The Observation Deck

Jim has a spot-on post in another thread, but I am posting it here so it doesn’t get lost:

Jim O'Bryan wrote:But I find it amazing. Yet again, another list of why we are hot, and again, none of it planned, all of it organic, sure with city helped, but not with the city "planning" it. Yet, we roll out excitement after tweet after blast for 5 Guys, Bob Evans, The BEST Taco Bell. This will only get worse as they have hired a PR person to do heavily controlled interviews and news releases instead of, opening the parks back to original hours, another basketball court, a light at manor park.

Or put another way, we are all carrying out trash to the curbs to pay for their new spin artist and PR "technician."

If that doesn't tell you something where residents rate, nothing will.

Do what they want out of the light of day, and just send everything through the spin art lab, and tweet, FB webpage it out.

It was more than slightly ironic the first two were TELLING RESIDENTS SHOVEL THOSE WALKS WE WILL TICKET, and RESIDENTS MOVE YOUR CARS WE WILL TICKET AND TOW!

Simply observations.

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=12330

I imagine that City Hall messaging meetings look something like this:






At any rate, does anyone know how much taxpayers are paying per City Hall tweet and post?

Matt

Matthew John Markling wrote:Jim has a spot-on post in another thread, but I am posting it here so it doesn’t get lost:

Jim O'Bryan wrote:But I find it amazing. Yet again, another list of why we are hot, and again, none of it planned, all of it organic, sure with city helped, but not with the city "planning" it. Yet, we roll out excitement after tweet after blast for 5 Guys, Bob Evans, The BEST Taco Bell. This will only get worse as they have hired a PR person to do heavily controlled interviews and news releases instead of, opening the parks back to original hours, another basketball court, a light at manor park.

Or put another way, we are all carrying out trash to the curbs to pay for their new spin artist and PR "technician."

If that doesn't tell you something where residents rate, nothing will.

Do what they want out of the light of day, and just send everything through the spin art lab, and tweet, FB webpage it out.

It was more than slightly ironic the first two were TELLING RESIDENTS SHOVEL THOSE WALKS WE WILL TICKET, and RESIDENTS MOVE YOUR CARS WE WILL TICKET AND TOW!

Simply observations.

http://www.lakewoodobserver.com/forum/v ... =7&t=12330

I imagine that City Hall messaging meetings look something like this:






At any rate, does anyone know how much taxpayers are paying per City Hall tweet and post?

Matt

Matt,

Do school districts spend taxpayer money to manage the message?

Scott

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.

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

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.

Mike

I agree, they all have PR people, and one elected official spoke to me at great length over
coffee last week that you always have to manage the message. A process coming out of
private enterprise that was started mostly to handle major screw-ups and problems that
can lead to litigation.

It then permeated sports and yes now Schools and City Hall.

Glad to see Colin working, good guy, I would rather see him as a journalist, but I am
glad he is working.

At some point, Elected officials are going to need to trust us residents again, and post
facts answer questions, and be residents in their own community.

.

Scott and Mike,

In addition to what Jim has already said, I would add that it comes down to one word, gluttony.

How much is being spent to pay Colin to do what was already being done by City Hall?

How much time was spent by public officials and Colin to prepare videos scolding residents to move their cars and shovel their sidewalks?

How much time is spent by Colin to respond to Facebook questions and tweets?

If Colin is being paid as an independent contractor, how much is he being paid per post and tweet? And does this amount to contracting out bargaining unit work?

If Colin is being paid as a city employee, how much is the salary/hourly wage/benefits, how was the position posted, and how are civil service laws being followed?

Gluttony is never good when spending taxpayer dollars.

Nor is gluttony good when you are using taxpayer and charitable dollars to throw extravagant parties to honor and recognize yourselves … but that is for another thread.

Matt

Gluttony:This is the end...






Scott

Nicely done, Scott.

And a free post, too.

Or did you use a City Hall grant?

I agree about Scott's nice job with the artwork. But if one of the faceless non-communicators is supposed to be representing Ward One councilman David Anderson-- it's not accurate. David communicates all the time, on the Deck and in the paper. He answers questions promptly and publicly, and he even initiates his own conversation when he feels that it's important-- and even sometimes when it's just fun.

He does communicate-- himself-- as a council member and a citizen.

Betsy Voinovich

Stealing from your playbook, Betsy ...

I think Scott is referring to the "seven deadly sins" in response to my gluttony reference.

... or ... maybe Scott is referring to the "seven deadly sinners" on City Council.

Matt

Betsy Voinovich wrote:I agree about Scott's nice job with the artwork. But if one of the faceless non-communicators is supposed to be representing Ward One councilman David Anderson-- it's not accurate. David communicates all the time, on the Deck and in the paper. He answers questions promptly and publicly, and he even initiates his own conversation when he feels that it's important-- and even sometimes when it's just fun.

He does communicate-- himself-- as a council member and a citizen.

Well, Betsy, if true, I'm sure we will be reading a post from David soon on how many tax dollars are being wasted ... I mean ... spent ... on Colin's posts and tweets, as well as my other questions posted above.

That is, of course, if David feels it's important.

Matt

Matthew John Markling wrote:Stealing from your playbook, Betsy ...

I think Scott is referring to the "seven deadly sins" in response to my gluttony reference.

... or ... maybe Scott is referring to the "seven deadly sinners" on City Council.

Matt

Matt,

My post is in reference to: http://www.deadlysins.com/sins/

My post is having a little fun with your reference to "gluttony."

Scott