Councillors slag SooToday.com's live retreat coverage

It all started with a brief lesson in how to use the computers and fine-tune the expensive ergonomic chairs in the Algoma Water Tower Inn's wired-out-the-wazoo C-nergy meeting room.

Ward 3 Councillor Bryan Hayes gallantly tweaked Ward 5 Councillor Debbie Amaroso's seat (shown) and then the slagging started.

Some councillors took swipes at each other.

Others dissed the news media, especially SooToday.com, which was providing live coverage from the meeting room.

But eight hours later, every member of this dysfunctional family agreed that Saturday's $2,500 City Council retreat had been a useful exercise.

And councillors gathered around a grand piano (Ward 6 Councillor Frank Manzo plays, and not badly) for a SooToday.com family portrait intended to portray harmony.

Technology makes Butland uncomfortable

But they were something other than one big happy at the outset, with disunity surfacing in several of the opening statements by councillors.

Councillor Amaroso argued that City Council isn't a team and shouldn't be expected to function like one.

Councillor Manzo commented that the current council exhibits little of the harmony that existed at other times during his almost 30 years of municipal experience.

Then former Mayor Steve Butland expressed a dislike for the whole process, saying that the C-nergy room's technology did nothing to warm his heart. In fact, computers make him uncomfortable, Butland said.

With the media present in the über-tech facility and the public able to watch a video hook-up in an adjacent room, the situation hardly felt to Butland like a retreat, and he couldn't see why Council couldn't get together for a private "training session."

In fact, court decisions in recent years have clearly established that informal council meetings are illegal if municipal business is discussed and the debate is materially advanced toward a decision.

No surfing allowed

The facilitator at Saturday's meeting, Norm Jaehrling, established a number of ground rules.

Councillors were told that everyone must speak, all speakers must be respected and they must not use their computers to surf the web during the meeting.

The latter rule was suggested by Ward 6 Councillor Jason Collins, who admitted to being chided by Bryan Hayes when caught net-browsing at one point instead of paying attention to discussions.

But with SooToday.com on hand posting live coverage from the meeting, Collins couldn't resist breaking his own law.

He peeked at our initial blow-by-blow coverage of the hooks and jabs at the Water Tower and then commenced a series of denunciations of our reporting.

'A new beast to deal with'

The news media, Collins alleged, had been asked to exercise discretion in covering this meeting.

And he didn't believe that SooToday was respecting Council's wish for latitude.

The anti-surfing councillor had somehow managed to compile an impressive list of SooToday.com headlines and subheads posted during the meeting.

He argued that a negative spin was being put on what he perceived as a very positive meeting.

"We've got a new beast to deal with," Collins said, referring to the ability to report news instantly on the Internet.

'Irresponsible reporting,' Caicco charges

Mayor Rowswell pointed out, however, that cable television has aleady been providing live coverage for years and he didn't see any real difference.

Ward 1 Councillor James Caicco, (who was present at the beginning of the meeting and then absented himself for a considerable time to help dress his goalie son for a minor hockey game), also charged that SooToday.com's coverage didn't reflect the positive tone of the meeting he hadn't fully attended.

"It's irresponsible reporting," he said.

Upset that SooToday.com had been sitting at the same table as Council (we initially experienced difficulties connecting our computer to the hotel's wireless network and had been instructed to sit there by a meeting organizer), Caicco complained that first the media had been given an agenda to the meeting, then they showed up in the room and then they joined Council at the table.

Public stays away in droves

"What's next?" Caicco wanted to know, expressing relief that he hadn't been followed into the rest room.

As Collins and Caicco were holding forth on our deficiencies, SooToday.com and LTV News were the only media in the room.

A reporter from Sault This Week had been on hand at the outset of the gathering but left shortly thereafter.

The Sault Star showed up sometime during the afternoon.

No members of the public were present in an adjoining room provided for them.

Interestingly, the closed-circuit television monitor provided for public viewing clearly showed some City Councillors switching their computers away from the facilitator's material to steal glimpses at what was being said on SooToday.com.

Media relations took up much of the meeting

The role of the news media and Council's relationship to the press took up a significant portion of the day-long retreat.

Anonymous comments made by councillors include the following:

- "All forms of media are less and less responsive to community events and issues, because of their large corporate nature. How can we get them to be more responsive and responsible."

- "Absence or effectiveness of media policies - managing negative perceptions/'negative spinning' of Council/City matters by the media."

- "Does Council or even the mayor participate in media policies and releases. We get what we don't sow."

- "Understanding the role of the media"

Councillor Manzo accused some of his fellow councillors of "headline-hunting."

'Leave the media alone'

"Leave the media alone," said Ward 2 Councillor Sheehan, expressing a sentiment echoed by a number of the more experienced members of Council.

"Let them do their job and let us do our job," Sheehan said.

SooToday.com wasn't the only news shop to attract negative notice at the retreat: the Sault Star also got its share.

Mayor John Rowswell pointed to a December 12 Star article that referred to construction activity in the Sault being soft compared to last year.

Last year was an exceptionally good year and "the spin was all wrong," Rowswell said.

Media relations training

It was suggested that Chris Belsito, the City's corporate communications officer, should be assigned to follow up in such situations.

But Councillor Lou Turco disagreed, arguing that the best defence is a good offence.

"Reacting to a story in the papers is the worst thing you could do," Turco said.

Instead, Turco suggested that the City needs to make sure there's a steady flow of good-news releases flowing from the Civic Centre.

There seemed to be consensus at the meeting that media relations training should be available to those councillors who want it.