WORCESTER—Communication can be a fraught thing, especially as it relates to the freewheeling nature of sites such as Substack.
Substack, an online blogging platform favored by journalists, writers, and individuals seeking to amplify their message or expand their audience, has become increasingly popular.
City Manager Eric D. Batista’s “The Buzz with City Manager Batista” is an example of a government official using the site to opine on the sorts of things that occupy their working hours.
Past posts have explained the changes to Mill Street, unraveled the knotty subject of municipal bonds and the financial implications of a city’s bond rating, and an informal history of the city’s evolving Rental Registration Program.
The posts provide cogent explanations of the mundane sorts of things that are no less important to a city’s life for their mundanity.
This month, Batista and the city council are learning what happens when these sorts of communication efforts backfire.
Earlier this month, Batista published a post (“Cable Talk: the nuts-and-bolts of cable television license agreements in Worcester“) in which he announced that the city had entered the “renewal process” with Charter Communications’ Spectrum service for the city’s cable television license (although internet and phone services won’t be included in the negotiations).
The backlash was fast and emphatic.
The city’s Cable Television Advisory Committee had voted in March not to renew Spectrum’s contract, and several members of the committee, left feeling blindsided by the post, which they hadn’t been briefed was coming, promptly resigned in protest of Bastista’s announcement.
At Tuesday’s Worcester City Council meeting, one former member of the committee, Stephen Quist, said he’d “spent six years on this committee and we brought you exactly the game plan to have a successful negotiation” with Spectrum, which he accused of repeated violations during its 10-year agreement with the city. “And yet, we’re willing to turn around and absolutely ignore the committee’s findings to go plowing ahead with negotiations [with Spectrum].”
Quist was joined in his resignation by committee members Phillip Lwasa and John Keough.
Keough echoed Quist’s frustration around how the negotiation announcement was made, adding, “We spent tens of thousands of dollars for you to tell us through a blog post that you were going to reject our stuff.”
In an impassioned defense during this week’s city council meeting, Batista emphasized that no contract with Spectrum had been signed and that the negotiations themselves have not even begun.
He said he takes seriously every concern brought to him about the city’s cable service.
“To insinuate that I don’t, it’s a disrespect to me, in terms of my job and my ability to do my work in terms of listening to people,” he said. “I’ve been working in this city for eleven years. I live in this city, I’m a user of Spectrum in this city, and I know the challenges and the frustrations we have with Spectrum.”
Batista added that “it is extremely important, though, as city manager, that I take everything into consideration…[which] means the advice and recommendations from committee, and also the advice and counsel from the city solicitor.”
In the end, he said, it’s a process of gathering advice and information. “I don’t make a decision just to make the decision.”
While Batista is the one to negotiate and sign any eventual agreement with Spectrum, in response to a query from At-Large Councilor Morris A. Bergmann about whether the council would vote on any eventual pact, Batista said public hearings would be held in the future.
Ted Flanagan is a journalist, novelist, and paramedic from central Massachusetts. During his time as a newspaper reporter he covered courts and crime for the Eagle-Tribune in Lawrence and was a general assignment reporter in the Fitchburg Bureau of the Worcester Telegram & Gazette. He can be reached at ted@tedflanagan.com
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