By Brad Hodge
Published: Sept 12, 2014
A while back I was told off in an online comment forum. Why are you guys at the Reporter so hard on the Squamish Council? Why all the negativity? Why can’t you just be positive and supportive instead of nitpicking everything? My answer was: because that’s our main job.
Because of the vagaries of elections, and especially at the local level, the institutional memory of government tends to be short – there’s considerable turnover and mistakes learned by one group may not be related for the benefit of the next. People come into local government in particular with the best of intentions. But they aren’t always aware of what has been tried before and don’t always make themselves aware. Sometimes they just ignore past lessons. Sometimes they lie about their intentions. Too often we end up replicating past work (committees, consultants, etc.), or disasters. It can get expensive, or worse.
This is why vigorous local media are so important. They serve as long term memory for government. When we see money potentially being wasted on X, we remind the public of Y. We harangue officials who go back on their campaign promises. We warn the public of bad policy moves. And we are always on the alert for the first whiff of corruption or malfeasance. Councillors know we are watching closely.
We’ve also seen the ability of local media to change political minds; witness the different attitude with this year’s budget after last year’s uproar on taxes, or council’s about face on drive-thrus. Sometimes we’ve been accused of the ‘if it bleeds it leads’ mentality, but I like to think here in our little burg our main media outlets are basically honest and genuinely trying to guard the public interest.
Are we overly negative? I don’t think so. Elected officials sometimes get mousey about things when they fear bad press, but most of the time I put that down to the base instinct to preserve one’s seat rather than be honest about one’s principles. By the way, our editor goes to great lengths to find positive as well as negative stories. Council has been praised as well as berated.
Bad policy deserves to be called out no matter who it embarrasses; same for bad behavior. I think if anything local media were a little too positive back in the day on our most pressing issue: SODC. Who knows what a whole lot more Reporter-style ‘harassment’ and hard thinking might have done a decade ago?
I may be partial but I think we’ve done the community a service by providing another outlet for information and providing some friendly competition to find stories, especially in areas of government, and that’s why I eagerly signed up to help out. I don’t think our role is to cheerlead – it’s to look out for the community’s best interests and hold our political betters to account, while accentuating the positive. Hopefully we can keep doing that – and save this community from the next white elephant.
Dave says
Here, here, Brad. I may not agree with you on everything but you are right on the money. here.
I say to whoever made the comment about negativity in the above context: “Cry me a river”!
If one goes into Politics, that is what one should expect and respond to accordingly.
If we cannot, “call a spade a spade”, when necessary, then we let ourselves open to those individuals who are lazy or are in the game for their own selfish ends. And in a milder vane we should be able to steer whoever along a reasonable, sensible, democratic path.
In short, well said.
Most of these “games” have two goals and kickers at each end…so kick, everyone!
Jean says
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YX0KO-I-uWY
We should have one of these in the DOS and some other Spin Dr,s Work place
Dave says
All while there are even whisperings of “under-the-table” and “backroom deals” involving Council members, we have to be ,vigilant, aggressive and (above all) sure to vote in a trustworthy and enlightened Council next month.
Do your homework and vote, well informed!
No time for Squeamishness in Squamish!
larry mclennan says
Davey- sounds like you have been hearing some of the same rumours I have. Any of them involve the $10,000 figure?