For the first time since Local News Only.com began, way back on April 26, 2001, the Editor is out of town!  Kimberly Connor is in Washington D.C. doing some exploratory work on the Internet possibilities and especially organizations like our Local News Only.com. This leaves me to my own self-destructive devices, until she returns next week.

Of course, a major reason for recruiting Kimberly to the company was to help insure that, in perception and reality, Local News Only.com presented itself as a legitimate alternative source of local news, not some "cybervendetta". For the two of you who just moved into town from the jungles of Peru, I served on city council locally in 1998-2000.  Defeated in my re-election bid by the awesome forces of our local mayor, I took some time off. 

My wife started her own operation, now known to over 300 neighborhoods, as www.AboutMyHOA.com.  While helping her with some technical and marketing concepts, I began to formulate the idea for Local News Only.

During our first three weeks, we broke the news about potential Black Mold at City Hall and featured an article, posting a letter that had been distributed, allegedly from the Colleyville Soccer Association (CSA), on the LNO site.  Amazingly enough, both topics found their way to the Dallas Morning News about a week after we posted the information FIRST here! We love it when DMN reads us, just wish they would acknowledge LNO was a week ahead of them in reporting.

By selecting Colleyville as our first city, out of nine planned this year, I knew this would be challenging at best.  After all, Mayor Donna Arp and I have had open policy disagreements.  If you don't have the diplomatic skills of Henry Kissinger, you are likely to find yourself being accused of getting "personal" when questioning the Mayor's policies.  In fact, Lieber of the Star-Telegram once referred to me as a "meanie".

Regardless, we put our LNO plan together and covered the May 5th election by posting results within minutes after the tally was completed.  The LNO site received more than 5,000 hits over the weekend and signed up 594 new subscribers in one three hour period.  As they say in the entrepreneurial business world, this my friend is "truth of concept".  In other words, we have a plan and the public has responded proving there is a market for our plan.

The early response to LNO in Farmer's Branch, Plano, Keller, Southlake and Grapevine has been tremendous.  The reaction to LNO in Colleyville has been overwhelmingly favorable by the general public.  However, your public elected officials, including the most recently elected, have already identified LNO as some diabolical ploy against the Mayor and her supporters.

For example, while attempting to interview the Mayor during the election, Arp told Kimberly, "I have told others not to respond to you as well."  Despite the fact Kimberly pointed out that opposing views were not only welcomed but encouraged, despite the fact Kimberly pointed out coverage on the chamber and library fund raisers (with over 50 photos), despite the fact Kimberly explained to the Mayor that the goal was to document the articles with scanned documents and historical facts; the Mayor just wasn't buying.

Dave Lieber wrote about an incident in his May 8th column where the Mayor "politicized a non-partisan library event...Not a very classy move for someone who otherwise should feel good about her victory." In addition Lieber states he has been told that, "this is not uncommon behavior by you (the Mayor)".

Mayor Arp has taught a lot of us lessons in local politics.  For example, her "scorched earth" policy has virtually eliminated anyone on city boards or commissions that appeared to be a potential voice of disagreement.  In contrast, the 1998 city council appointed Lu Ann Edwards to the Planning and Zoning, after she had ran against Frank Carroll for Place 3.

While Arp and her supporters find fault with the reporting of LNO before the election, we continued to provide them an opportunity to respond "unedited". While numerous people have told LNO that their letters to the editor of the Star-Telegram were never published, LNO will post EVERY e-mail to the Editor, regardless of the position of the author (barring inappropriate language or unreasonable personal attacks).

The LNO staff was located at five different reporting points on election night to report the election results.  Our goal was to report the information quickly on the LNO web site.  A unique and useful service.

I chose to report from Colleyville.  After the election numbers were announced, I called in the results and immediately started for my car to rush back to our office to help programmers post data.

