Propoganda? Campaign Flyer? Local News?

About 2 weeks ago I got, in the mail, a lovely brochure detailing the many fine parks on Staten Island. It was quite an impressive piece of work. Larger than 8 1/2 x 11 (probably 9 x 13) on glossy paper with pull-outs. Pictures all over the place. My first thought was "this is nice, makes me want to go to the park RIGHT NOW". My second thought was "hmmm, I wonder who's paying for this?". I mean, it had to cost a pretty penny to produce. The layout and design, the copy, the photography, the printing and the postage – all this had to add up to some serious coin. And on top of it, we got two – since my wife’s last name is different than my last name. Two, to the same household. I wondered if everyone got one. I asked around a little, but some folks hadn’t gotten anything.

The pamphlet was "Presented by Borough President James P. Molinaro". Right there on the front page. Well, it is the beginning of the summer, and they may just want the residents to know all the opportunities, and take full advantage of everything the Island has to offer. I wanted to call and ask about them, but I put the thought aside.

Then, last week, we got two more of these brochures, this time telling us how the BP has done such a wonderful job creating left turn lanes all over the Island and how he’s fighting overdevelopment (a day late and a dollar short, for sure, to say nothing of the almost crushing irony). This time I had to call. Too many other people were getting these, and they just felt too much like campaign flyers, rather than public service announcements. In fact, a quick perusal showed that the BP’s picture appeared in that one (in total, with both covers, it’s about 12-14 pages) no less than 10 times, and his name at least that many, even discounting captions on the aforementioned pictures. Are my tax dollars funding his re-election campaign?

Well, I called Borough Hall today and spoke with a nice fellow named Harvey. I told him that I wanted to know who these brochures were going out to – were they going to everyone on SI? (Or perhaps just registered voters? Or just Democrats?) I also asked him how they were being paid for. I assume that the office of the Borough President has a budget for promotional materials for the Island. But when those promotional materials tout the glories of a single politician to the point that you want to barf, well then I think we’ve moved away from promotion and into campaigning. I left my name (my real name, so I expect the IRS to be calling soon) and number, and he said he would look into it and get back to me. This was Monday (today, 7/11) at around 1:30 p.m. I’m going to wait till the end of the week, and then try calling again if I don’t get some kind of answer. At that point I may take to writing some letters-to-the-editors. I will post updates as this progresses.