If anyone cares/for the record

[BPM]

So you can print anything from any blog when you feel like it? How about "Bush is a big fat lying idiot". Print it please.

[robertcarr]

Boy, would I like to.

I can't print everything that is written on this bulletin board, for many reasons, but mostly because of space constraints. However, if an alderman won't call us back or reply in time for our printing deadline, I will consider printing what that person says on a topic that we're writing about.

I could print other things from people here, but I would much rather try to call them or email them for comment first.

Robert Carr

[T-Stan RPCV]

Also, for the record, Mark's email reply came to us 18 hours after we sent it. We did not receive his reply by our printing deadline.

However, if an alderman won't call us back or reply in time for our printing deadline, I will consider printing what that person says on a topic that we're writing about.

So this entire discussion really boils down to extracting quotes from a bulletin board because the response to your question was not received "in time". 

I'm not defending Mark's not speaking to the media (I think he should), but to me an 18 hour response is pretty damn good.  Obviously not good enough for the printing deadline.  I can't help but think the problem is not with Mark's response time but has more to do with the question not being asked with sufficient planning to allow time for a response then printing.   

[Ted]

I'm not defending Mark's not speaking to the media (I think he should), but to me an 18 hour response is pretty damn good.  Obviously not good enough for the printing deadline.  I can't help but think the problem is not with Mark's response time but has more to do with the question not being asked with sufficient planning to allow time for a response then printing.   

Mr. Carr,  I tend to agree with T-Stan on this.  If the Life goes to print on Thursday, it would be more helpful to contact people earlier than Tuesday night.  Emailing someone Tuesday night and expecting a quote within 6-12 hours is a very short time frame.

  I can understand how for breaking stories you need an immediate quote.  But, for stories without immediacy (where you have time to work on the story, such as city manager form of government) , you could start contacting people on the previous Thursday or Friday for a quote for the next weekend's newspaper.

  Emailing someone for a quote on Tuesday night and then expecting to respond by Wednesday morning is not fair, in my opinion. Some of us look at our emails only once a day, if that.

  Also, why did you not also say anything about other aldermen not responding by press time?  Why was Mark Weiner the only alderman that was mentioned as not responding?  For example, why did the Berwyn Life not state in its article that Nona Chapman, Jim Ramos, Michelle Skryd, Ben Brocato, Mike Phelan and Robert Lovero also did not repond to requests for quotes?  Did you even contact other aldermen for quotes? Why was Mark Weiner the only alderman singled out for not responding.

  Again, that doesn't seem fair.  And, it makes Mark's case stronger about why he shouldn't respond to the Life, given past experiences with the Life where it appears the Life is acting in a less-than-fair manner in regards to the other aldermen not giving quotes versus Mark not giving quotes.

Ted

[robertcarr]

Ted-

All good questions. I'll try to answer all of them.
While we try to call all aldermen on stories about the council, it's not always possible, and even if we reached all of them, we can't fit all their opinions in a story.
We included Mark's comment because he was the one who put the comment out there in the public, we didn't ask him. He showed that he wanted his opinion known. The other aldermen, as far as I know, have not shown their opinion in a public way, besides Erickson. We thought we would have a larger story from the meeting Tuesday, but the issue was dropped from the agenda. However, the issue still seemed relevant, since we had at least two aldermen making public comments about it.

You are right, we should have had a call into Mark earlier. That has been addressed with the Life staff. However, if you saw his eventual answer, you would see why I still would have gone with Mark's comment from the bulletin board. He did not answer our questions; rather, he told us that we shouldn't ask him. We did try to call him, but as he admits, he did not return the call.

People seem to think that I have some sort of vendetta against O'Connor and his supporters. Maybe those people didn't read the story where I took Nona to task for round-robinning votes outside of the meeting. I'll ask the hard questions to anyone. However, Nona at least spent the time talking to the Life to address our questions.

The Life is here to report the news that matters to Berwyn residents, that's what we hope people expect from us. We'll leave the biased reporting to recent Spring newsletters.

