Still No Sign of the Tattler 'Rapid Response Team'

School District Spent $17,000... So

Where's the Tattler 'Rapid Response Team'?

Opinion/Follow-Up
Where's the Emeryville Tattler negative story Rapid Response Team?  We, the people of Emeryville  paid for it, so where the hell is it?
Early last year, the Emery School Board was so addled by negative stories about their roll out, some might say steamrolling, of the school rebuild project known as the Emeryville Center of 'Community' Life (ECCL), they sought relief...not by ceasing their program of quashing citizen dissent, the main source of the negative press, but instead by paying for a public relations consultant to among other things, contain and incapacitate the Emeryville Tattler.  The consultant recommended the District impanel an Emeryville Tattler negative story "Rapid Response Team" to make sure they remain in control of the debate frame about ECCL and not the Tattler.


The School District paid San Francisco corporate consulting firm Davis and Associates $17,000 to produce the Center of 'Community' Life Three Year Strategic Communications Plan as a result of citizen criticisms about lack of transparency surrounding ECCL.  A central tenet of the plan is the recommendation that the District set up the Rapid Response Team and the Tattler is called out by name as the District's main nemesis.

Since the District retained Davis and Associates last year, the Tattler has kept up with the negative stories about the Center of 'Community' Life as they have been warranted as news has come to light, however the people of Emeryville have not received the benefit of the Rapid Response Team.  At least not yet.  The District has continued on with their 'our way or the highway' approach to building the ECCL, and as a steady stream of elected officials and high level staff proponents of the ECCL have sought the exits, the Tattler has kept up with the reporting but there's been nary a whiff of the Rapid Response Team.

We want to know where is this team?  What are they waiting for?  "Rapid" in this case may be just hyperbole.  Maybe the whole thing has been a ploy, meant to intimidate.  We're not intimidated.  The people of Emeryville paid good money for this public relations advise and we like to think it wasn't money wasted.
Come on Emery!  You're not supposed to let story after story go unanswered.  The Tattler is supposed to be nipped in the bud, cut off at the knee caps.  We're unimpressed we must say, with your response so far.

School Board Confronts Bad Press: Public Relations Firm Hired

Independent Oversight Committee Asked to Assume Propaganda Role

The Emery School Board has commissioned a study, culminating in a plan of action called the Center of Community Life Three Year Strategic Communications Plan  at a cost of $17,000, meant to mollify criticisms that the School District has not effectively communicated with citizens about the Center of Community Life.  The Plan calls for the independent State mandated Citizens Oversight Committee, a bond money watchdog group, to effectively become a political propaganda arm of the School District.  In addition, the Plan identifies the Emeryville Tattler as a problem the Oversight Committee and other "team members" need to avail themselves of.

The Communications Plan, the work of the San Francisco based public relations firm Davis and Associates, identifies the State mandated independent Citizens Oversight Committee (COC) as a partner in the "negative story rapid response team", and charges the Committee with joining together with the School Board and the City Council to quickly control damage from any less than glowing stories that might appear in the Tattler or any number of other negative public relations problems from a list compiled by Davis and Associates.

If the Citizens Oversight Committee were to actually engage in this activity it should be noted, it would constitute a violation of their charter as mandated by the State of California however.  The State makes this sort of propagandizing for Citizens Oversight Committees verboten.

The introduction of the Communications Plan at the February School Board meeting was met with criticism from an Anna Yates Elementary School teacher who said it would subvert real communications, calling it a "marketing plan, not a communication plan."

The Three Year Strategic Communications Plan was funded by Measure J money according to School District officials.

Davis and Associates would not return calls for this story.

On site accidents or incidents witnessed by the public

Further deterioration of the state’s fiscal situation which would affect funding

Substantial construction delays that affect completion