The Daily Hampshire Gazette is ramping up its presses for the upcoming mayoral election in Northampton but I'm not sure what we're reading is objective reporting. Make no mistake about it, Redoubt and its host The Valley Advocate have been critical of the Higgins administration and its policy decisions. Together we've made no attempt to mask our opinions on the website or in the hardcopy. It is what it is. The daily Gazette however, is thought by some to constitute the local, "paper of record." But is that so? Here's what editor Michael Kinsley wrote on journalism in 2006 for Slate (emphasis added):
Opinion journalism can be more honest than objective-style journalism because it doesn't have to hide its point of view. It doesn't have to follow a trail of evidence or line of reasoning until one step before the conclusion and then slam on the brakes for fear of falling into the gulch of subjectivity. All observations are subjective. Writers freed of artificial objectivity can try to determine the whole truth about their subject and then tell it whole to the world. Their "objective" counterparts have to sort their subjective observations into two arbitrary piles: truths that are objective as well, and truths that are just an opinion. That second pile of truths then gets tossed out, or perhaps put in quotes and attributed to someone else. That is a common trick used by objective-style journalists in order to tell their readers what they believe to be true without inciting the wrath of the Objectivity cops.
For example, the Gazette ran a two part front page feature article on the mayoral race last week, "From friends TO FOES," and "Higgins vs. Bardsley," hereafter referred to as, "the article." In my view this article was tilted in favor of Higgins as a myriad of Higgins supporters were quoted like a WHMP talk show host, "This is going to be a cold-blooded campaign" and, "Michael is going to be very good at exploiting the wedge issues that are there."
The article goes on to quote former mayoral candidate Eugene Tacy, today a Bardsley backer, in a way that supports the wedge issue argument which has a negative connotation, "The educational overlay district is the wedge," said Tacy according to the article. I argue that the EU district issue is not a wedge issue at all, but rather it is part of a series of policy decisions pushed through the government by Higgins. In fact, if you examine that series of controversial decisions you would be hard pressed to imply that the mayoral campaign relies on a single wedge issue for either candidate.
- For instance under Higgins watch, there is the demolition of Old Main and most of the buildings on Hospital Hill in order to turn it into a subdivision adjacent to an industrial facility, complete with barbed wire. She refers to this development scheme as a village and will tout this as an accomplishment.
- Then there's the demolition of homes in the Green Street area which displaced area residents in order to please Smith College and their Ford Hall ambitions. This led to the creation of the overlay district which allows Smith to further sidestep zoning regulations that apply to everyone else in the city.
- Then there is the implosion of the Academy of Music where everyone was fired after which Higgins committed $50 thousand a year for the Academy's utilities and then wrote that into the BID agreement.
- Then there is the selling of a parcel of land adjacent to Pulaski Park for $1 to the developer of the proposed Hilton Garden Inn and the payment of $55 thousand to an abutter to settle a lawsuit suit. Of course the Planning Board had broken its own rules in issuing a special permit for the project before the site plan had been approved and this raised the level of unrest in the city.
- Simultaneously the mayor's office spent time to undertake a new plan for Pulaski Park, with no funds available to enact that plan, which also led to public unrest.
- Then there are the millions of dollars spent for studies on expanding a landfill over an acquifer before the council has even taken a vote on whether to do so.
- How about Higgins pushing infill to the point where a lawsuit was brought by neighbors of Doug Kohl's proposed condominium development on North Street adjacent to wetlands.
- Then there is the BID agreement which was passed under a questionable signature process.
- Related to the BID was the proposed panhandling ordinance.
- Or this, how about when Higgins removed health insurance benefits from former city workers retroactively spurring another lawsuit?
- Or the fact that Higgins negotiated pay increases for teachers et al. without the cash in hand to honor the agreements, and now she's attacking the unions in the press hoping for concessions.
- How about the mayor's regular forays into the schools in order to cultivate new young voters.
- How about Higgins deciding to build a senior center which taps a disproportionate share of Community Development Block Grant funds and costs the city interest due to its bond payments. She was about to do the same thing with the police station and there is a new DPW headquarters being planned as we speak. Why not place these buildings before the voters for debt exclusion overrides? I mean, do city employees work for the taxpayers or the other way around?
- Then there is an extravagant telephone system paid for with grants over ten years, but still requiring money up front to cover the costs.
- How about Higgins & Co. establishing plans for the reconstruction of the Three County Fairgrounds, before reaching out to the public.
- Plus, Higgins signed on to the Route 91 Exit 19 expansion before talking to the abutters who would be directly impacted.
- And there are those who question Higgins policies on affordable housing, as in, how much do we extend city funds and crowd private developers out of the market as opposed to enacting inclusionary zoning regulations?
- How about the transferring of final authority for allocating Community Preservation Act funds to agencies other than the city council. For example, through the establishment of special funds for agencies like the Conservation Commission, its appointed members can now purchase property on behalf of the city without seeking council approval.
