Maybe this is a good time to bring this discussion to you.
There has been a discussion on FB about some people namely Ald. Perez being unable to post on the City of Peru web site and his wife either. This is possibly an administrative issue within FB, but what has surfaced is the fact that at a recent city council meeting it was brought up possibly by City Clerk Bartley that some members of the city council have been discussing rules which would apply to aldermen who post to FB, namely Ald. Perez. They wanted to make it a rule that any alderman who wishes to post on either FB or to blog (probably here) would need to get permission from the city to make comments. Evidently there are a few aldermen who are in a tizzy on comments being made and discussions being written that sometimes include comments made about the city and the officials.
Evidently they wish to close the window, turn off the sound and even take away the keyboard because things are getting kind of "hot" down at City Hall.
Let me remind those officials that this city is not their private playground and that it is the taxpayers who pay their salaries and pay for their "educational trips" to Chicago and elsewhere and they (the taxpayers )have a right to express opinions about decisions made by this city. Also includes any alderman who wishes to publicly tell those he communicates with through social media, his thoughts about what his concerns are about the issues within the city.
34 comments:
You cannot limit how and when an elected official communicates with his / her constituents. However, this does not apply to the official City of Peru web page or FB page.
I don't have Facebook but my wife does. As we sit enjoying our morning coffee my wife decided to look at the city's facebook. My wife says although she can view the city's page it has been restricted. Why would the city restrict their site? My wife says she frequently visits their site for information and alderman Perez updated information more than the people from city hall does.
We both say our city is in dire ruins when they restrict citizens from a public site. That should be illegal. Since its a government site. At very least should allow an alderman such as Rodney Perez to openly share public information with us citizens.
Any more information about that investigation or will that be silenced to?
Shame on Peru Leader of Crooks
Apparently the entire Peru city council has been infected by the "Harl Strain" of FSDD, better known as "Free Speech Deficit Disorder". Of course the only elected official in Peru who is immune to this infection is Rodney Perez. Let me get this straight, now these dimwits (yes folks, that is more name-calling) have become so paranoid and insecure that they have actually decided to attempt to restrict not only the voice of the general public, but the voice of one of their own. I really hope they attmept to violate Perez's right to express himself. If this wasn't so assinine it would really be quite funny. Sadly though, it is disgarceful that Peru's elected officials, who have by the way, sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States, would attempt to openly violate anyone's free speech rights. Please continue aldermen. Peru will not only be the local "laughing-stock", we can now become a disgrace on the national level as well when the ACLU comes to Peru to challenge any "unconstitutional" rules the Peru city council imposes to restrict free speech.
Peru's elected officials are without a doubt the most misguided and ineffective bunch of do-nothings in the history of this country. And now they want to violate the constitutionallly protected rights of its own members by creating rules against participating in social media.
How much lower can they go? I'm afraid we are going to find out just how low when the good judge's report comes in and is promptly swept under the proverbial "rug".
What a bunch of crap. Evidently some people don't like transparency. Another avenue of bullying. Everybody has a right to blog. I trust those who do come on the site and blog more so then those who don't. Especially Alderperson. " The currency to great leadership is truth and transparency."
As an administrator of various Facebook accounts, I would hope that the city would also administer their page in a professional manner. All admins need to constantly monitor their pages to make sure that comments are not offensive to the general public, especially a page maintained by a govt agency. In order to prevent offensive postings, the admin can control all postings by setting the privacy functions that require admin approval before posting. I understand that there will be more time required by the admin to approve postings. Many agencies do not allow public postings but I believe there are ways to safely utilize social media to promote city interests.
Most cities have a position (part time function in smaller cites) called a communications director. The purpose is to provide the one and only "official voice" of the city. The city can regulate their various web pages any way they see fit (they being the city executives). However, they cannot tell an elected official what content is appropriate for their own web pages - unless of course they violate the law.
Anon 9:23 I am going to push your HELP button since I have very little knowledge in the use of Facebook. Since a certain alderman creates fear of too much truth being made available to the general public about city business what are your suggested ways to safely utilize social media to promote city interests. This alderman in no way has made comments which are offensive to the general public.
