Truth-in-Webinaring: Who's Asking the Questions, Albemarle?

It’s probably been obvious for a long time that I am not in a popularity contest for friends within Albemarle County Government. That said, I’m grateful for whatever friendships I may have there — or anywhere — but I’ll take honesty over friendship any time. An engaging experience I had on Tuesday of this week (that carried over into Wednesday) has strengthened this personal belief. And true to form, when some government folks don’t like criticism, a first response can be to attack the critic.

In this case the attackee would be me.

So what happened?

On Tuesday noon, some Albemarle County Staff hosted an online computer/telephone webinar about the proposed FY2017 Budget and Capital Improvements Program (CIP). I registered in advance, connected at the assigned time, and listened in. Easy, quality technology.

Early on in an excellent presentation by Albemarle County Budget Director Lori Allshouse, I typed in a question and received a reply that my question would be answered during the Q&A. Great.

During the Q&A, mine (about measuring the cost of population growth) was the first question.

We’ve never had this question before. Here’s our answer. Blah, blah, blah.

Fine. No problem.

The next four questions were these:

(1) What are the major impacts on the CIP?

(2) How will the School Division be affected by this budget?

(3) How does Albemarle’s tax rate compare to that of its peers?

(4) What are the chances of getting out of the Revenue-Sharing Agreement with Charlottesville?

Lori answered each question effortlessly.

There were no more questions.

End of webinar at 12:23 p.m., 37 minutes earlier than scheduled. Fair enough.

Then I got to thinking. Those questions sounded very familiar. They were answered so smoothly. None of the questions had any webinar participant identifications attached to them.

So, I started asking questions — not something that some government folks are all that comfortable with.

Here’s the e-mail correspondence that followed:

-----Original Message-----

From: gary grant [mailto:gwg1949@gmail.com]

Sent: Wednesday, March 16, 2016 7:26 AM

To: Jody Lewis <jlewis@albemarle.org>

Subject: Tuesday's budget webinar

Hi, Jody.

Were you ever able to determine how many people (non-Albemarle County employees) participated in yesterday's noon budget webinar? I'd like to know that number. I was glad I listened in.

Thanks.

Gary Grant

Earlysville

On Mar 16, 2016, at 9:28 AM, Jody Lewis wrote:

Good morning Mr. Grant,

We didn't have a great turnout - only two people who weren't in some way associated with local government or public schools. But we won't let that low number discourage us. Next webinar is next Tuesday evening at 8PM. See you there?

Best,

Jody Lewis

Communications Specialist

-----Original Message-----

From: gary grant [mailto:gwg1949@gmail.com]

Sent: Wednesday, March 16, 2016 11:17 AM

To: Jody Lewis <jlewis@albemarle.org>

Subject: Re: Tuesday's budget webinar

Thanks, Jody.

Again, I enjoyed listening in and participating. I am registered for the one next Tuesday night.

It's curious to me that there were five questions asked, while you say only two non-employees participated. I asked one question. This tells me that either the other non-employee asked all of the remaining four questions or some staff asked questions. Seems strange that staff would ask questions. Did some staff ask questions? If so, how many questions did they ask?

Gary

On Mar 16, 2016, at 1:19 PM, Jody Lewis wrote:

Thanks Mr. Grant,

You're very perceptive. You were the only participant who asked a question. Staff introduced the other questions, which are either asked frequently or information we wanted to be sure to impart, in the hopes of generating a conversation. We saw this as an opportunity to give broad visibility to questions that have been raised in other venues such as public hearings, since the webinar was recorded and will be available on our website for on-demand viewing.

Jody Lewis

Communications Specialist

3/16/2016

Jody,

Thanks for the prompt reply, your honesty to my inquiry, and for the perception compliment.

That said, I must say that I am disappointed in what I consider to be dishonesty in not identifying publicly during the webinar that questions were "planted" by staff. I doubt that this would ever be done at an open meeting where staff and the public can see and hear each other face-to-face — as occurred last night at the budget town hall at Jack Jouett Middle School which I attended. I will be communicating my concern about yesterday's lunch time webinar to Mr. Foley, to my Rio District Supervisor Brad Sheffield, to Board Chairwoman Liz Palmer, and to others. I look forward to a completely transparent budget webinar on Tuesday evening.

