To the Editor,
Re: Council adding city spokesperson to staff, March 1.
B.S. spewing is surely profitable – $140,000 will be needed to hire a public relations flack who’ll spin words, claiming city staff and its politicians are doing a bang-up job.
Golden Raspberry Awards for bad acting must go to Mayor John Ruttan and four city councilors, exceptional mention to Dianne Brennan, for portraying that taxpayers have piles of spare cash stacked neatly in their back rooms and garages. This stupid job-creation program surely proves government positions, council or senior bureaucratic, are mostly for those who cannot make it elsewhere.
In the case of communications jobs, TV, radio and newspaper reporters – whose salaries hover between $30,000 and $50,000 on average – are the ones who are likely to move into public relations positions. They know what their former media colleagues are after, can make sure they don’t get it and will make even the worst decisions seem stupendous.
A 2011 study on the Internet says the average salary for communications positions in the government sector was $53,472 a year. So how in the heck has a whopping figure of $140,000 been arrived at?
Surely, no research. Like the thinking that led to this position being created in the first place.
Drake M. Churchbridge
Nanaimo