It's got bells on it.
Hann, the newbie councilor is actually a political veteran who claims he is new to politics and needs to develop a thicker skin.
Seems Hann is bristling over criticism that he went along with his fellow St. John's city councilors in giving themselves a hefty raise in pay without going through a proper process.
Hann calls the whole affair a "public relations disaster" and that if people understood the reason for the raise, there wouldn't be any controversy. That's one of the things he told CBC radio.
He told The Sunday Telegram he hadn't seen the memo from council staff advising that they needed to send the whole affair to an outside group. Seems Hann is to busy to manage all the paper.
What we have here is not a public relations problem....at least not in the sense that Hann means it.
What the residents of St. John's have here is a council that is incapable of adhering to some basic management principles or its own rules.
Council screwed up.
Badly.
They got caught with their hands in the cookie jar, violating their own resolutions and own by-laws and, if predictions hold, stepping forward at today's meeting to simply change the rules to suit their purposes.
Hann's excuses - "I didn't get the memo" or "if people only understood..." - demonstrate clearly that the political veteran knows full well how to try and bluster his way through a problem of his own creation. The issue never was about the rationale for the raise; it's about the way council handled the whole affair from the beginning. They broke the rules and now simply want to ignore both the criticisms and the rules to keep their ill-gotten gains.
Unfortunately, what Hann learned in his political life is how not to handle a problem.
If Hann understood what public relations really is - and political public relations at that - he'd recognize some pretty simple actions that would make the whole issue disappear in a heartbeat:
Action Number 1: Admit to the mistake.
- That's a mark of integrity and character in a leader.
Action Number 2: Rescind the motion granting the raise and start following the rules.
- Hann and his fellow councilors will likely get a raise, but they'll get it in a way that won't raise the hackles on citizens' necks.
Action Number 3: Stop bullshitting people with cheap excuses.
- Bullshit let's everyone know that you understand the real issues but you are just ducking them. Bullshit also tells residents you have no respect for them and what's worse, that your election platform may have been a snow job.
The thing is, the way Hann is handling this issue, he is damaging the one commodity he can't afford to damage: his credibility. Once that's gone, a politician is in serious trouble.
Hann and his fellow councilors have a public relations problem alright.
The kind of problem a public relations professional could sort out quickly.
But for some inexplicable reason, politicians seem to have difficulty identifying the nature of their problem, let alone sort it out.