- Then there's the threatened closure of not one but two elementary schools, which has served to scare parents across the city, only to have the closings taken off the table.
- Finally but not inclusively there's the use of the James House for an adult literacy center, which is laudable, but perhaps there are other options that would have placed that building on the tax rolls. There's more but you get the idea.
Folks these are not wedge issues in the tradition of gay marriage, gun rights or abortion rights. These are local policy decisions that have been disagreed with by a plurality of the city's electorate and Bardsley has every right to talk about how he might approach issues like these differently as mayor.
In addition, referring to the public comments Bardsley made on the Overlay District before he voted against it in 2006, the article quotes a councilor anonymously who allegedly said that Bardsley's comments were, "a tongue lashing." The article is loaded with other jewels of criticism aimed at Bardsley and provides quotes from other professed Higgins allies on Bardsley like councilor Jim Dostal,
"He's certainly been able to alienate many of the councilors," and "I think there is a definite change in the way Michael used to back the mayor's proposals … The enthusiasm isn't there any more." According to the article, "Dostal blames the fissures on Bardsley's style, though he declines to be specific."
This from a man whose first formal order of business as council president was an attempt to rearrange the chairs of the councilors, an attempt that was voted down. Dostal then promoted term limits for the council presidency while ignoring term limits for the mayor's seat. This too was voted down. As well, don't forget Dostal's signature appeared on the petition to put gay marriage to a public statewide referendum, a signature he later professed was made in error. I suppose that indicates he might sign documents without reading them first.
The article quotes Higgins follower Paul Spector on Bardsley,
"He knows what to say, when to say it, and who to say it to in order to get their support."
Okay, now this is really rich. Spector recused himself from the EU overlay vote because he is a contracted consultant for Smith College. When neighbors of Smith were faced with the loss of their homes, Spector went on a sabbatical leaving them with only Dostal and Bardsley as their representatives and only Bardsley showed an interest, and for this he is condemned. That is why some in the Green Street neighborhood refer to Spector as, "the Spectator."
The article then quotes Higgins follower David Narkewicz on Bardsley,
"Michael and I have had disagreements around the leadership of the council and the role the council should play in city government … It translates for me into the mayoral race in terms of who can provide real leadership, bring tough issues to the public, be able to make tough decisions and move the city forward."
I presume the next Narkewicz quote was a referance towards Bardsley's stand on the Overlay issue.
"There was a time on the council when there wasn't strong leadership and it wasn't fulfilling its end of the bargain … To me, leadership means you do something more than give a speech in the 11th hour when it has no substantive import on the issue."
This from a man who turned his back on Bardsley after Bardsley had helped to get Narkewicz elected in 2005.
As someone who was involved in the Education Overlay debate directly, I find the quotes above misleading. Bardsley frequented community and municipal meetings on the issue, meetings where I don't recall seeing Dostal, Spector or Narkewicz attending with any regularity, or Gazette reporters for that matter. Yet Dostal and Narkewicz voted in favor of the EU district while Bardsley was slammed relentlessly on WHMP. Cripes! Bardsley was the only councilor attempting to dig beneath the surface of the issue doing so with almost no resources at his disposal. In this case Bardsley walked the walk and then talked the talk, agree with him or not. This calls into question exactly who is exploiting supposed wedge issues and for what purpose.
It seems as though the majority of those serving on the council, that is, those supporting Higgins, feel as though the council's role is to partner with the mayor to push through her policies because after all, we do have a strong mayor/weak council form of government, so why fight the infrastructure? Since the council has no budget to secure its own expert advice on the issues of the day it's far easier to just go along with Higgins' proposals.
I argue that if Bardsley is elected the city will truly have a system of checks and balances. Under that scenario policy proposals Bardsley brings forth will be picked over thoroughly by his council adversaries in a fashion they now avoid applying to Higgins' proposals. This would likely benefit the public at large through a more spirited public debate at the outset of policy proposals instead of at the end of the process. It might seem a bit uncomfortable at first, but in the long run a change after about ten years of the same leadership spouting the same rationales might be good.
The selected quotes in the article went on with the only negative quotes directed towards Higgins' policy making apparatus apparently orginating from Bardsley himself. Either everyone else is too frightened to speak negatively of Higgins or the paper was lazy in seeking quotes from those opposed to the incumbent. Even though the article opined that, "not everyone involved in the campaigns, particularly those in Higgins' camp, have been open to talking about the race or the candidates," in Part One, Part Two tells a different story with a string of quotes produced that markedly favor the incumbent replete with descriptive terms in the article like, "fierce," "nasty," "slug fest," and, "dog fight."
