Are councilwoman’s husband's finances fair game?
By Kelvin Wade
From page A11 | October 11, 2012 | 3 Comments
The recent article “Councilwoman named as defendant in lawsuit” on Oct. 5, 2012, in this paper disturbed many readers. They’ve responded to it on the Daily Republic website, on Facebook and to me personally.
The gist of the article was that Discover Bank has named City Councilwoman Catherine Moy’s husband primary defendant in a lawsuit and that Moy was also listed in the suit. The fact that Discover was suing her husband didn’t seem like it was a newsworthy event. That she was also named in the suit along with her husband isn’t surprising.
Moy explained that her husband had become disabled and she’d lost her job and they fell behind on their bills. It makes me uncomfortable even writing about this now. So many people who have struggled during the Great Recession can identify with their situation.
We’ve had misconduct from City Council members and candidates in the past that were obviously important enough to cover. We’ve had two previous City Council members arrested for crimes during their tenures. Those arrests deserved coverage. It’s newsworthy because a felony conviction means one cannot serve on the council. In those cases, both individuals were convicted.
On the eve of the Fairfield City Council election in 2005, a council candidate was arrested for allegedly bilking $50,000 from customers of his travel business. The arrest was front-page news. Obviously a City Council candidate arrested on the eve of the election is a newsworthy event.
Some folks believe it is relevant to know about a leader’s finances. After all, there’s been a lot of ink spilled over Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s failure to produce more than two years of tax returns. Obviously the presidency is a little more important than City Council member.
Still some on the Daily Republic’s message boards have said if a person can’t manage their own finances they shouldn’t be managing the city’s. It seems fair enough. But this attitude starts with the premise that a household budget is the same as a city budget. It is not. People lose their jobs. What’s the city budget equivalent? All taxpayers suddenly not paying taxes? That doesn’t happen. And cities have managers, planning commissions, attorneys, multiple council members and staff.
Now it’s no secret that my political views and Catherine Moy’s are a world apart. But while we’ve butted heads over the years, I do like her as a person.
However, I would be concerned no matter who the public official was if the primary story was about his or her spouse’s financial situation. If the district attorney were investigating Moy for fraud or she was allegedly writing bad checks, that would be newsworthy, in my opinion.
Granted I have a vested interest in this because I write columns for this paper. When I hear people saying they’re canceling their subscriptions over this and no longer reading the paper, from a purely business point of view, it’s alarming. But it’s alarming to me in a moral sense because I think a good many people feel the story was unfair and/or gratuitous.
This is just one man’s opinion. I’m concerned about how public officials spend my money, not their own. Peace.
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ADDITIONAL NOTES: Don't know how the paper feels about this column but they ran it so that's a good thing. I would not have ran the story on the Discover lawsuit if it were my call. Mike Kirchubel suggested putting in with those fine print things in the back of the paper. Public notices. I just don't think this was the way to go. If Moy were passing bad checks or fraudulently acquiring credit lines or being prosecuted by the DA, then yes, those are newsworthy stories. But this? C'mon.
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