NEWS & OPINION :: May 11, 2005

Benavides taking flak for wanting city flak

Issues raised over funding, role of ‘public information officer’

By THOMAS P. MORGAN

Annette Guilfoyle has worked in public relations for 35 years. She regularly collects newspaper clippings to gauge the public’s perception of her employer. When her bosses look good, she looks good. But Guilfoyle doesn’t represent a hot celebrity or a Fortune 500 company. She does public relations for the city of Grand Rapids.

Hoping to follow Grand Rapids’ example, Lansing Mayor Tony Benavides is proposing the creation of a “public information officer” to help promote the city to investors, media and the general public.

But critics say the position is unnecessary and, given the city’s budget deficit, imprudent. And the proposal raises a question about what the city really needs: someone to provide information or someone to put a spin on it?

Public resource or marketing tool?

David Wiener, executive assistant to Benavides, said the mayor’s office hopes to pattern the public information officer after Guilfoyle.

He said the public information officer’s main function would be to promote economic development in order to enhance Lansing’s public image. He or she would also work closely with the city’s Planning Department and Economic Development Corp. as well as the regional Chamber of Commerce, Wiener said.

The public information officer would also work with media organizations to pitch positive news stories, Wiener said. When positive things happen in Lansing, city officials should be able to take credit for them and be proud of their accomplishments, Wiener said. A public information officer could help to make that happen, he said.

Wiener said a public information officer would help both the City Council and the administration to make sure they’re communicating effectively with the public. The public information officer would also act as a spokesperson when the Council and the mayor agree on a given issue, Wiener said.

“In this day and age, when we’re competing with other communities for business, jobs and people, it’s really important to put our best foot forward and to do as good of a job as possible,” Wiener said.

The position, which would be part of the mayor’s office, would cost the city an estimated $80,000 annually in salary and fringe benefits, Wiener said. Wiener said the position would be funded by shifting money from the Management Services Department to the mayor’s office, and thus would not require an actual increase in funds. The administration would in effect create a new position by eliminating another, Wiener said.

The essential question still remains: Would this new position be used as a PR flack who impedes media from obtaining information unless it is unwaveringly positive? Or would the public information officer exist in the purest form, acting primarily as a media resource and directing media inquiries to the appropriate city officials?

Councilwoman Carol Wood said she doesn’t need a spin doctor or media intermediary.

“If you develop a relationship with the media and you answer their questions and you’re accessible to them, then that forms that relationship,” Wood said. “We don’t need somebody to schmooze that.”

Guilfoyle, who has worked as Grand Rapids’ public information officer for six years, said a successful public information officer doesn’t speak for the city but rather directs media to the proper resources.

“My commission members are very open with the media,” she said. “I would never try to put myself between them and the media.”

“If you ever met me, you’d know I’m too old to be anybody’s idea of a spokesmodel,” Guilfoyle said. “I really have a problem with PIOs assuming that they are the person who should be speaking to the media.”

Wiener said the public information officer would help to deliver a consistent message to the public, translating govermentese to plainspeak. He said explaining to the public the ongoing budget negotiations between the administration and the City Council was one area that could be vastly improved.

“We haven’t done a very good job of that, obviously,” he said.

He added that public officials would not be required to consult with the public information officer prior to contact with the media, but it would be “encouraged.”

Guilfoyle said she does media training for Grand Rapids’ department heads and city commission members to ensure that they deliver accurate and timely information to the press.

For the other half of her job — promoting economic development in the city — Guilfoyle keeps a list of “good news” areas that the city would like covered. “I’ll have reporters who call me and say, ‘Annette, it’s a really slow news day; do you have anything for me?’ And I’ll give them something in the city to cover.”

The adage of “any publicity is good publicity” doesn’t apply to government public relations, however. To a public information officer, government works best when it’s not heard or seen.

“The week I’m doing my best job is when you don’t hear about the city at all,” Guilfoyle said.



Right job at the wrong time?

In previous years, the city contracted public relations work to Okemos-based Kolt & Serkaian Communications Inc. The city paid $174,000 to the PR firm in 2003 and $150,000 in 2004, but no longer uses its services except for special events, Wiener said.

Kolt & Serkaian acted as more of a promotional marketing firm for the city as opposed to a public information resource.

In 2003, Wood supported eliminating the contract with Kolt & Serkaian and moving PR services in-house to save money. Two years later, however, she questions the timing, need and political motivations for creating a new position.

Wood said the city is too strapped for cash to create the position. The city is in the midst of finalizing the budget for fiscal 2006, which includes closing a projected $6.8 million budget deficit. The administration has pointed to rising labor costs as a major cause for the deficit and has proposed many labor-cutting measures.

“I don’t believe that it is fiscally responsible at this time to add that position while we’re taking away other positions,” Wood said. She said she’d prefer the funding be used for other purposes, such as parks funding or to reduce labor cutbacks.

Mayoral candidate Virg Bernero agrees with Wood, saying he would likely support using a public relations specialist for short-term projects but is firmly against having a full-time public information officer.

“I think that raising the mayor’s office staff budget while cutting children’s recreation programs demonstrates the wrong priorities,” Bernero, a state senator, said. “I think it’s a luxury we can’t afford.”

Wood said that while she supports the overall concept of improving public relations, she questions the proposal’s timing in a mayoral election year.

“What’s going on?” Wood said. “Is this being used for re-election or is this really being used to push Lansing?”

However, 2003 — the year Wood advocated the creation of the position — was also a mayoral election year.

Wiener said the public information officer would not have any direct political role in this year’s elections.

“I suppose people could see it as a political thing, but everything is a political thing now,” Wiener said. “Every time somebody says anything it could be construed as being political. So we just have to carry on.”

Bernero said the city already has a de facto public information officer: “Dave Wiener basically is the public information officer. I see him talking to the press regularly. It looks to me like they’ve got a public information officer.”

“If David Wiener isn’t the PIO,” Bernero said, “then I don’t know what he is.”

The mayor’s proposal is part of an executive order issued earlier this year that would reorganize several departments. The City Council has until the first week of June to accept or reject the order.

“Given our budget situation, it will be difficult to get support for it,” Wiener said. “People might support the position but might not fund it.”

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