Although I expected the winners to be gleeful in their victory and giddy over the fact they totally now control all council seats, I must admit the contorted face of Dennis Marlin screaming out at me something about "the Little General has been beat again" was somewhat a surprise.  Then there was Joe Tigue, husband of our Mayor Pro Tem, who runs out to shout, "Maybe your site will get these numbers correct."  This was NOT a surprise since Mr. Tigue has been very vocal to me in the past, but more importantly, a visitor to the LNO site under alias names. (Joe when sending an e-mail from your AOL account, putting "Bill" on the bottom as the author doesn't change the originating account information).

The Mayor was quoted May 10th, by Jaime Jordan of the Dallas Morning News, as saying this new council will work well together , "but I think you won't see personal attacks from this council."  Thank goodness, because if the reaction by Marlin and Tigue weren't meant to be personal, I would not want to be around to witness their definition of a "personal attack".

Finally, the motivation for this column was determined by what appears a unanimous council "blood brother" agreement to ignore and "trash" out LNO with a total news black out.

Of course, there are some in Colleyville that will tell you they feel they have already experienced a black out from the Star-Telegram.  It seems the Star-Telegram Publisher, the same one that is the incoming Chairman of the Colleyville AREA Chamber of Commerce, must have been instrumental in the endorsement of the Mayor by the S-T.  By the way, upstart LNO did not endorse anyone.

On May 6, 2001 at 3:06 PM the following e-mail went out from the Editor:

 

The deadline has come and gone, and surprise..no response. This is not going to deter this operation from continuing to work hard to bring the news to the Colleyville citizens in this electronic format.

Elected officials in our other planned cities have welcomed the LNO plans and feel it provides a different vehicle and prospective.  The Colleyville Edition  articles and columns are authored by people LIVING in Colleyville. For the most part advertisers, are all also in Colleyville.  

The policy of LNO is to post ALL opinions and provide a vehicle of different, timely communications.  The posting of the run-off candidates for GCISD information is another example of the ability of LNO to provide content that will not and can not be found in the major newspapers.

This Internet News Agency has never made a secret of the involvement of its Publisher, simply click on "About Us" .

Our business approach is well planned, innovative, informative and fair.  Some of you may recall that the Colleyville News and Times Publisher was Dian Chandler, (the paper was sold to the Dallas Morning News, brokered by Donna Arp, and then closed by the DMN). The current NE Tarrant Star-Telegram is an ardent supporter of the Mayor.

I believe over 25 years in the communication field, including news reporting for radio stations, serving in political office and successfully starting a publicly traded company, contributes to my ability to be a  fair-handed, thorough and tough publisher of news.

We are not here to serve the current Colleyville City Council, but the citizens.  After the Mayor has brokered our local newspaper, it is now out of business.  How can anyone be critical of our efforts to bring more in-depth local news than currently offered by the majors? 

Our readers are growing and to ignore LNO is to ignore a large number of their own constituents. 

We would rather have a responsive council, after all the Mayor has continued to stress her interest in keeping the citizens informed. Now that the council dynamics have temporarily changed, LNO joins Mr. Lieber's advice to the Mayor, "Don't let the success go to your head."

LNO will report on the news and document our efforts.  If the council follows the Mayor's example of exclusion of LNO by not responding, then we believe the citizens will question those who are critical about this site who a.) have never visited, b.) refuse to respond.

City Council can not be a closed group of like minded individuals, to the exclusion of those who may have a different prospective.

LNO will continue its public awareness campaign and expansion of readers. The articles will continue and LNO will obtain as much prospective as possible.  Citizens and the council alike have been promised full access to this site, with unedited responses.  You don't get this with the newspapers.

LNO wants the citizens to know and understand if you hear something critical about this news source, all of the council members and mayor have been invited and encouraged to participate.  

It would be a shame if the Mayor, and a locked step city council, fool themselves into thinking one election in Colleyville provides you a mandate to ignore other voices.

We think it is unfortunate the Mayor and this council fear the ability of LNO to broadcast in-depth coverage to their own constituents, regardless of their "personal" opinions.   

Publisher.

 

"The most successful tyranny  is not the one that uses force to assure uniformity, but the one that removes the awareness of other possibilities, that makes it seem inconceivable that other ways are viable, that removes the sense that there is an outside."

­ Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind