photo credit: City of Sebastopol
Sebastopol's city council. From left: Neysa Hinton, Jill McLewis,
Stephen Zollman, Phill Carter, and Sandra Maurer.

Below is the transcript for Sebastopol Times editor and reporter Laura Hagar Rush's interview with KRCB's Noah Abrams about a controversial set of proposed press and news media contact rules for city officials and staff.

Noah Abrams: "Want to just start by giving a kind of base overview of where this all began and when Sebastopol first started making moves to try to restrict, if that's the right way to put it, how members of the press can interact with city staff and elected officials in Sebastopol?"

Laura Hagar Rush: "So in November, the city council passed a very narrow press policy as part of their city protocols for the roles of mayor and vice mayor."

"That policy named Mayor Zollman as the primary press contact for the City of Sebastopol. And then over the preceding month, Mayor Zollman and city staff attempted to write some press protocols to kind of carry out that procedure."

"And in December, after I did a very long interview with him, in which he was very forthcoming, he said to me, 'Oh, by the way, Hey, I want to tell you about the city's new press protocols.' And as I listen to them, I was just shocked."

"They basically attempted to limit who reporters could talk to in the city staff. What method they should use to reach out to staff members. There was a 24-hour advance, like submit request for interviews 24 hours in advance. It was completely unworkable for daily reporters, who need answers as soon as possible. And then probably the worst one was the notion that if reporters submitted a question that was not related to the city's goals and priorities, that it might take forever. It might take a really long time to respond to that."

NA: "Well, I guess the first big question I have, I think the obvious question in everybody's mind is why?"

LHR: "That was a question that I wrote to him point blank. His answer in brief was that this was his attempt to sort of write protocols that would support the policy that they had passed in November, and I think he used language like 'that would allow us to make efficient and timely responses to the press.'"

NA: "[That] takes us into Tuesday night at the city council meeting. What happened? It seemed like there was a lot of members of the public in attendance and people came out pretty strongly against this proposed set of press contact rules."

LHR: "Absolutely. So basically, we had published an article on February 28th that said why is the City of Sebastopol making it harder for reporters to cover city government. It got a huge response from our readers and it also caused an enormous number of readers to write into the city council."

"Then I believe the day of the council meeting March 4th, the Press Democrat came out with their coverage, which caused even more people to write to city council and probably around 70 people showed up at the meeting. It basically filled the council chamber and spilled out into the lobby."

"Ultimately, I think about 20 people spoke, I think 19 of those people spoke opposed to the policies and one person spoke in favor of them."

NA: "How did the conversation and debate from the podium and from council members end up going? And what was the ultimate resolution to at least the agenda item for the night?"

LHR: "They basically scrapped the press procedures that Zollman had written and then they edited the original press policy. Instead of saying that Mayor Zollman was the spokesperson for the city, they said he was the spokesperson for the council and they removed the line that appropriate staff should be alerted to any contact from the press."

photo credit: Laura Hagar Rush/Sebastopol Times
A packed crowd for Sebastopol's March 4th city council meeting, where
controversial press protocols for city leaders and staff were walked back.

"They said it's fine if council people want to contact city staff as a courtesy and say, 'Hey, I just was contacted by the PD,' but it doesn't require them to do so anymore."

NA: "Well, it seems like at least on the night a victory for press freedom."

LHR: "Absolutely. It was very exciting. We got letters in support from the First Amendment Coalition and from the Association of Professional Journalists Northern California Chapter, and it was great that the executive editor of the Press Democrat showed up to oppose these as well."

NA: "If you have any final thoughts on the matter at least for the moment, if you're just glad to not have to jump through too many onerous hoops to get a hold of staff in the city in which you report and follow closely."

LHR: "I'm hoping that it will go back to the way it was before this policy was put in place, which is that I could reach out to department heads, who are experts in their subject matter, and talk to them when I need to. I'd like to extend a little grace to Mayor Zollman. He said at the council meeting, you know, this was his best effort and it didn't work. But everyone makes mistakes. We can start from scratch and go from there."

NA: "Laura Hagar Rush, thanks for talking with me about this latest matters with the Sebastopol city council and the proposed and ultimately failed press policy."