- Robert Carr

[T-Stan RPCV]

The Life is here to report the news that matters to Berwyn residents, that's what we hope people expect from us. We'll leave the biased reporting to recent Spring newsletters.

Unbiased reporting of news that matters is an extinct animal in Berwyn.  Your efforts are appreciated.

[markweiner]

Mr. Karr:

You really should learn your Berwyn politics. 

"People seem to think that I have some sort of vendetta against O'Connor and his supporters. Maybe those people didn't read the story where I took Nona to task for round-robinning votes outside of the meeting. I'll ask the hard questions to anyone. However, Nona at least spent the time talking to the Life to address our questions."

Nona is not an O'Connor supporter; quite the opposite.

Mark

[time after time]

In my opinion, an Alderman should attend meetings.  An Alderman is elected by his/her constituents to represent them.  Even though Mr. Weiner may not like the idea of a City Manager, the question really is what is best for the City and what do his constituents think?  I think there will be a time when an Alderman will have to vote for what the majority wants and not for what his personal feelings are.  (I'm having a hard time putting into words exactly what I mean but I hope most will get what I am trying to say.)  For an Alderman not to attend a meeting because of his own personal feelings is not what he was elected to do which is represent the voices of his constituents.

Cindy

[OakParkSpartan]

You might try attending one of the joint budget/admin committee meetings Cindy.  You might understand better why Alderman Weiner made a conscious decision to not attend the meeting.  They are not pretty. 

Out of curiosity, why has no one mentioned the fact that Ald. Phelen *forgot* about the meeting?  That was stated at the committee meeting. 

Maybe someone should request the minutes of that meeting?  Could you do that Robert?  Request the meeting minutes from the last joint Budget/Administration meeting?  I'd be curious to see what you receive.  There's probably a story in there...

Cheers,
Brian

[Bear]

The Life is here to report the news that matters to Berwyn residents, that's what we hope people expect from us. We'll leave the biased reporting to recent Spring newsletters.

Unbiased reporting of news that matters is an extinct animal in Berwyn.  Your efforts are appreciated.

The most accurate accounts of all that is Berwyn occurs here on this forum,
and not in any printed media

[Abe]

Ald. Weiner had the right idea to excuse himself from Ald. Joel's soap box session - it was a waste of time.  The idea to change from the present form of government to a city manager model may seem like an expedient way to neutralize the mayor's power.  But that would just put the power in the hands of the alderman to hire and fire the manager.  Being the hands who feed the proposed manager, they would have to be bitten by an honest man in that position.  And judging by the way the majority of the alderman are behaving now - and unless the city manager was in the aldermen's pocket - the position would be a revolving door, spinning so fast that you could hook a generator to it and light up the Depot District all year.  Those "tigers" wont't change their stripes and the end result for Berwyn will be a slide back to the Public-Safety-Director era (and aren't the parallels there interesting?).  The only way it would work is for a true professional, honest and committed to public service breed of alderman to emerge.  But since this is Berwyn, you know it won't happen.  Ironically, Ald. Weiner is probably the only one whom I would trust with the power to hire and fire a city manager, but then again he's the only alderman without any ties to the past local political arena.  

[markberwyn]

Mr. Carr still hasn't addressed the matter of verification. Relevant story about newspapers grabbing info from bulletin boards and such like here:

http://www.newsobserver.com/576/story/431612.html

[robertcarr]

Everyone on here should read that opinion column, it's very interesting. I'm not sure how a public bulletin board site could not be considered public domain.

Mark was notified that we would use his comments before they were published. He is a prominent public figure, that's why we used his comments.

I don't forsee us publishing regular (non public figure) residents' comments from here. However, if something like that comes up, we will try to contact that person before it is published.

- Robert Carr

[P-PANTHER a/k/a La Pantera]

Mr. Carr,

With all due respect, Ald. Weiner has unequivocally expressed his intent to not be quoted in your paper on numerous occassions. Your paper utilized these forums to circumvent Mr. Weiner's express intent.

Sad, truly sad.