The City of Winnemucca was recently advised that it must do a better job of self-promotion in order to offset some of the slanderous, mean spirited and misleading blogs that are regularly posted on a local website journal.

It has been the City practice to simply let the results speak for themselves by providing outstanding public services and well-maintained facilities, including:  streets, airport, cemetery, utility systems, golf course, buildings, swimming pools, ball fields, and parks. Further, our City and County governments work together to share costs with a system that is unmatched statewide and which saves hundreds of thousands of local taxpayer dollars each year.  Amazingly, the City and County have accomplished all this while building up substantial ending balances in our coffers.  When compared with other local government budgets, infrastructure conditions and debt levels across the State of Nevada, it is remarkable how consistently well our City and County have performed through the years.

The City fully recognizes and appreciates the important function the media performs in providing the public with accurate information and questions concerning the actions of local governmental agencies/officials. More recently though, there have been occasions when it appears that relevant information has been intentionally omitted or withheld from a news story in order to promote an editor’s point of view and, possibly, to encourage slanderous statements from the public towards certain officials. Such practices can only be described as unprofessional and “tabloid like”, and should be condemned.  Professional journalism practices should attempt to promote publishing and posting of fact-based, non-slanderous information in news stories, and confine opinions and commentary to editorials and letters to the editor which are signed by the authors.

Our local government officials are typically honest and dedicated individuals who have exposed themselves to public scrutiny in order to work towards improving our extremely proud community.  These officials understand and accept that public service carries with it the potential for disagreement, and they can and do accept fact-based public criticism which is not slanderous in nature.  On the other hand, there should be no acceptance or tolerance for false, misleading or slanderous commentary which seeks legitimacy by posting on a media outlet which characterizes itself as a news source.

All public agency records are available to the public for inspection and all meetings are open to the public (with the exception of closed personnel and litigation issues), which allows the public a virtually unrestricted ability and opportunity to become fully informed about the actions of public officials.

It has always been the practice of the City to respond to the media promptly in an open, straightforward and sincere manner.  In turn, the media has been fair, balanced and professional in their journalistic efforts.  Through mutual trust and cooperation with the media, the City and the media have been effective in disseminating relevant and factual information in articles and news stories.

Our community’s success is a result of many years of dedicated work and conservative spending by our elected officials, appointed officials and employees.  It is extremely unfair and inappropriate that a few anonymous, cowardly bloggers are being encouraged and allowed to regularly “slander” our dedicated community leaders and employees on a local website journal, to the serious detriment of our wonderful and cooperative community.

D. Stephen West, P.E.

City Manager/Engineer