12/20/2005

Tribune goes Golfing

A good understanding of why the Great Falls Tribune lacks credibility can be found on the pages of today's and yesterday's paper. Both editorials discuss the problems at the golf course, regurgitating much of what the golf consultant had to say about the issue.

But they ignore the elephant in the room. They discuss the problems at the golf courses, but like their previous coverage, they completely fail to ask the serious questions: Who is minding the store? Don't we have managers already? Is adding another position to the payroll really going to help with cash flow problems? Who is accountable for anything at the City?

This whole affair demonstrates why blogs are on the rise, and dinosaur's are on the decline. There is far better analysis of the issue on the blogs than in the newspaper. (Check here and here)

4 comments:

Treasure State Jew said...

Geeguy; I had a slightly different interpretation of today's editorial. I read their implication as that several layers of bureaucracy needed to be cut and replaced with a single manager.

Eliminating the co-managers at the courses and cutting at least one management position at the Park and Rec, and replacing those three individuals with one FTE should save the city two FTEs, and give us better accountability.

GeeGuy said...

I think that is a reasonable interpretation, and a reasonable suggestion. I do think, though, that the Tribune is once again giving city management a pass.

WolfPack said...

I don’t think it's a matter of interpretation. I think what Geeguy is saying is not that the Tribune distorted the facts, it's that the Tribune omits any facts that would be negative to city management. At no time do they place any blame on the people who have made the decisions that caused the problem. It’s clear that the Golf courses have been running with no oversight. Who’s responsible for oversight? The Park and Rec director of course. Who’s that? Well we don’t have one cause the old one quit a few years back. Who’s job is it to find a new one? The city managers of course but he’s been busy starting a new power utility and staffing issues will have to wait. It’s ok though, cuz he put the gal who ran the Expo Park into ground temporarily in charge of Park and Rec. I’m sure the plan is to create such a failure that some outside entity will have to take it over which will ultimately lead to a great success. Similar to what happened with the fair grounds. How could the trib be critical of this kind of genius?

GeeGuy said...

How did I miss that?