News, Really Fast

Call it the power of the press ...packet.

By the time I got home from the 7 p.m. budget presentation and the 8 p.m. City Council meeting, a story on Mayor Adrian O. Mapp's first budget had already been online since 6:30 p.m.

The secret was a professionally written press release by new Director of Communications Rebecca Perkins with all relevant details of the 2014 budget and some quotes from the mayor. Readers knew even before I set foot in the Senior Center that taxes will increase by about $129 on the average home valued at $113,000 and that the mayor's major goals include increasing revenues and re-branding the city.

Perkins was present for both meetings Thursday night and got a whiff of the sulfurous discord that sometimes wafts in the atmosphere between the administration and governing body.

From the point of view of someone covering the council for about 30 years, the budget presentation by Finance Director Ron West was tip-top, but at the second meeting the council found gristle in the temporary emergency appropriations and will hold a special meeting next week to chew it over once more.

I am tempted to put the laptop to sleep without imparting my account of events, but I have to do something to make up for the time and energy spent hustling to two meetings on foot and taking my own notes on the action. It's good to know, though, that news from City Hall will henceforth turn up in the digital and print media and that the city web site will become a news source as well. (Pardon the style - can you tell I am reading Middlemarch?)

--Bernice

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