I’m hanging out at Sunrise Bagels sipping a great bowl of chicken noodle soup for three bucks and change.
At the same time I’m reading about some local bureaucrat who’s sipping Grey Goose vodka martinis at the Eye Candy Lounge & Bar in Vegas.
On the taxpayers’ dime!
Then there’s another bureaucrat who likes to, ah, travel. You know, D.C., Montreal, the Sunshine State and Vegas.
This would come to “58 large” ($58,000) for one year’s worth.
On the taxpayers’ dime!
Just what the heck is going on here?
The easy answer to this question is “not much good,” that’s what’s going on here. But the larger question really is; where’s the oversight? I mean, does anyone really believe that all our taxpayer-supported bureaucrats and elected officials can be trusted?
Ah, not so much.
OK, so here’s my theory and my pitch for newspapers:
The farther away from the core of a strong local newspaper you get, the more likely you are to see shenanigans.
In our case, for example, we concentrate on Vancouver and try to keep track of city and county government here. We try to push these folks and hold them accountable. But as you move further away from the core, there just isn’t as much oversight by the media.
And if you expect these guys to keep themselves honest, good luck.
You’ve got port districts and school districts wanting to go off on luxury retreats. You’ve got taxpayer bonuses given out to officials.
Holy cheese and crackers! Who’s gonna keep track of all of them?
Well, traditionally, strong daily newspapers have kept track of them.
So how do we — or other newspapers — make the choices on where to dig? Again, you concentrate on the core and move outward. Frankly, this would be the approach of any business.
Former Columbian reporter Jeff Mize was one of the best at this. Not much escaped his oversight.
When a city official saw him coming, you could hear the mumbling. Twitching followed quickly thereafter.
Does that mean Vancouver was squeaky clean? I doubt it. But residents had a better shot at keeping them honest because of Jeff and The Columbian.
So a strong newspaper is essential in trying to keep these folks — who spend our money — honest.
The two examples I used at the beginning of this column had to do with Washougal (primarily Mayor Stacee Sellers) and Skamania County (its county auditor, J. Michael Garvison.)
It appears both were spending taxpayer dollars pretty liberally.
And although The Columbian covers both areas a little, it’s not our core.
And I would suggest if there was a strong daily newspaper sitting in either of those places it would be less likely that this stuff would have happened. So why aren’t there strong dailies there?
Economics. Newspapers today are struggling to keep newsrooms properly staffed to just cover the core areas. Trying to start a strong daily newspaper in Skamania or Washougal just couldn’t happen from a financial standpoint.
And good luck if you think bloggers are going to somehow do this work. Watch most bloggers closely. They mostly complain about the government based on stories we’re doing … and throw in complaints about the media for good measure.
So here’s hoping a strong and vibrant media emerges from the recession.
For all our sakes.
Lou Brancaccio is The Columbian’s editor. Reach him at 360-735-4505 or lou.brancaccio@columbian.com.
