Thursday, March 7, 2013

Andrew Saje raising the issues-Public Relations



Further issues raised by Councilor Saje’s letter, after having already spoken about the Agenda Committee and who (Bruce/Myron) controls council’s agenda.  
Let’s talk about the G+P meeting of December 18, on the advertised agenda for that meeting was one issue posted In Camera, Personnel in the released minutes for that meeting was added a further In Camera issue Legal.
During that In Camera session according to Councilor Saje’s letter the issue of Public Relations came up and the hiring of Victor Tanti from Calder Bateman the argument was made later that council did not need to vote on this issue because it would be covered by the “advertising budget”.
If you accept the advertising budget argument is justified why would this “advertising” even be brought to council? Following that line of reasoning will other advertising that falls under the budget be brought forth In Camera as either a Personnel or Legal issue for council “opinion”.   
Next can anybody tell us which category advertising would fall into Personnel, or Legal?
I agree with Councilor Saje if this was such a routine issue why not bring it up in a regular meeting?
I agree again with Councilor Saje especially after the number of consultants that have cashed a Municipality of Crowsnest Pass cheque over the last thirty months “hiring another consulting firm should not be routine”
Many more questions are created by the release of Councilor Saje’s letter.
Should the public be concerned about Council doing business in this fashion? Was this the only issue dealt with in this fashion? Why did Council feel the need to hire a Public Relations Consulting Firm? Is Councilor Saje’s letter a full accounting of all of his concerns? Are there more concerns?
        
Want to see your new Public Relations Consultant Victor Tanti check him out at the following address:

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Do you think it is a done deal, he is hired?

Anonymous said...

If you accept the advertising budget argument is justified why would this “advertising” even be brought to council? Following that line of reasoning will other advertising that falls under the budget be brought forth In Camera as either a Personnel or Legal issue for council “opinion”.

I've been wondering if the "Message from Council" newspaper ads came from a Council meeting.

There was an Admin advertising budget $25,000 and Council advertising budget $1,171, so it seems it must have been funded from Admin.

Municipal inspections of other towns have criticized a "blurred line between Council and Admin". Here the line is totally erased.

Anonymous said...

One of the best ways to look foolish in a small town is to hire a Big City PR firm to make one-self look smart. Case in point, the Riversdale Press release contained some language that appeared quite out of place: “We are confident that the support we provided to Riversdale helped pave the way for this initiative to come to fruition” said Decoux. “ This looked quite silly, and even more so when one of our councillors felt the need to clarify: “I want to point out one other thing. Please note that this press release is from Riversdale Resources Ltd., not the municipal council or administration.” Well, not the council or administration directly, but perhaps massaged indirectly through the PR consultant? In any case, this assertion rang like “The lady doth protest too much, methinks." Word from Nanton is the Riversdale crew was not very amused to be used in someone’s Public Relations campaign. Getting a mine going in Alberta is difficult enough - who needs additional and distracting embarrassments?

Anonymous said...

According to the linked page, Tanti specializes in "crisis communications". Why would our Council need that kind of expertise?

:^)