The Good, the Bad, and the Costly

I thought we would spend a few minutes today on the people I spend a lot of time dealing with on a daily basis: The Public Information Officer or PIO.

The PIO is the connection between government or private agency and the general public. They are the point person for inquiries, press releases, and many times interviews.

On the whole the PIO's in Southwest Florida do a great job. They are knowledgeable, resourceful, and prompt. It is a often a stressful job, especially if your agency deals with the media. Reporters are very demanding, especially when they are on deadline. Reporters expect the PIO to drop what they are doing to handle their request. When that doesn't happen... some reporters get nasty... some PIO's return the attitude (or in some cases remember that nastiness for future requests.)

I understand why requests are many times not as timely as the media would like it. We live in a "need to know now" society more than ever. News websites are becoming increasing competitive. If you don't believe me, ask the editors at the local papers. I tend to think the PIO's labeled by the media as "bad" are the overwhelmed. The "bad" get dozens of inquiries a day from the media, the public, and also must juggle a laundry list of administrative duties. It boggles my mind that an agency can grow by dozens of employees, if not hundreds, yet not expand their public information sector.

Public information officers are paid for by you and me... the taxpayers. But it's also a very profitable business. Under Florida law they can charge you for things like copies, tapes, and cds. I agree that cost should be passed along to the end user. However the law allows them to charge you anywhere from $ .15 a page to $1.00 a page... and they do. For example if you need to pull a case or policy that's 50 pages ($50), you just purchased the agency two cases of paper or toner for the week. See where the profit comes into play?

Public information officers can also charge you for their time. Under Florida law should your request take them over 15 minutes, you can now be billed their hourly rate. Even if the PIO doesn't answer your question, they can charge you the time (over 15min) it took to find that out. This law makes sense because it keeps the public for inundating the PIO with time consuming requests. However in my opinion the law and these charges are kind of an oxymoron. The job title is public information officer. It's paid for by the public. And yet... we have to pay more because I asked a time consuming question?

Here is an idea: Instead of charging people for a PIO's time... why don't we take some of the monies from these inflated copy charges to pay for another PIO? That would take away from the overwhelmed, improve communication, and improve efficiency.

I wonder where the monies from all these copy/time charges are going right now?

Can the State Attorney's Office save the Cape?

Friday Cape Coral Mayor suggested Mickey Rosado's forfeiture hearing being delayed until further notice. Of course it was on the condition that Rosado not participate in council meetings until he's been cleared by the State Attorney's Office.

Is the mayor reading this blog? Perhaps the City Attorney? Actually I'm sure neither of them needed to hear my opinion on the Rosado case to realize where they are headed... court. As I said before if Rosado elects to continue with this forfeiture hearing... he will have one heck of an appeals case.

What Cape Coral council needs... is praying for... is that the State Attorney's office comes down with a decision on whether or not to charge Rosado with a crime before February's hearing. It would save the Cape money, time, and possibly some court dates. (oh and save me some blog space)

I bet it happens soon.