Lisa had been with the city for over 6 years. She came to the position with outstanding credentials: a former teacher,? a masters in communications from CSUF and has worked in the field for over 15 years. She is only one of 1,400 public relaitions professionals to have earned the Accredited Public Relations certification from the Public Relations Society of America.She was named Public Information Officer of the Year in February and both The Liberal OC and Our Town Tustin applauded her achievements.
It was unfortunate the kudos were one sided. Over the year, Woolery had managed to stop communicating with local blogs, including the Lib and us, and apparently only worked with Ellyse James of the Orange County Register, whom she was more than happy to feed the stories of Tustin?s bright side. She was not happy with criticism of the city or, in particular, the (un) transparency in city government that was supposedly her bailiwick. When we ran a story complaining the city was not being very transparent in their dealings over the cell towers at Cedar Grove Park, we received a curt email stating that all future requests for information would need to be made under the California Public Records Act to the city clerk. We were also cut off from further press releases and had to rely on combing the city website for general information.
Whether it was bruised ego or a directive from the city fathers (read Jerry Amante), Woolery failed in a principle goal of any communications manager to maintain relationships with the media. Realizing we were and are an upstart blog for the city, Woolery did not seem to grasp the responsibilities of watchdog blogs such as ours and the well established The Liberal OC, where Dan Chmielewski had told me long ago that she refused to communicate with him. There is an old saying we frequently bring up: Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. And, while never considered each other enemies, we often had an adversarial relationship mostly due to the nature of the blog.
Woolery?s hours were cut earlier this year in a budget move. That was verified by our sources at city hall who stated she was down to 32 hours a week. Was City Manager Jeff Parker trying to send her a message? If so, she apparently received it, loud and clear and she is joining the flock of talent leaving our city for greener pastures where visions of Jerrydom fade into the distance.
For the near future, I have been told the Facebook and Twitter feeds are being handled by Debbie Sowder from the City Manager?s office. She came out strong and has been posting to Facebook and tweeting her littler heart out all weekend from Tiller Days over at Columbus Tustin Park. We?ll see how often those tweets are coming after the newness has worn off.
For our part, we will say goodbye and good luck, Lisa. When we were talking, we had a good relationship and I appreciate you making my job easier in the beginning. Happy trails.
Source: http://ourtowntustin.com/2012/10/07/tustin-pio-resigns-no-communication/
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