What follows is remarkable. The time and energy wasted between our public information officer and our commission president slicing and dicing me in their email exchanges, could have been spent more productively by taking the ten or twenty seconds to convert the file. What I don't understand is this. If I went to the website that Susan Morgans suggested to Commissioner Fraasch, couldn't I convert the poster into a different format and say that "Brewfest is called off" anyway? And why would I even want to do that? Fortunately, Kelly Fraasch's husband helped me, by doing a "save as" and saved the file in a different format, which took a whopping twenty seconds or so. I'm embarrassed that I didn't know to do that. What is worse is that our public information officer didn't either.
During Citizen Comments at the September 23, 2014 Commission Meeting, Steve Feller said that if I am not receiving information from the Public Information Office, to contact him. So I did and heard back nothing from him, and still nothing from the public information office. Wanting to know if Manager Feller followed up on his end, I filed a Right To Know on October 5, 2014. (Spoiler alert. He did nothing.) Here is the October 5, 2014 Right To Know that Steve Feller sent to me on November 6, 2014, which was due to a 30 day extension to do a "legal review" of my request.
Susan Morgans, like it or not, you are being paid (and very well, by the way) to field inquiries from the public. Please visit the Public Information Office webpage. You also handle media relations. Since you are a board member of the Press Club of Western PA, you must be aware that there is a category called "Continuing Blog/Online" for the Golden Quill Awards. (See page 14.) The Press Club of Western PA treats bloggers as media. In fact, as a member of the Press Club of Western PA, I had several submissions for the Continuing Blog/Online category. Did I ever have a chance of being considered with you on the judging panel? Yes, Kristen Linfante, I may have been "delusional," but I gave it a shot. How do you know, if you don't try, Kristen? I don't like to go through life saying that I would've, could've, should've.
Ms. Morgans, with the dozens of blogs in Mt. Lebanon, how many others pestered you about BrewFest? Ironically, you also serve on the Community Relations Board. Fostering a sense of community is not one of your strengths, especially with the ethnic slurs for which you were forced to apologize. Unfortunately, with Bottom Dollar closing, where "Friends will avoid you because they’ll think you’ll think they’re poor or cheap or both (and you’ll be thinking the same thing.)" you will be bogged down in chitchat in other grocery stores where fostering a sense of community is part of the shopping experience. By the way, Susan, I wonder if your mandatory apology is noted in your personnel file. Or the two incidents where you "accidentally" sat on my recorder. I hope your boss didn't drop the ball on that, as well.
I still maintain that when I die, I want to be reincarnated as a Mt. Lebanon Public Information Officer. I would be well compensated and be permitted to have a bad attitude toward residents and volunteers, at the same time write about my curly hair and other useless information. The commission president would have my back and would make personal attacks about a resident's "lonely and pathetic life," and "miserable life" in my behalf. Fortunately, we have one more month of her presidency. Thanks to our narcissistic commission president and public information officer, as well as an inept municipal manager, Mt. Lebanon has reached an all-time low.
Update November 9, 2014 6:51 AM Looking through the Lebo Citizens Spam Folder, I came across the lonely and pathetic life comment. You tell me who wrote these two unapproved comments.
Update November 10, 2014 7:14 AM Another Linfante classic.
