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I I I I II taxpayers want us as elected officials getting into that kind of a game. Let's leave the reporting and objective reporting, good and bad.... to the newspapers and television. I beg '-- to differ with Councilman Ruskin. We do get quite a bit of television coverage, not a great deal in the big picture, but compared to other cities, we do. I think Redwood City gets more ink than any City on the peninsula. Now you may not like that, and the people that support you may not like that, because it may be critical, but that's the role of newspapers. It is not the role of the City Council to publish a puff piece that says how wonderful everything is. It just strikes me oddly the reference to ad agencies and advertising firms. We are not trying to sell people something. It just sounds a little odd to me, a little sleazy. We are trying to communicate. These focus groups - it just doesn't fit. We are asking people, what do you want to hear, so we will put it in there, and tell you what you want to hear. So everything is fine. That is just not the way govemment is supposed to run." Councilman Ruskin said, "Our efforts in holding the focus groups were not to tell people what they wanted to hear, but to give them the subject matter they wanted to know about.... The reason we followed the precept used by ad agencies was not to sell them bacon or butter, or a newsletter, but to use the method that ad agencies use to gain an objective response from people as to whether they wanted to read a newsletter and whether they read ours and found it readable.... What we found were such things as they wanted to know more about the budget. They wanted to be able to write in and respond. They wanted less puff and more criticism, and that was one of the reasons why we put the interviews with people on the street. However superficial that might be, was to give people a chance to make critical remarks about Redwood City and the government. In - other words, we weren't testing sentences out, and saying do you like this sentence or that sentence, we were asking people what they wanted to hear about, subject matter. They wanted to hear about the schools, they wanted to hear about the budget, they wanted an opportunity to write in, they wanted an opportunity to fax, and we have given them all those opportunities. Our efforts were to make less of a puff piece. I understand Councilman Leipzig has a different point of view, but we were not out to create a puff piece. Actually we tried to do less of one." MIS: BUCHAN/LA BERGE APPROVE RECOMMENDATIONS 1,2 AND 3 ABOVE Councilwoman Buchan said, "One of the important things about serving in any group, such as the City Council, is that we are not all going to agree with each other all the time. But we still respect each other as human beings. Councilman Leipzig, while I disagree with your opinions, I still respect you, and I want you to know that. I think that we started to talk about this newsletter a long time ago. We struggled with it for a long time. I think it is critically important that this City make every effort possible to use every means available to us to communicate with the citizens. I think that is a very important responsibility that we have. As we continue to refine how we do that, we are going to go through times like this when there will be some debate. That's OK. But if we lose sight of the primary responsibility of communicating through every means possible, then that's a - big detriment to us. I don't have any quarrel with focus groups at all. I don't think this is a tremendous waste of money. I think it is important that we continue to find out what is ADJOURNED REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTE BOOK NO. 55 JUNE 9, 1997 MINUTES Page No. 393 PAGE 7