A relieved response.

To Abbot Waldemar,

let me begin by informing you that your letter was a true relief for most of the councilors and that I write this in order to express our gratitude for the decision you have made regarding the Council of Stormwind. In the letter we received, you make a reference to each and every minister and the reasons why you have come to such a decision, namely to disregard the Council as a functional body of the city and its administrative nature. I will refrain from speaking in defense of every one of them, since I'm neither their attorney nor will your letter be treated as material meant for a court room, regardless the high desire your tone in said letter displays for such.

I will however present you a brief explanation regarding my own person.You seem to still be ignorant towards certain facts on which the Council's functions base their existence. My purpose in the Council is not decide whether or not a councilor, a guest or a citizen should speak their minds during the meetings, but to do my best to have everyone speak and at the same time maintain order during this procedure. Thusly, it is only natural that I won't speak much myself, giving the chance for the councilors and those present in the Council hall to do so.

Furthermore, you can not possibly be aware of neither my duties not the workload I have to deal with, apart from what you see happening in the public meetings; something which is only a small part of my function within the Council. The fact that you are unable to take a peek in my private quarters or closed Council meetings, should be indication enough for you to be cautious with making assumptions regarding my position. Such assumptions are highly demeaning and insulting, something that a person of your position should be well aware of. I would have expected for you to comprehend this without me having to explain the reasons, since obviously your function within the Chapter's ranks is very similar. For these reason, and because unlike yourself, I do understand the weight such a position carries, I will refrain from claiming that the Abbot is only there to write letters and was never seen by anyone apart from the people in his own Order, thusly accusing you the same way you so thoughtlessly accused me.

Regarding your Order and myself, yes, I openly admit to have a certain prejudice towards the Chapter. Who in my position wouldn't? Who in their right mind would freely give their trust to the Order, whose former leader, Dragomir Iretongue, kidnapped and tortured them for two weeks and whose new members assaulted them repeatedly, shooting and stabbing, until almost dead? Who would blindly forgive and forget the mistakes of this very same Order, when it's mostly known to the public thanks to its zealotry and questionable mentality regarding faith and religion? Who would allow this Order, which causes havoc and confusion in almost each and every council meeting, to have guard rights? Clearly, I am not only concerned about my own well-being, but the well-being of the entire city and its citizens, after having not one, but quite a few explicit negative encounters with your men.

Regarding the secret meetings, the Council members are bound to have such, since internal matters can not be discussed in the presence of the public for various reasons, one of them being external parties, such as your own Order, interfering and thus hindering any progress from taking place. As much as people would like the Council to be a perfect administrative body, it is not. It still has flaws which we are trying to eradicate, but we can not do so unless all ministers are full-heartedly willing to contribute to it. Certain areas of the Council are in dire need of clarification and re-organization, in order to have its functionality optimized. The least the Council can use at this point is internal strife, something which Lord Lightbringer seems very keen in producing for whatever reasons.

I will once more attempt to clarify. Brother Osmand's acceptance in the Council on a trial period, was based on a rule which was never presented to most of us, was mentioned and presented by Lord Lightbringer for the very first time in three years at the Council meeting on the 11th of this month and during my absence. A rule which in the eyes of many is highly unethical, dictating that a minister has the right to bluntly ignore the voting rights of a minister in absence, and thus vote in his or her place. Such a rule would have never been accepted, were it presented earlier and put down for debate. Like I already mentioned, it was never presented prior to the 11th, nor has it ever seen use in at least three years within the council. The creators of an old system containing such rules are obliged to pass it forward to every new member that joins the Council, something that was not done.

In fact, it may surprise you to know that it was Lord Maelmoor himself who back then offered me a position in the Council. Neither he nor that time's Chairlady informed me about any conduct of rules regarding the Council procedures. Last week, and after I was informed of the occurrences during my absence, I inquired the location of the documents, which I was told to contain the old rules regarding the internal function of votes within the Council, rules which need to be available to every minister by default. The answer I received was "You just have to look for them. The vault is huge!". Perhaps you can now see what I was referring to when I said that the Council needs an internal re-organization. A self-sustainable system, such as the Council is, while still under the orders of His Majesty King Varian Wrynn, should be able to afford the passing of its founding further. If it does not support the passing of a generation it ceases to be self-sustainable. Therefore it is not the same system, for which the rules have been written for. Therefore the rules are invalid. And thusly, the vote was revoked and it was decided to be repeated. I will say once more that the internal matters of the Council are for the ministers to handle. My colleagues and I would very much appreciate it if the public would finally give us the chance to work on the flaws that are still evident, by reducing the amount of complains and general impatience towards us and thus giving us the necessary clarity to work on that task.

At this point I wish to also mention that the behavior of your members is yet again highly dubious. I will refer to two specific facts, which support my claims:

1) Osmand was escorted by several of the Chapter's members during last night's meeting, who came to his defense. That alone indicates that they are a biased source of support. Osmand is part of the Chapter, and thus they came to make sure he is elected. Why is Osmand's defense made by the Archlectress, who even raised her voice aggressively and began to yell at the ministers some point, if his affiliations to the Chapter are irrelevant as he claimed? This behavior denounces a strong undercurrent of power at work, which shows once more that accepting Osmand as a minister might be a power-play executed by the Chapter to gain more influence within the city.

2) The Archlectress herself sent letters to the councilors on the 17th, after the decision was made to revoke the last vote on the 16th. Those letters contained a plea towards the ministers to accept Osmand as a trialist when the vote is to be repeated. First and foremost, this is an attempt at discreetly influencing the judgment of the ministers, without a public plead. Humble apologies were formulated, but this is still a subtle form of coercing. Especially having known the Chapter's past, with passive-aggressive behavior as a unit, which eventually escalates into chaotic propaganda and all-out violence if their terms are not accepted, this can actually be seen as a dissimulated threat. This also supports my first point, namely that the Chapter's is actually behind Osmand's moves.

Now, after having all this said, you might understand why your decision comes to us as a true relief. There are many matters yet to be settled within the Council, and regardless of whether you acknowledge the effort most of us are making, we will keep investing time and resources to finally bring the Council's functionality to a maximum. Only then can the ministers proceed with their actual work (*). As for your indirect threat and again demeaning tone in the last paragraph of your letter, I can assure you that none of us feels intimidated. We all work for the city of Stormwind and its well-being. You might not be able to see this, but the efforts are there, striving for a better organization and pleading the citizens to show understanding towards said efforts.

King's Honor,

Mandui Delaney



(*) OOC: I understand Imanuel and agree on his OOC notice. This reply should be received as a purely IC one as well (you know how much I like you, you filthy russian xD). However, I would like to clarify in OOC terms what I meant with "There are many matters yet to be settled within the Council, and regardless of whether you acknowledge the effort most of us are making, we will keep investing time and resources to finally bring the Council's functionality to a maximum. Only then can the ministers proceed with their actual work".

The Council should be there in order to increase the amount of RP on the Alliance. It has been there for many years now, and due to many people leaving, resigning, getting ICly killed, etc., the Council has changed a lot since it was originally formed. The rest of the people involved in it and myself are trying to set a clear rule system regarding the Justice system, internal procedures, such as the voting system and various other guidelines. We can barely get to organizing events when we constantly have to handle IC and OOC conflicts based on the lack of said guidelines. So, peeps, do cut us some slack and let us re-organize ourselves first, so we can finally start creating the RP for the community.

This thread will be locked as well for the same reasons. Thanks for reading