All posts in the topic roseville city news (Short link)
Summary
- There are 7 posts — by 5 authors — in this topic.
- Latest post made by Karen O'Brien at Jun 20 23:29 UTC
maybe i missed it, but it should have been highlighted on the front page of the
new issue of the roseville city news so that i couldn't miss it, but no where,
not even on the community calendar, does it mention that the time to file to be
a candidate for councilperson is fast approaching. the new issue discusses how
to register to vote, but for some reason nothing is mentioned about how to run
for councilperson.
myself, i would think this is the most important thing happening in the city in
the next few months, and it should be mentioned by city staff to the general
public whenever they get the chance.
finally, could you think of a better way to spend the money that this
newsletter costs? the 8-1/2" x 11" piece of paper that talks about residential
rental property registration was good enough to provide that information to the
public, so why can't the whole newsletter be done the same way? 8-1/2" x 11"
paper must cost a whole lot less to have printed than the larger paper that the
roseville city news in printed on. also, wouldn't it be much more "green"? do
we really need such a fancy publication that most people never even look at?
Roger, all very well said.
I'll probably be forced to file in order to generate a newspaper article so
people actually know the filing dates prior to the filing deadline. Good waste
of a $5 bill.
Another possibility is that some on the Roseville communications department
staff don't want more people to file and challenge the incumbents?
Remember the big deal the communications staff made out of a survey they put in
one issue of the city newsletter a few years ago? Remember how they reported
in the next issue that something like 80% said they read the newsletter from
cover to cover? Remember how the number of people who actually responded to
the survey was nowhere to be found in the article although they had statistics
on everything else from soup to nuts? I blew a hole right through that
propaganda article a few weeks later when through public information request, I
discovered that something like 100 people responded to the survey out of 14,000
mailed. That was hilarious. This desperate act by the communications
department probably proves Roger's point.
It was the first item in the weekly news on their website (I receive e-mail
updates each week) and it is also on their front page of their website.
i wonder what percentage of roseville's voting age population receives e-mail
updates from the city and what percentage checks out the website each day?
I don't think that it is fair to blame the Roseville communication
department or accuse anyone of intentionally trying to deceive the public as
John suggests:
"Another possibility is that some on the Roseville communications department
staff don't want more people to file and challenge the incumbents?"
Honestly, what kind of person with qualifications to be a candidate would
genuinely NOT KNOW when to file? To me, someone willing and qualified to run
for public office should not be lacking the initiative to do some homework
necessary to find the answer.
What's the real issue here?
How to disseminate public information to the general public? Expensive
full-color large format mailing (intended) to capture people's attention?
Less expensive direct mailing? New bits posted on a public website or
available for email notice?
Strikes me that almost every media outlet seems to be focusing on getting
users to go "on line" for more details. Due to the frequency of updates,
volumes of information, printing costs, mailing costs... hosting news
updates on the Web seems efficient.
Ken,
Sometimes you add up the information at hand, and things just point in a
certain direction.
Is it a possibility that some on the Roseville communications department
staff don't want more people to file and challenge the incumbents? Well it is
a question that is worthy of asking, which is why I phrased it in the form of a
question and not a fact.
When you have a staff that gets involved in political activity, I believe
anything is possible. A general citizen in Roseville probably is not aware of
even one of the following tidbits I will share with you.
Fire Chief Rich Gasaway and Fire Inspector Doug Johnson were caught red handed
running a political campaign website from city hall during work hours. The
website attacked certain Roseville elected officials, retired firefighters, and
active firefighters who ranked high on the seniority list. Gasaway and Johnson
emailed each other back and forth during the business day to coordinate what
would be placed on the website. Gasaway took the lead on preparing content
while Johnson did the website programming. How they got caught is that Gasaway
thought if you put email in the waste basket, it was gone. What he found out
later is that it only disappears and becomes impossible to retrieve through an
information request when you "empty" the waste basket.
Also several firefighters complained that Chief Gasaway used the emergency
pager system to send information to firefighters of a political nature.
The city attorney investigated both Gasaway and Johnson. After they finished
their report, city manager Neal Beets was informed of a loophole in state law
that allows only local government managers to make the outcome of these reports
non-public if they choose not to discipline an employee. If they give the
employee a day off of work or a reprimand, then they have to release the
damaging report to the public.
Since the emails were retrieved off of Gasaway's computer prior to the start
of the investigation, they couldn't make them non-public. The emails tell the
whole story. I can make them available if people are looking for some bedtime
reading.
Then we had communications employee Jerry Beck who let it slip one time that
he was in charge of checking my political campaign website daily when I ran for
office in 1999.
Then there was Carolyn Curti injecting personal opinion into the even-odd year
and the primary-no primary discussions, even though she is a resident of
Minneapolis. Sorry but the personal opinions of a resident of Minneapolis is
no concern to me in either of these two issues. Staff is supposed to bring
forward non-partisan information. All the information. Elected officials are
supposed to make the decisions. Yes there is a grey area, but this was
definitely crossing the line.
Then there was Tim Pratt and his close personal relationship with Eureka
Recycling. After the firm was selected through a grading system by staff,
council member Schroeder asked to see the detailed work. Pratt replied that
all the information used to reach their conclusion was destroyed. Note that the
selection was only made a few days before the council meeting. Hmmm...
Ken asks what kind of qualified candidate would not know when to file?
Probably most of them. I know probably a hundred people who are well qualified
for city council and would do a fine job serving. But if no one called them
and encouraged them to run, or if they didn't see something in the paper to
bring it to the forefront of their mind, then it would be out of sight out of
mind.
I find that often times the best candidates are those who are not part of the
"system". In other words, those who can't recite the filing dates off the top
of their head.
Frankly I don't know if the real issue of what makes a better city newsletter
is worth discussing, when you have no one in a position willing to make the
extra effort to make anything different happen, or have people with the skill
to make it happen.
You can call me negative, I call myself realistic based upon past practice at
city hall.
John M. Kysylyczyn
K Solutions LLC, owner
3083 Victoria Street
Roseville, MN 55113
email: <email obscured>
home office: (651) 484-1384
www.ksolutionsllc.com
Mayor of Roseville, MN 2000-2004
Good point, Roger. So I just went to the city website (_http://www.ci.roseville.mn.us/_ (http://www.ci.roseville.mn.us/) ) and signed up for several types of email updates. The city also has an RSS feed, and I will be getting updates that way, too. It's very easy to do (hey, if I could do it...!) I'm also one who reads the city newsletter cover to cover. I never did respond when they were having to find out how many people wanted the print copy, so I would have been another cheerleader. It is important to speak up about these matters, and I am thankful that this forum allows us to have our say! Karen "I read anything I see" O'Brien In a message dated 6/20/2008 1:06:24 P.M. Central Daylight Time, <email obscured> writes: i wonder what percentage of roseville's voting age population receives e-mail updates from the city and what percentage checks out the website each day? roger hess jr