Editor's Notebook: Missing Comments and a Mea Culpa

Judging from emails and phone calls, this article on the recent Township Committee discussion about the RVSA changes has caused a stir.

A number of comments are appended to the story, with most of them coming from Springfield Deputy Mayor Bart Fraenkel. The comments may read somewhat disjointedly as some are responses to comments that were deleted. It's sort of like overhearing a phone conversation.

There was originally a lively (and contentious) back and forth between Fraenkel and Springfield Mayor Ziad Shehady. Shehady later deleted his comments, citing frustration at the tenor of the exchange.

"I finally erased my comments to maintain a level of decorum and because Mr. Fraenkel insists on turning my attempts to offer clarification of the issue into a lengthy debate that he always must win since he refuses to accept a set of facts other than those he creates," Shehady said in an email. "I am more than happy to continue the discourse at the Candidates Forum in October."

While I respect the Mayor's reasons, I do regret his actions. While not pretty, I believe the exchange gave Patch readers some valuable insight to the thought processes of two elected officials.

I realize that I am biased in this; my site was hosting the exchange. If the conversation had occurred on a forum I wasn't invested in, I would likely feel differently.

In any event, the comments are gone now. It was the Mayor's choice and his right to take them down. And, because of the way Patch comments system works, I could not re-post them if I wanted to. And, in the spirit of attempting to maintain as elevated a discourse as possible, I would like to point out the commendable amount of outreach the Mayor makes to the public through social media like Twitter and Facebook.

And the story itself has reportedly come under some criticism. I have heard second hand that people present at the meeting thought I left important information, information that would change the impact of the article.

I am accused of overlooking the harmony reached at the end of the dialogue between residents and officials over the RVSA changes. Former Committee member Harry Pappas, who I quoted in the story as a critic, sat down, seemingly satisfied after Shehady's explanation, as did other people who made public comments.

So why didn't I make a point to illustrate that in the story? Well, because I thought I didn't have to. I quoted Shehady in what I thought was his most persuasive and succinct argument about the RVSA fee:  that the RVSA fee had to be paid no matter what.

When I wrote the story I thought that including that argument itself was more effective than saying that people seemed satisfied by the argument. I'm not sure I was right about that.

So, in closing, I would like to encourage anyone who has comments about or issues with Patch's news coverage to either leave a comment or to send me an email at adamb@patch.com.