Why don't you ever write anything good?
NOTE: This column was one of three submitted that earned First Place for Best Local Columnist in the Michigan Press Association's 2013 Better Newspaper Contest.
The question comes up at Mayville village council meetings, “Why don’t you ever write anything good about Mayville?”
“Well, I do,” I’ll reply. “Mayville’s a great town. Your schools are awesome, you’ve got the We Can Read program which helps lots of kids and you’ve got plenty of community-minded business owners who care about their town. Your police chief is a brilliant manager with dazzling math skills that saved your town tons of money, and your police department is amazingly effective for the amount of hours you allot for it in your budget. You have great events for your kids on all the major holidays, and the fire department even took a dozen kids shopping for Christmas presents. It’s not hard to like Mayville.”
“Yeah, well how come we never see any of those stories?” they’ll ask.
“Well, I don’t know,” I’ll admit. “Have you read the paper?”
Evidently it’s pretty easy to overlook those “good” stories about the “good” people of Mayville who do “good” things. I’ll admit that half of what I write must be terribly embarrassing for you Mayville residents to read, and it’s not your fault.
I’m a reporter. I sit through your meetings, I record what is said and I take notes that help me tell the unaltered facts of what happened. I’m not pulling this stuff out of the clear blue sky.
The question was asked, “Why do you have to say why a trustee was removed because she didn’t pay her taxes?” Well, it’s certainly an unflattering detail, but it’s a fact. It’s a fact that one perceptive village resident made known to the council, and it’s a fact that the village president was inclined to sweep under the rug “because we’ve always done it that way.” Thankfully, the “good” members of your council stepped up and said, “Hey Mr. President, we can’t break the law. It’s illegal for her to be on council.”
I had to explain that to your residents, and I couldn’t explain it very well in vague terms like “a council member was removed for an undisclosed reason.” These are public meetings I’m covering. It’s public knowledge, and the council’s constituents need and want to know the truth. I don’t like embarrassing someone if it can be avoided, but that’s the risk of becoming a public official. These are the stewards of your tax dollars and the people you elected to help Mayville grow and prosper.
There’s been a lot of negative stuff I could dig into and write about your council president’s loosely run brand of municipal government. I’ve spoken with Mayville residents who wanted to go on record as saying your council president wields his power with pettiness and spitefulness like a petulant child, making people uncomfortable until they finally have had enough of his nastiness. I held off on those stories, thinking that I didn’t want to give the president the easy excuse that it’s just sour grapes and also thinking maybe now that the president has more of his people on the council he’ll stop bullying people and get something done for the people he serves if I let him be. I was wrong.
There were a lot of snide, passive aggressive remarks sent my way Tuesday by the village council president before and during the committee of the whole meeting. I don’t take it personally because he doesn’t know anything about me. The fact that my presence at meetings makes your president uncomfortable enough to appoint me his new object of ridicule is a good sign that I’m doing my job and he knows I’m watching.
But when I receive the kind of unprofessional treatment I received Tuesday, I think it’s time to take people to task.
I have seen and heard the president’s bad behavior firsthand. First it was the former village clerk. I personally saw the council president berate her in numerous public meetings. Then he targeted other council members, all of whom were intelligent people who wanted to make a difference in their community. His methods include withholding useful information from his peers (mainly complaints about water bills to make the former clerk look bad), verbal intimidation and interrupting other council members to disrupt their points of view, as well as misrepresenting the issues at hand to make his peers look bad or ineffectual. His disrespectful treatment of certain people has no place in public meetings, and it seems unlikely that he could be a fair and impartial representative of his community.
One by one those who have dealt with the president’s wrath have grown tired of the poobah and his peanut gallery and moved on. Now it’s my turn to face the prez’s ire, I guess, and that’s fine by me.
Mr. President, what you need to understand is that whether you like me or not is immaterial. We still need to find a way to work together to promote your community. Let’s talk about the positives of your town instead of going through this same old process of you making your snide remarks to your cronies and then smiling like you’ve done something clever. You owe it to the people you serve to be a better representative for their community and stop creating drama for the newspaper by being unnecessarily hostile and unprofessional.
I’m absolutely certain that everything I’ve written is 100 percent truth. All I’m doing is paying attention and keeping notes, and all you’re doing is digging your own hole by bending rules and making your village look like it’s run by the kids from Lord of the Flies. There are excellent people who serve on your council, but they are handcuffed by your whims and prejudices.
People of Mayville, do you sincerely want to read positive things about your community? Please keep sending those stories my way, because I’d much prefer to write about people helping each other and making their town a better place to live. I didn’t get into the newspaper business to focus on one person’s poor judgment and bad behavior. I got into the business to help communities tell their story and show everyone else why their village is a great place to live. As one of my favorite journalists once said, “Journalism is all about sticking up for the little guy and standing up to the big guy.”
It’s time for the “big guy” to grow up and do his job. It’s not a “good” story about Mayville, but it’s the truth.
Bill Petzold is a staff writer for the Tuscola County Advertiser.
