Michael Deneen wrote:I don't understand the complaint here.
Government agencies have community relations and PR people.
I would be very upset if they WEREN'T out there promoting city activities and the town in general.
Christine Gordillo performs the same (often thankless) role for the schools.
Hi Mike---
I know that Melissa Garrett is the media person for City Hall, and I know that since the dawning of the internet and social media, many organizations have a separate person to handle that. I think Christine Gordillo is doing a very good job of being everywhere at once and I think it is thankless.
I agree that I would like to know more about city activities and decisions made and the public decision-making process. I am hoping that having more coverage will mean that we actually get reporting from the various committee meetings-- from Meetings of the Whole, to Architectural Board of Review, to Dept of Planning, to Lakewood Alive events, since they work closely with the city-- everything the City does where it interacts with the public.
It is really hard to find out what happens at those meetings now unless a Lakewood citizen reports back to the Lakewood Observer. We have Observers who have volunteered to cover some things, like Chris Bindel, who covers Council meetings.
I have been very pleased with residents who report on interactions with the city from their point of view, like Colleen Cotter has been reporting in about the Grace Cohassett Drug Mart situation.
I do trust the "non-objective" view more-- the opinion of someone who is directly involved and whose bias is clear. Getting paid to cover something as a professional journalist does not guarantee "objectivity." The journalist works for the media company that hired him and has to do their bidding. They often do the bidding of the people or organizations they are reporting on, to have more access to that information. That reporting is always biased.
In this situation, with a bonafied, self-described City Hall media person, we know the bias up front. We might not get the whole situation from a City Hall media person, but that's not what pubic relations people do. That's okay, that's honest, that's somewhere to start.
It would still be nice to hear about these meetings; I would love to hear what the City has to say for itself, how the City itself would describe what happened. And the person they have doing it, is good, direct, personable, with a compelling writing style.
The only issue is whether that paycheck is keeping our parks closed. Why should we put it on him? I might rather put it on the cost of the weird fake bricks we have now. (Did we pay for those? How much?)
Anyway, I'm looking forward to more information from City Hall from an amiable source, who writes clearly and well. And I am proud of the regular non journalists who do such a good job holding down the citizen point of view now for the LO, and am hoping to someday see ALL of that out there: What the City says, what the Public said back, who thinks what, etc. That would be great for the city of Lakewood.
Betsy Voinovich
