Granite City Council, Economic Developer and MayorArchived Message
Posted by The Informant on July 5, 2016, 4:58 am
The contracting of Push Media Solutions sounds like a direct, second hand idea of our previous Economic Developer, Mr. Jon Ferry. At one point during his employment Mr. Ferry suggested to the council and to the mayor, that a Granite City government owned and operated message board might be a good idea because they (City Hall) could control, edit and censor the content and comments. During the ensuing discussion it was stated that a city government message board would be violating a citizen's freedom of speech if they selectively edited or deleted a person's comments if they were negative. Our mayor immediately dismissed the idea because of the potential ramifications such a violation might bring.
Why would this form of social media, or whatever Mr. James Amos (the current Economic Development Director) is suggesting, be any different? Does the council and mayor believe they would be immune to possible violations of a person's civil rights simply because they paid an outside source to edit or delete any negative comments? For example, if the outside source offers to work with a client to respond to the comments from the readers, shouldn't those comments be all encompassing, the good, the bad and the ugly? Or would one phone call be all that is needed to obliterate comments from an angry or critical citizen of this town? Thus, selective censorship.
Censorship that may never make it into the public records that might be obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request! Nothing but positive and praising comments on social media, kept for the record, and uncomplimentary, even revealing comments gone like dust in the wind. All comments screened by an outsourced professional who might be instructed to delete and destroy anything that could cause embarrassment or public awareness of something that the public has the right to know?
Something else that needs to be questioned is how is this going to bring manufacturing and businesses or any economic development to our town? Why would our council endorse this expense? Why would our city pay an outside source for sponsored posts on any social media site, when Mr. Amos or his staff could do this themselves, as it is quite simple. Why would anyone pay a "middle man" in this situation. Isn't this his job that he's outsourcing? The answer is simple, the city will be paying someone to watchdog the replies on social media twenty four hours a day, and filter those per his or the city's instructions.
In conclusion, it is common knowledge that Mr. Amos is married to Kristen Kambarian, a relative of former councilmen Virgil Kambarian. After reviewing Mr. Amos's qualifications, or lack of, a person has to ask is this why he was hired. I question his experience and good judgement after witnessing his wife driving his city issued vehicle recently. I will leave it at that. But I certainly hope he is on deck with more ideas than this potential debacle of resorting to social media. If this is all he has I fear for our city more than ever.
on July 5, 2016, 4:58 am