The problem he has with the "inner circle" is that he has made efforts to inform all citizens of his own opinions and what the 100 or so closed sessions are all about. Why would others who are elected to make the decisions for a city be so secretive about informing the city's citizens of what they are doing in a open fashion. This secrecy plus whenever something is revealed we must take action and vote immediately i.e. last 9-9-13 handling of the TEST controversy has lost all creditability of the present city council.
SOMEONE SHOULD WRITE A LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF THE NEWS TRIBUNE REGARDING THIS. Let's see if they print it. I don't have time or I would. Someone, please get on it.
Citizens of Peru:
Don't let your representatives attempts to make more communication tools be reduced to what they ONLY want you to hear.
All have knowledge of the number of closed sessions which have taken place in the last 3 or 4 years, all are aware of practices of "Super Majority" being discovered and utilized when in a losing cause, anyone who wants to express themselves at the 2 council meetings per month know of the Famous 3x5 index card 3 minute limit. Restricting government communications in Peru by city representatives is a no problem idea. It wouldn't take us long to work around this concept of communism. It would be interesting to find out if any ideas of our representatives are imported from the Little Man of North Korea or the Big Man of Cuba.
We welcome free speech and hope that Peru will send Aldperson Perez to us soon to learn the ways of your city.
Kim Jung-un
Dear Kim,
In the effort to international peace we would like to propose a trade of honored diplomats. Please send Peru Dennis Rodman and your uncle to Peru and Peru will send you a comparable diplomat to iron out the political turmoil in your country and Peru.
I see according to Rodney's FB the city made changes to their city page. It appeared when doing so they limited the freedoms of speech and access to a government forum.
It seems to me Rodney and others blasted city hall and those that tried limiting access.
I see now the uproar over that made whoever monitors the city FB fix what they broke. I see that Rodney can put info back on thar city page. Great way to wake them up. Announce to the world of the city's stupidity.
Dear Kim Jung-un
Presently Peru is not at the condition where it can allow Alderman Perez to leave town for longer than 3 minutes and this is only allowed with a request submitted in 3 x 5 index form card.
Too share is Perus Policy and we have 6 other aldermen whom we will sent immediately, please take all 6 at once in a Super Majority Package.
One warning is to be very careful when it is near the period of time to have the IML Conference in Chicago. May be best to share them to someone else before the conference. Also you can be assured that they will request at least the hiring of 2 other corporations that travel with them.
I don't see a problem here. The City FB page is for marketing the city, i.e. posting official notices, etc. The only one that should have the ability to post something on it is the Mayor or his designated person. Period. Lets no go crazy here, remember we will have a new Mayor after the next election. Alderman Perez can use his own FB page to post anything he want's to.
1:31 PM
I believe FB to be a very interactive community with the members having the ability to post comments and to send messages via email. I personally posted a comment on the Oglesby FB page when I had a question and there was an answer back within a short time. If you do not plan on allowing this, your FB page is worthless and just make your city web site the place to place updates or problems within the city.
Lois - that is something the City must manage, not an individual Alderman. I honestly doubt that the City even has a written policy for communicating with the public. If I was the Mayor, I would take the FB page down until a policy is made and a person is put in charge of running it. Same goes for the other web sights. It can't be handled half a$$'d like the city does other things.
By the way, I think you should start a topic on pot holes. Are the City boys out filling them today? There where some over the weekend that rival the old swimming pool.
@1:31 Could you tell us who is running the city FB page? It's apparent whoever is running it now is setting the city up for further ruins. I would advise you research how other towns run their FB page and know that a government page paid for by the tax payers must be open to the public which yours is not. I can not find the city FB page through a public search. I put in "city of Peru", Peru Il., Peru Illinois, City of Peru Illinois and can not find your city page.
If the city is paying someone hourly or salary to maintain that page then that page needs to be open to all citizens. I'm sure all postings and private postings are subject to the FOIA laws and can be FOIAd.
If I can't seem to get on the city page I will report to the Attorney Generals office.
1:30 PM
It was posted this weekend on FB by a dept head, that it is managed by the mayors administrative asst.
