Saturday, December 10, 2016

Delete your account, Bill: Publisher (not newsman) Hanson takes time out from cooking school, wears Community Foundation conflict-of-interest on sleeve, denounces horrible "meddling" politicians but gives Jeff Gahan an eternal free ride.


Let's consult Occam's Razor:

Maybe the best explanation for why the Floyd County auditor and treasurer are withholding hospital sale funds from the Community Foundation is the simplest, in that placing these hospital sale funds with the Community Foundation is a bad political decision, one that was made entirely without substantive public input -- and, in fact, the auditor and treasurer are standing on principle for the future good of the public as a whole. 

And there's this:

It's endlessly frustrating to watch as Hanson floats serenely above the ongoing carnage of his newspaper's daily operation (but by his own reckoning he's in publishing, not news), in that all these wonderful principles of transparency and accountability currently pricking his skin because the Community Foundation is involved seem never to apply to New Albany City Hall's weekly evasions and subterfuge.

You know, like sewer rate increases sneaking through a December back door, and the newspaper's inexcusable three-day time lag in reporting it. Bill, need I remind you that you blithely sanctioned what amounted to a full year's blackout of New Albany news coverage by refusing to retain adequate staffing?

And so yet again, while we're on the topic of conflicts of interest, allow me to ask this question of Hanson:

How much advertising revenue flows from the City of New Albany to the News and Tribune on a yearly basis?

HANSON: Auditor, treasurer overstepping their authority, by Bill Hanson (Alabama Absenteeism Inc.)

For total transparency, in addition to my role as publisher of the News and Tribune, I sit on the board of directors for the Community Foundation and I reside in Clark County, not Floyd.

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