Another day, another hit piece on Williams

Local, Norfolk, Politics 1 Minute

The story hit the PilotOnline website Thursday evening and was prominently displayed on the top of the page all day Friday, showing large, color pictures of city manager Regina Williams and library director Noram Maas. By contrast, the actual newspaper had the story on the front page, below the fold and only a small picture of Maas was displayed. (Williams’ picture was in the continuation, inside on page 8.)

Under the guise of talking about vacation usage amongst top officials, the story started out talking about my neighbor, Maas. But it quickly – after less than 100 words – became all about Williams. Supposedly, in looking at the Maas situation, Sanderlin discovered there may be a problem with the coding for Williams. Of course, according to the story, he didn’t mention it to her.

What was the source for this story? How did Pilot reporter Harry Minium get the information? It had to come from someone on the inside because City Auditor John Sanderlin Jr. wasn’t talking:

Sanderlin refused to answer most questions about the investigation, the audit or his findings.

Connect the dots, people. Who stands to gain from the removal of Williams?

Published

6 thoughts on “Another day, another hit piece on Williams”

  1. Vivian, The answer to your “source” question can be found by answering the following question: Who has the most to gain politically “on on the inside” from the demise of the City Manager?

  4. It’s almost impossible to be in an executive position and work LESS than a “60 to 70 hour week.” You generally don’t engage a top manager and then nickel-and-dime them about their time. There can be little doubt that she works hard and that the city gets its money’s worth from williams. Even Fraim says as much. There is certainly merit in her allegation that she has been targeted for the last two years.

    But this is how whispering campaigns work. When they don’t have a case upon which to come after you, they create doubt.

  5. Ian – just surf back through my Norfolk posts. It’s pretty obvious.

    David – all this is to try to make a case so that when they fire Williams, they will be able to point to this stuff and say, “See?” At the minimum they want to create a sense of there being smoke, as in where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Sometimes, smoke is just smoke.

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