After a series of articles highlighting hiring practices in the City of Beacon’s Water and Highway Departments, in March 2021, Beacon’s City Administrator Chris White declined to answer any questions from A Little Beacon Blog unless a face to face meeting was held. City Administrator White has also instructed all staff to not take questions sent via email or voice mail, including the Park and Recreation Director, Mark Price. The previous City Administrator Anthony Ruggiero continued to answer questions from ALBB, even when the questions were about employment and grew uncomfortable.

Beacon’s former Mayor Randy Casale, known for his brazen and outspoken style, told ALBB when asked if he ever declined to answer reporter’s questions: “Not during my administration unless the lawyer advised him because of litigation, but that would only be about that subject. I do not believe it wise if you want transparency!”

Later, when Mayor Kyriacou participated in a COVID-19 vaccination event, City Administrator Chris ignored questions seeking comment about the event, to encourage others to get vaccinated.

Chip Rowe, the Managing Editor of the Highlands Current, a leading newspaper in the region had this to say when asked by ALBB if having a standing no-comment policy from a local government administration was normal: “There have been politicians who said they won't talk to certain outlets, Obama did that to Fox for a while.”

When A Little Beacon Blog was researching disciplinary action taken by the City of Beacon on Highway Department employee Reuben Simmons, after he was put on paid leave the first time in January 2021, and was seeking confirmation of the unpaid leave from the Highway Department’s CSEA Union Representative, Paula Becker, I left two voicemails with Paula seeking confirmation of the unpaid leave status. At the time, I did not know that Paula was an employee with the City of Beacon in the Finance Department.

City Administrator Chris emailed me in response, saying: “I received notice from other staff that you had called regarding a personnel issue. As I mentioned previously, the City does not comment on personnel issues. I would appreciate you contacting me if you have questions in the future.”

Paula Becker is an employee of the City of Beacon, and the President of the CSEA for Beacon. That combination, in this case, has led to a conflict of interest for pursuing research for employment articles.

Reuben Simmons, the City of Beacon employee in the Highway Department on unpaid and paid leave, was also at one point the President of the CSEA for Beacon, and says he understands the pros and cons of having an employee be a Union President. While in that leadership position, he recalls how he as the president needed to advocate for employees, as well as give them answers they did not like.

To get the background on Reuben’s employment situation, listen to ALBB’s podcast with him here. The podcast also provides an employment and demotion timeline.

Below is City Administrator Chris’ email outlining his position. I declined to meet him for the conversation, as I do not think it necessary to outline or negotiate editorial standards with a governmental entity, or any subject a publication is reporting on. Other reporters may have chosen to meet, in order to warm a relationship. With three kids in Remote Learning at the time, and 3 jobs I hold down, this is not something I wanted to make time for. All I need are answers to simple questions, and those can be sent via email. It should also be noted, with regards to the “simple conversation” he referred to below, I had asked him these questions via email. The opportunity to clear anything up had already happened

Katie,

Thank you for your response. I am unable to respond to further questions until you and I have some discussion about journalistic standards for your articles. Since I replaced Anthony, I have tried to treat you as I would a news outlet, but I’m realizing that your blog does not operate in the same manner. I have to say that I also liked your blog’s focus on small businesses in Beacon so I tried to give you the benefit of the doubt in responding to you as time allowed.

The article that you just published on City hiring, which is referred to as a “hot mess,” certainly does not meet basic journalistic standards for unbiased reporting. If you would like the City to respond to you as we do with news media, we will need to establish some comparable reporting standards. With a simple conversation, we could have cleared up some of the inaccuracies and misleading assertions in this article, which is what the local papers would have done before publishing.

If you would like to have a conversation at some point to discuss this further, please let me know, and I will try to be available to you. However, until we can establish some sort of standards, I am not able to respond to further questions.

Best regards,

Chris