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yet another
roadblock
Columbus County now has another public information officer (PIO) with the appointment earlier this week of a Raleigh lawyer to handle questions pertaining to Deena Ward’s lawsuit against the county.
The Raleigh lawyer is the second PIO designated by the county. It’s telling that both of the county’s PIOs are lawyers. County Attorney Steve Fowler is the other one.
Do we really need lawyers to answer questions and handle information requests from the press and the public? Last time we checked, lawyers aren’t cheap. You can believe the one in Raleigh isn’t.
Is County Manager Jim Varner so leery of requests that he feels only lawyers can adequately handle them? In a county this size, the county manager should be the person who answers questions from the public and the media instead of his or her designee.
Is having the county attorney answer questions and write press releases the best use of his time?
Is the appointment of lawyers as overseers of public information a form of gatekeeping?
We believe these are all reasonable questions, but rather than going through a PIO, we believe these questions could be better answered by the county commissioners.