WPCNR NEWS & COMMENT. By John F. Bailey. March 4, 2010 (Adapted from a presentation given the White Plains Downtown Residents Association, February 27): The White Plains CitizeNetReporter idea came to me in 1998 when I was struck by the news story that that major media and newspapers had not been reporting the large protests being staged at a President Clinton sponsored symposium being held in Seattle.
The extent of the protests was revealed by independent websites internetting pictures of that violence around the world, forcing news networks to cover it, which they had not been doing. This brought home to me the potential the internet had for getting out important information unfiltered by the interests of mass-owned, politically controlled and establishment-motivated and controlled media whatever they may be.
At the same time, I was struck by the lack of news stories about White Plains in the Gannett newspaper. Mayor Joseph Delfino had just been elected. Macy’s had closed, the White Plains Watch was running stories complaining about the state of the downtown, I particularly remember a story The Watch ran with the headline, “Not another Dollar Store.”
1998 was also when the Gannett Chain consolidated 9 different county newspapers into one edition, The Journal News. It appeared that the Journal News to me was publishing one story a week, if that, about White Plains. Local radio newscasts were not too informative and were only listened to during snow days.
I thought to myself: what if I could supplement my reporting with information or news tips given me by local citizens a group of “Citizen Reporters” alerting me or giving me information on what was going on in their neighborhoods or as we found out “being done to their neighborhoods.”
I wanted to see for myself if there were any stories the Journal News was overlooking, whether a local news outlet could be created and attract an audience on the internet. I attended council meetings and work sessions practiced taking notes to see whether I would enjoy getting back into reporting again. I mock-covered the city for most of 1999 and explored how a website could be created. Needless to say, I found plenty of stories Gannet was not covering. I launched White Plans CitizeNetReporter in February 2000.
At that time, I had a much more idealized version of city government than I do now: I used my year of mock coverage to learn how the council operated, the importance of work sessions, what the Planning Board, Zoning Board and what other departments did.
I noticed particularly how little coverage there was of the school district, the largest budget affecting residents. I noticed the secrecy behind the dismissal of the school superintendent in 2001 that was kept quiet by the School Board for six months. That was an eye-opener.
Noticed and covered by WPCNR was the compounding affect of routine 7 and 8% school budget increases in the first 7 years of the CitizeNetReporter, compounded by an alarming increase in tax refunds initiated by members of the business community which effectively began in 2001 and certiorari after certiorari has since been approved by the city Assessment Review Board based on cases made by businesses, condominiums and co-ops, and the last two years, homeowners themselves whose equity has been whittled away by the robber barons of the 21st century.
This tax roll drain really began to hit taxpayers hard in the last three years as the assessment roll has been in free fall — $5 Million last year and this week, $3.9 Million this year. $9 Million in two years.
Meanwhile no one has noticed or attempted to do anything about it – like maybe trim spending.
The School District mounted a campaign for a $100 Million construction upgrade to their 9 buildings, which was trimmed down to $69 Million and is now just being completed, after being narrowly passed. They even had a teacher contract dispute last year that wound up being settled for exactly what the teachers wanted all along. Now this week they have added another year on to the contract for another 4% when you include step increases.
The district also came underfire for their achievement gap between minority and white performances, which WPCNR explored in depth, and pointed out how advances in minority academic prowess are reported in total without pointing out that the level of passing grades achieved by most students of color is lower than that of whites. The district always releases aggregate statistics which shows improvement of minority students but does not present a true picture of the quality of the progress.
I found as the site started that there were three versions of every story: what the city government and school district said it was, what people who did not like city government and school plans said it was, and the truth, which is always elusive and somewhere in the middle. It was my first reality check. Because as I often say, “everything’s off the record in White Plains.”
People are reluctant to tell you the truth and stand up in public for the truth. And they would much rather believe what leaders say then accept the truth.
