A Look Back: Year One: Mayor Johnson's First 12 Months of Propaganda
The first of several parts in response to Mayor Johnson's recent evaluation of his first year in office.

Part One — Effective Government and Accountability — or Propaganda?

Propaganda as described by Wikipedia: Propaganda is a form of communication aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position. As opposed to impartially providing information, propaganda in its most basic sense, presents information primarily to influence an audience. Propaganda often presents facts selectively (thus lying by omission) to encourage a particular synthesis, or uses loaded messages to produce an emotional rather than rational response to the information presented. The desired result is a change of the attitude toward the subject in the target audience to further a political agenda.

Mayor Kevin Johnson has continued to be a disappointment throughout his first year as mayor of Sacramento. While running for office, he promised transparency. Unfortunately the mayor is transparent in the sense we can see right through his propaganda. Sadly the mayor is not appearing accountable to provide the people of Sacramento a mayor of truth and integrity.

As I read the mayor's blog submission "Year One and A Look Back: Mayor Johnson's First 12 Months,"  I grew greatly disappointed seeing our mayor blatantly omit truth to communicate with us in a manner that insults and underestimates our intelligence. Below are segments from Johnson's blog posting and the obvious propaganda techniques he uses to sway and influence public interest and opinion. It is my hope that Johnson will learn his fastest move is our slowest, and he should pump his brakes, slow his roll and put as much focus and concern into becoming a world-class, first-tier classy mayor prior to attempting to make Sacramento a world-class city. If a city is a reflection of its mayor, Sacramento is in a world of trouble.  

Johnson writes: "Effective Government and Accountability: This past year, my office set a standard of 'best practices' in transparency and accountability."   http://www.kevinjohnsonformayor.com/kjfm/

Yet Mayor Johnson is not transparent nor accountable for his decision to further divide the City Council.

How effective is government when the mayor comes in with his own entourage of special assistants, volunteers, advisers, lawyers and spokespersons and allows their role to dominate and influence his actions, decisions and relationship with the City Council, city clerk and members of the community that he is obligated to represent? If this is a standard of best practices, Sacramento is on a slippery slope to an extremely dysfunctional city government.

Mayor Johnson's first year in office left Sacramentans with "a duel structure of the mayor's private attorney and the council-appointed city attorney- with dueling opinions on issues, name calling or attributing real differences of opinion to incompetence" towards our city attorney. Sac Bee Editorial: Mayor, lawyer should talk it out   http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/story/2171542.html

Johnson fails to mention his lack of transparency this year in his decision to remove City Councilmember Sandy Sheedy from the Law and Legislation committee. How transparent was the mayor when he did not inform the council of his decision to "shake things up" prior to the council session? What was his reasoning for deliberately not collaborating with our city councilmembers of his decision? Why does it always appear his special assistants are in the loop and our city councilmembers, whom we vote into office, are uninformed? We don't know the answer since our mayor continuously failed, this year,  to be transparent.

How transparent was our mayor when he loaned $25,000 to Sacramentans for Accountable Government and forgave the loan, converting it to a gift? Why didn't anyone on the council or the city clerk know the loan was converted into a gift until a week after City Attorney Eileen Teichert raised the issue of a conflict of interest? Again Johnson did not collaborate with our city attorney or our city councilmembers during council discussion on this issue and allowed his spokesperson to continuously insult our city attorney  (www.newsreview.com/sacramento/snog/blogs/post?oid+1211332 SN&R Timing is everything in Johnson vs Teichert fight)

Our mayor writes, "I hosted Town Hall meetings and Office Hours in all eight council districts, giving hundreds of residents access to me, my staff and managers from every city department."

As city residents, we have had access to managers from every city department prior to Johnson being in office. All we have to do is attend neighborhood association meetings, neighborhood response team meetings and reception banquets, where city staff and managers set up booths and provide information to city residents throughout the year.

I have attended the mayor's town hall meetings and grew disappointed when it appeared the mayor's "open house" had a closed-door back-room agenda. I wrote an article on the Sacramento Bee Street Talk blog regarding the mayor's office hours and my disappointment in seeing the open house was not for the mayor to get to know the community but an attempt for the mayor to get the community to see him and thus sign the petition for the Strong Mayor Initiative. (See  Mayor's Open House appears to have a Closed Door Backroom Agenda)

Johnson claims to answer questions from media "for an unscripted, open and direct discussion" at the Tuesday City Council meetings. However, Johnson allows his volunteer Steve Maviglio and his attorney Thomas Hiltackh to directly discuss and attack our city councilmembers, our city attorney and our charter review commission, and refuses to be accountable for the actions and reactions of his volunteers, advisers and assistants.

The mayor also writes of making appearances on two TV news shows and four radio stations. The mayor continuously attempts to rally support for the strong-mayor proposal versus really getting to know the community. Every move Mayor Johnson has made this year appears scripted with decisions made behind closed doors, without direct community discussion, and without discussions with the council we elected into office to respresent our districts.

