Galvanizing transparency! Sensationalism! Smack-talk! | Mixing Metaphors & Doubling Entendres

By Meredith Jordan

Posted 2/19/25

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Galvanizing transparency! Sensationalism! Smack-talk! | Mixing Metaphors & Doubling Entendres

Meredith Jordan

Posted Wednesday, February 19, 2025 3:00 am

The Leader responds to Council member Libby Wennstrom:

In the past week Libby Wenstrom, a member of the Port Townsend City Council. has posted on social media about The Leader. Here is a look at some of her comments and our response.

• Wennstrom took issue with The Leader’s reporting on the new media policy, which she said the city had been working on for months. But The Leader hadn’t reported about the origins of the new media guidelines. The Leader reported that enacted guidelines followed our push for the city manager’s salary. Our story came out Feb. 5, the city released its new guidelines Feb. 6. Shelly Leavens, the director of marketing and communications for the city, clarified before press time that the new guidelines were begun Feb. 4.

• Wennstrom accused The Leader of removing her earlier comments from one forum. Yet The Leader has no connection to the forum, and no power to delete content, and nor did we request content be deleted. Someone told her this was incorrect, and she stated as much a day later, but still left it up.

• Here’s an exact quote from Wennstrom: “It *IS* true that the Leader — unlike other regional media — has made a habit of simultaneously reaching out to multiple City staff about the same issue, in many cases just a few minutes before their press deadline, resulting in a lot of duplication of effort as multiple staff to respond to urgent requests.”

It is categorically false that our reporters have made a habit of simultaneously reaching out to multiple city staff about the same issue. To be clear, we haven’t received a single communication from city officials about anything like this, much less a complaint. They are certainly free to do so and I am readily accessible.

• Wennstrom complained that a specific article about the Fort Worden Public Development Administration had only interviewed Dave Timmons, former executive director, “not Parks, the current PDA board, Hospitality, Centrum or the City.” Wennstrom, who worked as an arts editor at The Leader at one point, has to know that just because someone isn’t named or quoted in a story doesn’t mean they weren’t interviewed. She’s also presumably sophisticated enough to know that ongoing coverage of something as big as the failure of the PDA — about a place as wonderful as Fort Worden — ultimately takes dozens of stories to fill in the picture. That story was about Timmons.

• But Wennstrom also went after Timmons at some length: “The City amended city code specifically to add significant financial oversight for the PDA in 2021 (before I was on council); Timmons largely ignored those requirements and was consistently months late on financial reporting. In summer 2023 the City formally put the PDA on notice for a corrective action plan. Timmons resigned a few days later; his last day was September 30, 2023...”

Wennstrom failed to mention that Timmons had written a notice of resignation on June 27, 2023, giving the PDA ample time to find a replacement.

By Meredith Jordan

There was a very big response to our story last week about city government officials enacting new guidelines for the release of information. We saw a storm surge in what is an already robust amount of interaction with the public. Any communication from readers — whether they agree or not — is much appreciated.

It turns out that readers support our efforts for greater transparency on the part of our local government and our continued resistance to efforts to curtail it. That’s based on the increase in the number of calls, letters to the editor (submitted online, mailed or hand-delivered), impromptu visits to the front office, and casual feedback to staff at places like the doctor’s office, grocery store and coffee shop. Read the letters to the editor, spread out over four pages, to get a sense of that.

This week we also saw city officials — on social media pages — attack The Leader. One member of the council accused this paper of providing “bad information” that is “sensationalized and intentionally misleading.” See the sidebar for specifics and our response.

In case you missed the underlying story: Leader reporters sought the full salary of the City Manager John Mauro on Jan. 21. They did that by asking him directly and by filing an open records request. He never replied, despite several follow-ups, and the city told us to wait.

Reporters put together a story on his salary on Feb. 5. The city “enacted” new written guidelines about the flow of information Feb. 6.

The Leader finally got the info on Feb. 14, the details of which are in this issue.

We took issue — take issue — with the policy, which among other things requires a one to two week response time. It has Shelly Leavens, director of marketing and communications, acting as conduit for all information with the exception of public records inquiries, which is governed by state law. Those communications included breaking crime coverage — stated in an email by Chief Thomas Olson with regard to an ongoing police matter potentially effecting the safety of children. Leavens, and Olson, to their credit, have since walked back the part about police being able to talk to media during “ongoing” matters. Even better, Leavens said she is reviewing other feedback and plans to update the enacted guidelines.

Now I’ll tell you my personal favorite thing in the mix of all this, which is the natural response of reporters (and journalists, in general) when told they can’t have information: They keep digging.

Reporters pieced together a sum they could verify for Mauro’s salary, which was $221,543, and wrote about that in a story on Feb. 5.

It turns out his base salary — thanks to the Feb. 14 release of public information requested Jan. 21 — is $230,734.

We inadvertently misled readers by repeating Mauro’s 2022 base salary of $189,297, and we did it several times. We didn’t see where anyone else had reported anything different and lazily assumed it wasn’t that much more. I’m going to admit to a twinge of embarrassment about that. We could have — should have — done a much better job. We were obviously wrong about that. It’s our job to dig deeper and get answers. We’ll work to be better.

Now to whiplash over to the all-encompassing criticism leveled at The Leader by Libby Wennstrom, who serves on the Port Townsend City Council.

Wennstrom has used her bully pulpit to accuse The Leader of being inaccurate — without pointing to a single error in fact. That includes on her social media page where she said The Leader was rife with “bad information” that is “sensationalized and intentionally misleading,” and offered up a number of comments.

Wennstrom isn’t just any resident of Port Townsend — she is an elected official. That elevates her comments and reflects on the city. These comments are about current business before city council — the ongoing review of a city manager, as well as a possible legal matter, given there remains potential for litigation around the PDA.

Wennstrom would be wise to review Article 6 of council rules covering “the Appearance of Fairness Doctrine.”

Meredith Jordan can be reached at editor@ptleader.com.