To the Editor:
In the 16 months since the first edition of 10/12 magazine, we have been pleased and impressed with your coverage of all the positive attributes of the corridor. We were thus very disappointed in the coverage you gave the recent problems of a single public official – Mandeville Mayor Eddie Price – in your most recent print edition. [To read the story, click here.]
Focusing on one “scandal” that affected only one municipality and involved no allegations of coercion on the part of city officials with regard to business retention or recruitment, your writer made the matter an issue of economic significance having an impact on the business climate of St. Tammany Parish. Such is, quite simply, not the case. The only supposed evidence of such an impact was mention of a company that had been considering location in St. Tammany Parish outside the City of Mandeville.
The function of 10/12 heretofore seemed to advance the corridor by focusing on its positives. Outlining one negative, political happening that was confined to a single political subdivision with an area of less than 7 square miles [out of 854 square miles of land in St. Tammany] and a population of less than 11,000 [out of nearly a quarter-million parish-side] seems irresponsible, at best. Particularly since your writer interviewed both me and our communications director for the story, and we emphasized that the matter has not had a discernible impact on business recruitment or retention, the angle of coverage could easily have been, “Despite small-town scandal, St. Tammany remains appealing.” Instead, you made a very negative mountain out of a molehill. – St. Tammany Economic Development Foundation President Stuart McAvoy
