Wednesday, May 11, 2011
‘Awaiting moderation’
StopCTA has posted several online responses to T. R. Reid’s op ed propaganda published in the Bastrop Advertiser on April 30. But not one of those comments has been released for public viewing.
The first languished ‘awaiting moderation’ for several days before being unceremoniously deleted.
Additional comments summarizing recent events at the Bastrop County Commissioners Court were posted on May 4th. One was an announcement that StopCTA had just received a copy of the letter that the BCCC sent to the USACE and that it would soon be posted on this very site (which it was). Those very informative comments are also still ‘awaiting moderation’ at the Advertiser but you can read a slightly different version here!
Just what is going on with the Advertiser?? Aren’t newspapers supposed to publish the news? Evidently, not in this county.
Today, two weeks after the fact, a summary of the April 25th agenda item concerning the proposed Central Texas Airport’s permit application to the USACE finally made it into the online Advertiser - Airport developers seek permit. Included in the article is all the information citizens would need to submit comments themselves. A lot of good that’s going to do because the deadline for submitting comments was yesterday!!
A conspiracy buff might think the timing was calculated to stymie citizen participation while cynics might just chalk it up to garden variety incompetence.
Maybe it’s time for heads to roll at the local rag . . .
Since first posting this we have learned that the article was actually published in the print version on May 5th. That was still considerably after the permit application filing date and it is unlikely anyone seeing that information for the first time would have been able to write comments on such short notice. Of course, there was no mention that the Commissioners didn’t learn about the application from Ronnie Moore but rather from StopCTA.