Funny you should mention potholes because that was posted on the FB site this morning, that they were being taken care of today and specifically mentioned Shooting Park Road. I don't usually go to that page but did because I posted a question about the reopening of Water Street.
I tend to stay away from FB also - The premise behind their business is to track individuals - not by name but by key demographic information and web habits. This meta data is then sold to other businesses. For this reason, I do not have a FB account.
Can a municipality remove negative comments on a municipal Facebook page?
ANSWER: Comments on social media could be considered protected speech under the First Amendment. For example, a commenter who posts that he or she disagrees with a particular municipal policy is likely to be protected speech, just as if the commenter had made the same statement at a public meeting. However, not all comments on the municipal Facebook page would be similarly protected. Municipalities can adopt social media comment policies that ban postings that include advertising, outside links, threats or personal attacks, profanity, or hate speech, and provide that any posts that violate the social media policy will be removed. If there are any questions about removal of a particular comment, a municipality should consult with its attorney.
http://ancelglink.com/Question
Why does everybody threaten to run to the authorities or attorney generals office when they don't receive instant gratification from such an irrelevant, non-emergency topic such as commenting on social media? You can only cry wolf so many times and your credibility will be challenged. The City was in the process of changing from a personal FB page to a business page. This process takes time and new settings have to be made in order to properly establish and secure the page. Facebook doesn't offer a lot of support for this change. I have to assume they were trying to make the change without losing previous settings or data on the wall. Personally, I don't believe anybody should have administrative rights to the page other than those that are considered to be in charge of the page, the mayor, and/or possibly the clerk in order to retain necessary passwords. I can only imagine how many people & businesses would try to achieve personal gain by "indirectly" making posts on a govt community page. I would hope that a simple email to the administrator of the page would be enough to allow them to review and post upcoming events on the FB page similar to the web page. I would also hope that an administrator of the page would select a prior approval posting option, similar to a group, before a comment could be posted. It's very difficult to clean up the damage caused from an improper post that has already been viewed by many. Ask the people involved with a situation in Ottawa a few years back. There is always an electronic trail, or sometimes even a paper trail, to comments that are inadvertently posted and later deleted. Give the poor lady a break! She was trying to make the process better for everyone.
10:35 PM
Sorry you think it is so difficult to manage a FB page, it is not and it should not even be a big deal.
Why does Peru even have a facebook page? Not necessary in my point of view.
I am not a FB user. Could someone please explain to me how do I get all this information that is being posted with regards to upcoming events? The city already has a city web-page to keep up. Why should we pay an employee to spend more of their time posting the same information on FB?
What were those final tallies on the recent conventions?
Facebook is wonderful. Social media is great! Facebook has a flip side. Has been used in court proceedings. So, people be careful what you post. A friend of mine used facebook as discovery in a court proceeding, which sealed the deal.
12:27, I hear about fb being used in trials all the time, on the news. Pictures also posted can be used. I enjoy fb.
Google will also provide the IP address of “anonymous” bloggers if they are subpoenaed. With the IP address and the time of the posting, they can tell who posted the comment – or at least who is paying for the Internet service being used.
Very True. IP Address is like caller ID.
I blog annon., could care less if I ever got a subpoena, because I guarantee you I can back up everything I blog. What I find very interesting is, on blog sites if one blogs something about someone and that person feels it's slander, why don't they file a lawsuit? My opinion is why they don't is because the person who blogged the truth can back up their blog with evidence and witnesses. And filing a lawsuit would blow the persons cover. Who care about the IP. People use that as a scare tactic. Big whip. The truth is the truth! Nothing is permanently deleted either.
Who really cares about IP's? Why did a blogger bring this up? Is it a bully tactic from city hall or a person who is the
topic of a blog? To possibly try and scare people who blog, to get them to stop? Toooooo. Funny!
Don't blog lies. Blog truths and opinions. Then there should be no problems. Simple.
Referring to blog topic: Absolutely alderman should be able to post on fb
The original topic was actually should the alderman be allowed to post on the official city FB page. I say no. Everything on the official City FB page needs to be controlled by the executive. If the aldermen want to post stuff on their own page, no issues.
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