More explanation needed on so-called ‘gentlemen’s agreement’

Dear Editor:

I have been reading and enjoying your newspaper for many years and look forward weekly to (among other things) the next edition of Joe DeFelice’s “Man About Canton” (aka MAC).

MAC is usually on-point, brings our attention to worthy items that might not otherwise get mention, and occasionally hollers out in a thought-provoking and opinionated way. Always a worthy read.

I must note, however, that on one issue MAC seems to have overstepped a journalistic red line, not once but several times, and someone needs to call him out. So I will.

MAC has referred on several occasions, most recently in your May 2 edition, to the (so-called) “gentlemen’s agreement” in Canton that would keep political signs off lawns. I know of no such “gentlemen’s agreement,” and I’ve lived here most of my life (CHS ’78, thank you).

I wonder if the editor could convince MAC to state, clearly in his space: 1. What was agreed upon in this “gentlemen’s agreement”; 2. Just who were the “gentlemen” who agreed to this agreement; and 3. Why on earth should any current candidate for political office, or supporter of a referendum cause, be bound by the terms of said “gentlemen’s agreement.”

If MAC has good answers to any of these questions I hope that he uses his Citizen-provided soapbox to answer them, to the proper edification of us all, and I continue to look forward to his learned comments on this and many other local matters.

Sincerely,

Francis B. O’Neill

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