The article also describes Higgins appearance at a campaign rally as, "low-key and unflashy," and reports among Higgins' self attributed accomplishments the start of an ambulance service. Behold, this weekend the same author writes a feature about this very ambulance service attempting to showcase Higgins as an able leader and in control of the situation. Thus Higgins cites an accomplishment and the Gazette highlights the mayor's version of the issue.
Here's the best part. A few days after the 3,500 word article on the mayoral race appeared, the Gazette ran a column directing its readers to pay no attention to the mayoral race, a race their ace staff reporter had just framed for them. Huh? In that piece Gazette editors opined that people should place the mayoral and city council elections, "on the back burner" and that, "it is time for everyone to take a deep breath and pause before plunging headlong into a(n) electoral campaign before its time."
Wow. Is not now precisely the time that voters should be hearing about how the respective candidates for office will address the varied issues before us, including the override? I hope to hear more from the candidates, not less. Of course as the months pass by Higgins will likely roll out a pallet of policy proposals that the Gazette will cover as news rather than as the defacto campaign advertisements they are, as it did when it listed who on the council supported which candidate in graphic form. Talk about a free Higgins ad.
A few days after these stories ran a few Gazette readers responded with comments asking the Gazette to stay out of the personal issues that might divide Higgins and Bardsley. One woman wrote:
As an enthusiastic Gazette reader, I write now to ask the editors to refrain from presenting the upcoming race for mayor within the "former friends to current foes" framework. In my opinion, the Gazette is focusing too much on Clare Higgins and Michael Bardsley's personal relationship.
One commentor on Gazette's Talkback went so far as to suggest the Gazette is going tabloid with its headlines:
what is this, a tabloid? foes? please
Another woman wrote:
Many other voices – school employees, city employees, regular citizens – have risen up, seeking a broader perspective of options to deal with our budget crisis. But those voices haven't been given equal hearing, and thus the public discussions have been focused on certain options, as though they were the only ones.
Finally a woman from Florence stepped up for Bardsley:
Mayor Higgins needs to be advised that she has lingered too long on her throne. It's time for the voters of Northampton to have a clear voice in city politics and not be at the mercy of a person who has somehow convinced the majority of the city councillors and others that she is the definitive power.
Michael Bardsley has lost favor with both the mayor and the city council due to what was referred to in the Gazette as the issue of his style. I believe that it's not a style issue but a matter of standing up for the city's best interest whether it's a popular stance or not. It is for precisely this reason, and the fact that he is not threatened by people whose ideas differ from his, that I will be casting my vote for him for mayor. We need someone who will be openly accountable to all of Northampton's citizens.
Moreover, on the same day the Gazette ran a modest headline announcing Bardsley's run for the city's top job, it featured an article complete with pictures of Higgins helping to raise the wall of a home under construction by Habitat for Humanity. In short, any mention of Bardsley in the Gazette will be framed somewhat neutrally, and somewhere in the paper will be a photo opportunity or news bulletin touting the Higgins administration. Paper of record indeed.
You know, with enablers like this in the mainstream media and on the council so willing to attack Bardsley, Higgins can take the high road and act above the fray while her supporters use a sort of Swiftboat type of politics to mame Bardsley. Face it, if Higgins were to lose the election, her entire house of political cards falls apart and all of the deals, appointments and favors that have been made over the past decade would be seen with new eyes. Would Bardsley release minutes from executive sessions held by Higgins for instance with regards to the Hilton Garden Inn lawsuits among others? Would Bardsley continue on with the same city solicitor whose opinions seem to spur lawsuits? I guess what I'm asking is, would he open the books on the city so to speak in a way Higgins has not?
So here's my prediction for what it's worth: the Gazette will endorse both approving the override and the incumbent Higgins as well any supporters of Higgins running for office. In the end Higgins will likely win a close contest because she simply has too many advantages and there are too many surrogates willing to engage in the politics of personal destruction on her behalf. In this context it is no wonder incumbents running for office at any level in the U.S. are likely to be returned to office. It's textbook pluralism with the local media serving as a special interest group that both aides incumbents in deflecting criticism and in shielding them from blame. In exchange businesses like the Gazette and WHMP will receive leaked news stories of the day from city hall.
At this stage of their careers the difference between Higgins and Bardsley is clear. Higgins makes a decision in the best interests of the city and then goes to the public to sell it, but if the public doesn't buy it, eh, so what. Conversely, Bardsley listens to the public first and then makes a decision that he thinks is in the best interests of the city. That said, I have not agreed with all of Bardsley's votes through the years and if he's elected I will continue to critique the policies that originate from city hall and the council for better or worse. That's why I'm not endorsing him or anyone else for office.
If people lose faith in the process or lack thereof however, the community will become ever more polarized and divided. In this regard, Higgins learned well from Bush and Cheney and it is disappointing that she apparently feels so threatened by those who disagree with her that she's sent in dwarfs to do her digging. Heigh-ho, Heigh-ho…
