From:
To: City Council
Subject: Opposing changes to communicating with press
Date: Friday, February 28, 2025 11:39:48 AM
Good afternoon Sebastopol City Counsel Members,
My name is Jaime Dahl. I am a 6th generation Sebastopol resident. My family has owned businesses in town and I am still proud to call Sebastopol my hometown. I am writing because I oppose your proposed changes to how you plan to communicate with the press going forward. This feels very inauthentic and contrived. Offering a chance to give scripted or controlled responses does not allow for the free flow of information. We rely on the press to bring things to our attention that affects our town. I work full time and have a family. I don’t have time to follow how you are spending my tax dollars. But I do care how my tax dollars are being spent. And I do have time to read reports from trusted journalists who’s job it is to do the research for me. I’m not saying that I take everything I hear to be a fact. I am intelligent, and if something sparkes my interest, I will do my own research. Your new rules seem like a way to quell the dissent. The problem is that you are elected. You work is supposed to be in OUR best interest (whether we own businesses or are living on the streets). You work for the people. And you are using OUR hard earned money for the better good of our community. I disagree with the proposed or newly implemented changes to how information is shared with the press and I urge you to go back to the factual yet informal free information sharing that was in place until recently. We as a community deserve to know everything that’s going on.
It’s the only way we can hold you accountable and it’s how a democracy works.
Sincerely,
Jaime Dahl
“Between every two pines is a doorway to a new world.”
― John Muir