the record, Denis did have a beverage, Iced Tea.
After hearing his side of the story, I can understand the frustration that Denis and his family must have gone through during the election campaign and after. I have to say, that I am now far less likely to believe any of the unfounded allegations made against Councilman Bilodeau and his family by Carol Rudat and her supporters. What I see is a bunch of “crazies” spewing distorted and completely false allegations in the hope of tarnishing th name of a pretty regular guy.
Denis, thanks for having the courage to drop by and chat with us. Please feel free to do so again. I enjoyed our conversation last night, and I hope that the nut-jobs will soon find something else to do with their miserable lives.
As I have said before,we rarely if ever delete comments to posts on TheLiberalOC. That said, our readers should understand that much of the time, outrageous allegations are just simply outrageous. I encourage our readers to recognize this fact and consider comments that toss around unfounded claims with a pound of salt.
so did he remove the sign or not?
There is no doubt that he removed the sign. That is on video tape The question of law is whether or not he broke the law in doing so. Mr. Bilodeau believes the DA will drop the charges. We’ll have to see if that happens. But if the charges are to be dismissed by the DA, he should do so sooner, rather than later.
WOW Chris – that was really nice and I am sure Denis appreciates it. If he removed a sign…so what? I’ll agree that candidates should not do this but we ALL have to agree that it happens every election. Besides, he did not remove Rudat’s sign he removed the anonymous sign that said Dump Denis.
Flowerz, I didn’t recall an admission on his part. And yes, signs get vandalized and removed, but seldom by candidates themselves. I don’t really care if the DA drops the charges or not, but I have to question the judgement of a candidate ill-equipped to handle any sort of criticism.
To be honest, I don’t know what exactly to think about Bilodeau. Carol Rudat did throw some wild accusations his way while she was trying to carpetbag this city council seat, so I can understand why he’d be so POed that he’d remove her “Dump Denis” signs. However, it still just doesn’t seem right. Those signs are free speech… And however offensive we might find someone’s free speech, do we really want to censor it?
I don’t know, but I was impressed by the fact that Bilodeau was willing to talk to you at LibOC and defend himself. That takes real guts. So when will Carol Rudat do the same, and explain herself to OC’s bloggers?
Dan – there is video – I do not think he needs to admit anything to anyone of us, it is there in grainy black and white.
He did seem like a nice guy. But here is a question to ponder – what other signs might he have taken down, that no one found out about?
Also, I have been told that he is the one who did the bogus parking lot study in Garden Grove that paved the way for Steve Sheldon to rip off the people of that city by buying a parking lot in their downtown area so that he can make $40 million or son on a condo project. He only paid $1.5 million for the lot.
Rudat does sound like a disaster – but maybe neither of these characters should have been elected. Most politicians are not worthy of our votes…
Denis Bilodeau holds the offices of Councilmember in Orange and as Orange County Water Board Member, Division 2. Yes, it was his company which conducted the questionable traffic study for the Downtown Garden Grove Main Street, Sheldon 100 condo project, which has left the businesses owners with the last resort option of a legal suit against the city to see their rights preserved. Guess who else serves on the OC Water Board? Indeed, the very person who benefitted from the lack of competitive bidding for the property and said traffic study, none other than Steve Sheldon. I guess, the conflict of interest only applies when you are doing unethical behavior in other cities that you were not elected to serve.