Matthew Shoemaker reads the comments. But only about Amazon

Ward 3 Councillor Matthew Shoemaker is young in years, but has nonetheless attained that advanced state of sagacity at which one learns to receive spousal instruction.

Recently, the two-years-married Jenna Shoemaker was talking to her hubby about reaction on social media to his drive to get Amazon to locate its second headquarters here.

Councillor Shoemaker confided to a Friday-night gathering of the Strive Young Professionals Group that he's, er, less than an avid reader of online comment sections.

"My wife and I talked about this and she said: 'Aw, some people can be so negative.' I don't really read the comments too much but I went and I read them," Shoemaker told more than 25 of the Sault's brightest and best gathered upstairs at Low and Slow.

"There was the odd negative comment. But overall, the positives outweighed the negatives. Online, almost always you're going to get way more negatives than positives. So when you've got the positives even matching or slightly outweighing the negatives, that's a huge win!"

"Yes, I've heard a  lot of idiotic remarks. But I think people are generally happy," Councillor Shoemaker said.

And he called on the city's youth to get involved in local politics to ensure that idiocy doesn't hold us back.

"The comments I've got, that [Amazon] would be the worst thing that could happen to Sault Ste. Marie, are old-school thinking."

"May 1st of 2018 is the first day you can run in the election next year. What we could use on council are young leaders like yourselves to push forward these ideas."

"We bring perspective to council that's different from what is currently there, and I think that's sorely needed," Shoemaker said.

His Amazon campaign has the backing of City Council and a 12-person committee is preparing a bid for the online retailer's 55,000-employee second North American headquarters.

Shoemaker conceded at Friday night's Strive meeting that Sault Ste. Marie doesn't directly meet all of Amazon's preferences as expressed in its request for proposals for what the retail giant is calling its HQ2 initiative.

But he says the Sault can fulfil all of Amazon's wishes indirectly and it's definitely worth our while to submit a bid, even if it results in something smaller than HQ2, maybe just a 50-employee distribution centre.

"We're all in the business of sales. It's just who's your customer? We want to bring more people to Sault Ste. Marie so that we have more customers."

"If it's not Amazon, if it's not 50,000 jobs, if it's only 50 jobs, I think we've done our job."