So, we’re finally going to find out what city council is really up to, not through this newspaper but through council’s very own communication efforts. Facebook, streaming council meetings on the web and even council’s very own hired gun will all work in tandem to give you the real news about city hall. We’ve been looking for an excuse not to send a reporter to cover council meetings and do countless interviews with the mayor, councillors and city staff. After all, it takes a lot of work to dig up the facts. Looks like we’ve hit the jackpot.
Of course, if you’re a concerned taxpayer who wants objective, probing news coverage of our elected officials, you might disagree with our decision to abandon coverage of city hall. But don’t worry — you’ll get the real scoop from the city’s own professional writer whose paid ‘column’ will appear monthly in the newspaper.
It’s difficult to pull our firmly planted tongue out of our cheek, as the city’s communication plan is as ridiculous as the first two paragraphs of this editorial. Council’s desire to communicate with the public is laudable, but hiring a writer to tell the public what council’s up to? If council wants to ensure bias and waste taxpayers’ money at the same time, then they’re on the right track.
On Monday council approved this new communication package. It’s part of a long-promised review that arose through the Arlington Drive public hearings when Mayor Nolan Crouse sensed though the heated backlash that something was amiss in the city’s public engagement practices, an idea that gained momentum during the election.
But it was clear from the outset city council was not able to act with a singular voice on an issue as simple as talking to residents. Despite approving a motion to create roundtables with the public to gather ideas from the community on communication ideas, a majority of council led by Coun. Cathy Heron usurped the process by deciding the social media site Facebook would be a great communications vehicle, as would streaming council meetings on the web and a council column. This is the same councillor who in December said webstreaming meetings was “a little excessive” as the cost was projected to be $30,000 a year.
Heron’s hasty rationale for creating a Facebook page is about as kneejerk and ad hoc as possible: “We would not be the first municipality to have a Facebook page and I wouldn’t want to be the last one.” Perhaps the roundtable sessions will give councillors some clues as to what they’ll post on Facebook or maybe formulating an actual plan will be the job of their professional writer.
If members of council can see through the idea as a propagandist tool — as it was labelled by Cam MacKay, who along with Malcolm Parker were the only two opposition votes — the public will too. Besides, if council cannot agree on the basic idea itself, how can we expect a hired gun to weave together seven voices in one coherent view?
It’s easy to see through misguided government attempts at spinning a message, like the province is doing right now with its online ‘newscasts’ — biased ‘reporting’ from the Public Affairs Bureau, all on the taxpayers’ dime.
Council needs to concern itself with good governance and doing what’s best for the City of St. Albert and its residents. If it does that, it won’t need to hire a spin-doctor to spew council propaganda.
