Hall Marks with Emma Reilly

Dueling Q&As

By now, I'm sure a few of you City Hall watchers have read my Q&A with Bob Bratina. I've gotten lots of feedback about that story -- many people have been sympathetic to our new mayor, but many others have argued that Bob didn't come off well.

Since then, Bratina has chosen not to comment to the Spectator. He has told several of my colleagues that he's the mayor-elect, not the mayor, and as a result, doesn't have the authority to comment on issues. If you've been watching closely, you will have noticed three or four Spectator stories that ran over the last week without comment from Bratina.

But apparently Bratina is willing to speak with other media -- specifically The Bay Observer, home to Bratina's new chief of staff Peggy Chapman.  The Observer ran a Q&A of its own this week, which is now  available online.  Peggy, an editor and reporter at the Observer, told me last week that she is staying on at the paper to help with the transition period and will be joining Bob's office on Dec. 1. However, there's no byline on the story, so it's not clear about who did the Q&A.

The optics of this situation aren't great. We have a mayor who is unwilling to provide comment to one newspaper -- and by extension its 260,000 daily readers -- but is willing to speak to a newspaper where his chief of staff is employed. (Or, at the least, was very recently employed).

But the Observer shares some responsibility here too. In the interest of transparency, why not put a byline on the Q&A? If Peggy was responsible for it, did she perform it before or after she accepted the job as Bob's chief of staff?  If she wasn't, why not clearly indicate that? 

Some people will dismiss this as sour grapes on  the Spectator's part. Fair enough. But one of the most important tenets of journalism is independence of the press, and right now, it seems that the lines between the Observer and Bratina's office are somewhat blurred.

What do you think?

 UPDATE: I wrote to John Best, publisher of the Bay Observer, for a comment on this issue. Here's the response I received from him.

A few days after the election Peggy advised me that she was accepting the position of Chief of Staff for the mayor-elect. Accordingly, I wrote all of the stories related to the Hamilton election. I did the sit-down with Bob Bratina. Peggy was not even present.

 

I would have been happy to provide this information before you had drawn your conclusions and posted the blog. Regrettably this is not my first experience with the Spectator writing first and asking questions later. Id appreciate it if this were posted on the blog.

 ANOTHER UPDATE: Howard Elliott, a managing editor here at the Spec, has asked me to post this as well.

A response to this blog post contains comments the poster says came from Peggy Chapman’s Facebook page concerning her appointment as the mayor’s chief of staff. Shortly after the post appeared, Ms Chapman contacted the Spectator and said she did not make those comments, saying in part: ‘those comments are fictional.’ She did not ask that we take any action on the matter. The Spectator decided it would not be appropriate to leave comments posted that are alleged to be fictional by the person identified as having made them. Since we don’t have proof one way or the other, I judged the best thing to do is to simply post the facts as we know them for a certainty, hence this update.

 

 

 

Jumping ship?

Just when you thought things were all quiet on the stadium front, our newly re-elected Ward 4 Councillor Sam Merulla sends out this release. Merulla says he'll introduce this motion to abandon all stadium talks at the first regular council meeting in December. Keep in mind that Merulla has never been a fan of the Games and has consistently encouraged council to renovate Ivor Wynne instead of building a new stadium.

What are your thoughts? Do you agree?

Whereas the problem with the Toronto Pan Am games bid has been fueled by emotion and based on wants rather than needs of our community.

Whereas the original purpose of the Stadium was to create a legacy for amateur sport and provide a new stadium for the Ti Cats.

Whereas if the Ti- Cats cannot afford the old stadium how can they afford a new stadium?       
Whereas the original purpose of the stadium has changed to simply creating a legacy for the for profit Ti- Cats and a potential professional soccer team.

Whereas a capital deficit of tens of millions of dollars prevails in the construction of a new stadium at Longwood.

Whereas the Council of the City of Hamilton's focus must be governed based on the need to focus on priorities that matter such as Manufacturing Jobs, two  billion dollar infrastructure deficit, one hundred and forty six  million dollar provincial downloading crisis and twenty percent poverty rate.


Whereas the issue of sustainability for the Hamilton Ti Cats is only realistically addressed at Ivor Wynne Stadium and the business challenge of the Ti-Cats is to fill the nearly thirty thousand seats available to them at a publicly  subsidized Ivor Wynne.

Whereas the issue of a new stadium is not the answer to the Ti- Cats sustainability but rather the issue of sustainability is addressed in the Ti Cats and the CFL providing a product on the field that creates a demand for tickets. Thereby creating the necessary revenue to become and remain sustainable.

Whereas  a renovated Ivor Wynne stadium at a cost of twenty million dollars over twenty years as approved by council in 2007 and a sold out stadium for all Ti- Cat home games is the answer and the most prudent initiative for all stake holders to pursue.

Therefore be it resolved that the City of Hamilton cease any further action in building a new stadium.