Two weeks ago, the Colusa County Board of Supervisors authorized a plan to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars over the next few years becoming an online publisher of local news and events.
As a taxpayer-funded government service, the County released the board’s first major news story, “Colusa County initiates litigation against City of Colusa,” with the subhead “County seeks injunction on expanded Colusa Industrial Park development project pending proper environmental review.”
The lengthy and unvetted news article was posted on social media on Jan. 25, the same day the lawsuit was filed – and within minutes of serving the parties named it the complaint.
In the article, the Chairman of the Board, in an authoritative voice (a direct quote, to be specific), declared the City of Colusa had negligently broken the law and that the County would be asking a judge for a restraining order to halt the project.
A lawsuit to force additional review came as no surprise to the Pioneer Review. As the only locally-owned and independent newspaper in Colusa County, we have closely covered the existing dispute between the City and County over the housing development at the airport – and we were certainly monitoring the court docket for this shoe to drop. The documents are public records and the courtroom is open to the public, and a judge will ultimately be tasked with making a decision.
What took us by surprise, however, was the County’s sudden reversal to their previous long-held practice of not publicly commenting on matters being litigated, especially without a formal request for information by the press or a Public Records Act request for the documents.
The Board of Supervisors and staff, on Jan. 18, claimed their new publishing venture, utilizing Facebook and the like, is an effort to become more transparent about county matters.
As the press and public, we have always felt that transparency is the best policy, especially when it comes to how the government spends taxpayer money.
The problem, however, is that the public and the government have differing opinions on what constitutes transparency.
It is our opinion that if the Board of Supervisors writes a news article about one lawsuit, then the Board of Supervisors, for the sake of transparency, must write a news article about all lawsuits. If the Board of Supervisors posts on Facebook and invites the public to comment on lawsuits they file against another party, then the Board must also post and invite comment on lawsuits another party files against the County.
That is what it means for the government to be transparent.
Just because the Board of Supervisors removed certain “trigger” words from their new communication plan, and changed the name of their proposed online publication from “Colusa County Courier” (which was purposely intended to lend it the appeal of a legitimate news organization) to something more generic, County officials clearly did not change their intent.
What’s next? A social media campaign to get people to pay more taxes by threatening to cut libraries and cops out of the budget?
Supervisors should have stuck with their initial instincts that the government cannot be trusted to hold itself accountable, any more than brain surgeons can be trusted to operate on their own brains. It’s not an individual shortcoming – it’s just that one cannot be awake and asleep at the same time.
Government agencies, which lack third-party perspective, have the regulatory powers to control our lives and livelihoods. They cannot be trusted to control our opinions, which is the only purpose of government propaganda.
How do you spot it?
Ask yourself if the information peddled directly by the government lacks additional information that would help you understand their potential bias. Does the information come from outside a public forum in which the public or parties of interest were given the opportunity to comment? Does the information differentiate between fact and opinion? Does the information stoke prejudice or fear?
Allowing local governments to carefully curate information and ideas to preserve their self-interests is unacceptable. If the government can manipulate the thoughts, feelings, and actions of the public, then the government will have unfettered control over the public’s money. ■