Opinion: Rye Record Selective Editing of City Council Letter Provokes Backlash

“The not so subtle innuendo here is that we are inexperienced, untested or worse, but nonetheless have the temerity to defy those who know better than us.” Rye City Council.

Anyone who’s ever submitted a ‘Letter to the Editor’ to The Rye Record and has had the very uncomfortable experience of reading that letter in the paper with wholesale changes to the text of the letter while their own name remains boldly affixed beneath it will recognize how members of the Rye City Council may have felt when they opened their own copies of The Record recently.

So it was I believe a fitting first in Rye City Council history that during this week’s ‘General Announcements’ part of their regular meeting (starting at about time code 11:15) that Councilman Slack began to read an unusual statement from all council members.

You can watch the video of that here.

And following that public statement the below ‘Council to Publisher’ emails have now been posted to the landing page of:

The City of Rye Web Site

From: Joe Sack

Sent: Wednesday, October 15, 2014 9:39 AM

To: ‘Robin Jovanovich’; ‘tmcdermott@ryerecord.com’

Cc: ‘Terry Mcartney’; ‘Slack, Richard W.’; ‘Richard Mecca’; ‘Julie

Killian’; ‘Brett, Laura’; ‘Bucci, Kirstin A.’

Subject: RE: The October 10 Rye Record

Robin and Tom,

Attached above and copied below please find our letter to The Rye Record to be published in your next edition. Please do not edit this letter.

As per your previous e-mail, please let me know when you would like to meet.

Thank you, Joe

(Words below indicated in bold typeface do not appear in the letter version published by The Rye Record as far as we can tell.)

October 15, 2014

Robin Jovanovich, Publisher

Tom McDermott, Editor

The Rye Record

To the Editor and Publisher of The Rye Record:

We write to correct unfortunate errors, omissions and mischaracterizations in The Rye Record’s front page story about the October 8, 2014, Rye City Council meeting, published in the October 10, 2014, edition of your paper. Your paper did not have a reporter in attendance at that meeting, which may have led to some of these mistakes. Other mistakes may have resulted from a noticeable bias in your coverage.

First, during our October 8th meeting, the Council approved only an amendment to the City Charter to allow the Council to give its advice and consent as to the city manager’s selection of a police commissioner. This was clearly indicated at various times during the meeting, and represented the Council’s good faith effort to incorporate different perspectives. Unfortunately, your story incorrectly reported that the Council approved additional provisions, which actually had been withdrawn, to give the Council even more oversight.

Second, the Council consistently allowed all speakers throughout the public hearing sessions to express their points of view, and Councilmembers noted many times that we welcomed the input. However, your story indicated that one speaker’s remarks at the most recent hearing “touched a nerve with the Mayor and other Council Members, who took exception to both the content and tone” of what this person had to say. In actuality, the Council was receptive to the substantive comments of the speaker, but reacted negatively only when he threw papers at the Council dais in punctuating a point - which is not wholly visible to viewers watching on television - prompting us to correctly advise this person to comport himself with more respect.

Furthermore, your story - and at least a prior related story in a previous edition of your paper - often unfortunately adds a pointed editorial component while ostensibly presenting itself as straight news reporting.

For example, the very title of your story – “The Taking of Rye One-Two-Three” - suggests that the Council perpetrated some sort of theft in a summary fashion. To the contrary, the Council considered and approved a distinct and necessary improvement to the Charter in a deliberative fashion over a full three-month period, purposefully extending the public hearing well beyond what is normally required, in order to achieve the best outcome.

Also, your story gratuitously surmised that the Council “had discussed the proposed change among themselves beforehand.” It is true that we gave much serious advance thought to the matter, and then publicly explained our views in detail. It is proper (and desirable) that the Mayor exercised here the traditional role of building consensus and connecting with individual Councilmembers. However, it is unfortunate that your story insinuated that we engaged in any conduct that was unlawful or inappropriate.

In addition, your story makes multiple references to the “noted opposition from former Republican and Democratic Mayors and City Council members” without properly disclosing that one of those persons was Peter Jovanovich, the husband of the Publisher of The Rye Record, and another was Arthur Stampleman, a contributing writer to The Rye Record. Your story goes on to ask rhetorical questions about the actions of a “new” Council. The not so subtle innuendo here is that we are inexperienced, untested or worse, but nonetheless have the temerity to defy those who know better than us.

The truth is, we have much respect for those who have previously served, and certainly weighed their opinions - along with the opinions and common sense of regular Rye residents - in our decision making. However, what was most important to us - as the duly elected representatives and current stewards of our community, not without the ability to size up the situation, and closest to the situation at hand - was to simply codify what even opponents called good practice, and to unanimously ensure that corrective action be taken so that all Councilmembers have going forward the necessary tools to provide proper oversight. We are confident that we achieved that, for all of the reasons which we carefully laid out during the public hearing process, although hardly any of this was included in your stories.

We appreciate that the Publisher recognized some of the substantial and important errors in this article and contacted some Councilmembers (after the paper had been printed) to express regret, and addressed some of the mistakes in an on-line version of the story. We hope, however, that the corrections in the next issue of The Rye Record will be as prominent - on the front page - as the mistaken story itself.

Sincerely,

Joe Sack, Mayor

Laura Brett, Deputy Mayor

Julie Killian, Councilmember

Terry McCartney, Councilmember

Kirstin Bucci, Councilmember

Richard Mecca, Councilmember

Richard Slack, Councilmember