Saturday, July 25, 2009
OPEN AND TRANSPARENT ??
It really all depends upon what is IN the upcoming City Newsletter. Will it be just surface stuff, meaningless trifles, or meaty and meaningful? For years citizens have felt that some “news” didn’t even make it to the Council members and they were somewhat bewildered when it surfaced, sometimes during the meeting. Our email will happily accept every morsel of news. Is this another function for our spokesperson or will it require a new employee? They might consider this, our website, Inside Suffolk, has more readers, 38,000 as of this morning, than Suffolk households, surely we can work out some arrangement satisfactory to the city where all can get the news without having to sign up. But then how good has the city been to date with honest news? It was lack of news that prompted us to create Inside Suffolk. Are they trying to get rid of us? Hook up with http://www.suffolk.va.us/ then yellow box.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
12 comments:
38,000 HITS are not 38,000 loyal readers.IS serves a great purpose.It's a great place to read opinions on many subjects and be able to comment in rebuttal. All who visit on a regular basis should thank Mr. Pocklington for providing this forum to all.
In adding,there is no doubt that the city e notification news letter will never have the number of subscribers as IS has hits, regular contributors or visitors.
This is to inform you that Inside Suffolk does not count "hits."
The number you see at the bottom left is the number of different computers that have logged on to our site. Who hve no idea who is loyal and who is not, we have no way to identify anyone. We toss it out for your comments. Our computer service can tell us the number of hits but it means nothing
A city e-newsletter means what? More announcements with every word carefully couched and washed out of any negatives. This will be more like the press releases given to the media but not the citizens that paid for them in a timely manner. The people have spoken. The 38,000 readers of Inside Suffolk give us the news and insightful commentary we trust without the political spin of Ms. George's office.
Ms George is a nice, but misguided person held under the sway of a good job and high pay. Should one expect that she will not follow the leanings of those in charge and with the ability to punish her, if they find her comments not to their likeing? No, she will do as she is told or believes they suttely demand, and is wanted of her. This alone will call into question the value and purpose of any e-newspaper from her office. This attempt will be the same as the "Open and Transparent" claim made by our fine Mayor. Heavy on hype, low on truth and substance. I would perfer that they not waste the time and effort and instead just publish the facts and transcripts, allowing the citizens to draw their own conclusions.
Government that demands a chance to speak on their own actions, is government with a mission to decieve and manipulate! Such does not serve any citizen and only insures that truth is held sway to the deep-pockets and power of government. We do not need an e-newspaper published by Suffolk Government, especially when there is a problem with money needed for projects and services in town.
As Mr. Gerbals said in 1936: "We will enlighten the masses to our good works in thier names, to make them aware of how hard we work for them and their posterity!" We all know what government is and who pays for it, we do not need to hear propaganda about how we should like either! Ms George, save the effort and time, just provide the facts and save the commentary on how valuable you and your cohorts are to us all, as you spend our money!
What-O-What will the first Suffolk E-newsletter be about? How our taxes are well invested and all is well in nervona called Suffolk?
Will they tell us about the pay-offs some give for facors? Will they tell us about how the split up all they can get like robbers in their backroom deals? Will they tell us about city employees using government credit-cards for questionable purchases. Will they tell us about how council asks for favors for those who help them?
I would say no. I would also say that we will hear about how hard the janitor works, or how much better our roads are, or how some group picks up garbage from ditches because the city does nto pick it up anymore.
Who needs it? It would help if they told us how to challenge a bad assessment. IT would help if they told us when they are going to cut grass along side the ditches in our commuity. It would help if they could publish notices that show the problem with the water and sewer funding rates and how they are going to go up.
So what do you think we will get and what we should get?
I got my first city newsletter, It was very informative if you want to know again what HAS already taken place I guess that old news is better than no news. IS is not about after the fact.
How much is this little experiment in communications going to cost the citizens? Deb please think what is worthy of a e-newsletter. Do we need more special interest articles about city employees, and re-cap of news already released?
How about doing a good thing for a change and release the iron media curtain to Inside Suffolk and the citizens of Suffolk. The three day delay is wrong and an affront to the very basic morals of our society.
What could you expect from a group run by such poor management? Ms George (Gerbiles) has a hard time figuring out how to comment on the facts to the citizen, so why expect she can do even more in a newletter?
We do pay for a first-class city but we get second rate performance.
Ms. George ha made a wreak of her career and thus must make do any way she can under the Cuffee-Glenn Administration. When confronted in city hall by known critics she runs for the nearest stairway, office or woman's room. If you read her e-newsletter you'll realize it's more lipstick on a pig.
And we pay Ms. George's salary and benefits too. She has not been a very productive person, except for the propaganda. At least the budget officer is working hard, to get your money!
My office was surprised to learn that the main post office in downtown Suffolk now is closing everyday from 12:30 to 1:30 for lunch. Is this "belt tightening?"
It seems this is getting almost silly that a citizen cannot now go to the post office during lunch to conduct business, and if banks and other institutions can stay open during lunch I don't understand the new post office procedure.
Isn't this closely akin to the old rule that erupted in all kinds of turmoll in Suffolk when people discovered that the Homeless Shelter was closing the doors during holiday seasons so as not to have to "bother" its staff at that time and just told the homeless people to find "somewhere" to stay during the holidays. That resulted in the same turmoll that hopefully people will express when they learn about the new post office hours.
Post a Comment