Regards,

Gary Grant

Earlysville, VA

From: Lee Catlin <LCATLIN@albemarle.org>

Subject: Tuesday's budget webinar

Date: March 16, 2016 4:43:52 PM EDT

To: gary grant <gwg1949@gmail.com>

Cc: Jody Lewis <jlewis@albemarle.org>

Gary,

I wanted to take a moment to respond to your email to Jody Lewis. I appreciate your interest in and strong scrutiny of local government activities – it is very refreshing in these times to engage with someone who takes the time and effort to remain closely connected to community issues like the budget. Because I have respect for the commitment you have shown as an informed citizen partner, I feel compelled to respond very frankly to your email. I certainly respect and support your right to express your opinion about the circumstances of our webinar, and in acknowledgment of your concern in the future we will take care to clarify where the questions are coming from during webinar formats. Having said that, I was dismayed and frankly disappointed to see you characterize our actions as “dishonest” and lacking transparency. Dishonest is a very strong and pejorative word to use and assumes very negative motives and intentions on the part of County staff. I am not aware of anything that I or my staff have done in our interactions with you to justify that characterization – if there is something specific that has happened to cause a lack of trust I hope you will bring it to my attention immediately so it can be resolved. My staff members were very excited about using new technologies to expand our engagement with citizens and to possibly reach people who are not typically involved in government – they initiated and conducted both the webinar and the live tweet because they wanted to be open and inclusive with this process. To hear their actions labeled as dishonest and lacking transparency is discouraging to young professionals who are dedicating their careers to public service and the betterment of our community. If you have further concerns, I hope you will let me know – despite what is happening at the national level I trust that Charlottesville is still a place where we can have civil and respectful discourse about substantive issues. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and for allowing me to respond.

Best,

Lee

Lee P. Catlin

Assistant County Executive

Albemarle County

401 McIntire Road, Charlottesville, VA

(434)296-5841, ext. 3425 – office/ /(434)531-8092, mobile

There are so many ways to stay engaged:

Facebook - Twitter - Engage Albemarle - County "A-Mail"

From: Tom Foley <tfoley@albemarle.org>

Subject: RE: Tuesday's budget webinar

Date: March 16, 2016 4:46:09 PM EDT

To: gary grant <gwg1949@gmail.com>, Brad Sheffield <bsheffield@albemarle.org>, Liz Palmer <lpalmer@albemarle.org>

Cc: Board of Supervisors members <bos@albemarle.org>, Lee Catlin <LCATLIN@albemarle.org>

Gary,

Thanks for your feedback. Staff saw this as an opportunity to share important information regarding the budget with anyone who may have been listening in during this webinar. We also felt that questions which had come up in other venues were legitimate and would be helpful in achieving that objective. While we all agree that identifying the source of the questions is important going forward and will do so, there certainly is no issue of honesty here and as I think you know, we highly value transparency.

Thanks again for providing your continued feedback and for bringing your concerns to our attention. We look forward to seeing you at future meetings.

Thanks,

Tom

Thomas C. Foley

County Executive

Albemarle County, VA

(434) 296-5841

Okay, here I am — back again. What I have left to say in this blog post was not part of Wednesday’s e-mail exchanges.

Thanks again, Jody, for your honesty in answering my questions.

Thanks also to all the other County Staff who were announced as being present and participating in Tuesday’s budget webinar: Lori, Andy Bowman, Laura Vinzant, and Kristy Shifflett.

Criticize me as harshly as you prefer, Lee. I’m fine with it. You have your views; I have mine. You have your way of saying so; I have mine. It’s all part of engagement and transparency in a free society.

Good to hear from you too, Tom — only two minutes apart from Lee’s e-mail. Also good to know that you “highly value transparency” and believe it’s “important going forward” to identify the source of questions during webinars.

Hello, Brad and Liz. No reply is fine (as of 10:30 p.m. on 3/16/2016). I didn’t actually pose a question or request a reply anyway — only suggested an apology.

Besides, this is not about my popularity, but rather about Albemarle's truth-in-webinaring.