The mayor writes, "There were tangible results from these efforts at accountability and efficient government," but fails to tell us what tangible results the efforts had. Johnson fails to inform us where was the accountability and how the efforts made the government efficient. The first year of Johnson's tenure in office has been propaganda. He has consistently provided us with selective information to make himself look good and to take credit in areas where he played no role.

In his first year, Mayor Johnson, will talk the talk but he won't walk the walk.  Mayor Johnson will publicly call out city employees, throw them under a bus in an attempt to make himself look good by making them look bad.  (http://www.kevinjohnsonformayor.com/kjfm/?p=154 ) Our mayor fails to demonstrate that he and his special assistants will be accountable for their actions, inactions or reactions. Accountability, this year, for Mayor Johnson appears to be a smokescreen. (The Swarm: Mayor uses smokescreen of"accountability" to keep wrong doings under wraps http://www.sacbee.com/static/weblogs/the_swarm/2009/10/026491.html )

Johnson writes, "The city's 311 phone service enjoyed a nearly five-fold increase in call volume. My office helped publicize 311 at every opportunity." During a meeting which included an employee from the city office of youth development, several non profit organizations and community members it was clear a local television station is responsible for billboards to advertise the 311 phone service. Johnson did not have anything to do with the city's 311 service. Former Mayor Heather Fargo was the driving force behind the 311 service, and the councilmembers and the office of youth development played a vital role in the increase in call volume. What does mayor Johnson mean by "my" office? His office is not transparent. We don't know the roles of his volunteers, but we do know it wasn't to promote the 311 service. Johnson appears to continuously take credit for the work, efforts and labor of others. If I would have waited on Johnson to inform me of the 311 service, I could have never helped the young girl who needed shelter .  http://www.sacramentopress.com/headline/17155/Kudos_to_the_City_of_Sacramento_311 

"Propaganda is neutrally defined as a systematic form of purposeful persuasion that attempts to influence the emotions, attitudes, opinions, and actions of specified target audiences for ideological, political or commercial purposes through the controlled transmission of one-sided messages (which may or may not be factual) via mass and direct media channels." —Richard Alan Nelson, A Chronology and Glossary of Propaganda in the United States, 1996

Johnson fails to be transparent and uses propaganda to selectively present facts thus lying by ommission to encourage a particular synthesis using loaded messages to produce an emotion rather than rational response to the information he presents when he writes. "And to create more accountability at City Hall, I directed a campaign to gather signatures and place an Executive Mayor Initiative on the June 2010 ballot. The initiative received approximatgely 50,000 signatures from Sacramento residents. Now, voters will get the opportnity to update their city charter's structure and accountability. Currently, the charter reflects conditions of 1920."

How transparent is the mayor when he knows not all of the 50,000 signatures from Sacramento residents were actually knowlegable of the contents of the strong-mayor proposal? Did the mayor deliberately refer to the strong-mayor proposal as an "executive mayor initiative" since there is much concern from community members toward the strong-mayor proposal? Why didn't the mayor direct us to a town hall meeting to have an input on drafting the strong-mayor proposal? How accountable or transparent is the mayor for sending what appears to be pirates (ARNO Political Consulting) into our community to gather folks who need an income to highjack us of our signatures? Why did the mayor use signature collectors who were paid by the signature? This year, our mayor showed us his hook-or-crook techniques to get what he wants.

The mayor ends his first segment with further propaganda by writing "Looking forward/ Lessons Learned: In the coming year, I will continue to hold myself accountable while maintaining the openness and transparency that must be the hallmark of our city. I look forward to giving voters a choice in June between a governance structure of 'business as usual' or real, positive change and accountabiity. And while I am grateful the city council finally agreed with my calls for an external operational review and audit, I regret we missed the opportunity to create the review process sooner and for less money. Finally, I am still concerned about significant structural imbalances in our city budget, with insufficient cash reserves."

A year and mounting errors made by our unskillful politician later, our mayor has yet to hold himself accountable. Johnson has yet to show us openness, honesty, integrity or transparency. Johnson again used the blog to further sway public interest toward his strong-mayor proposal and used the "business as usual" or "real, positive change and accountability" propaganda to underestimate and insult the intelligence of city residents.

It is also clear Johnson hasn't learned his lesson to not attempt to sway public opinion by attempting to make himself look good by making the council look bad. When Johnson ran for office he used the same propaganda techniques to make Fargo look bad. While in office he is attempting to show us an ineffective city council without showing us in detail how he can or has been effective. A year later and Johnson has continued to be all bark and no bite. In fact, Mayor Johnson appears to be barking up the wrong tree because many community members, charter review commission, unions, two former mayors are not buying his propaganda towards the Strong Mayor Proposal. http://www.sacramentopress.com/headline/18495/Unions_back_lawsuit_against_strong_mayor

Mayor Johnson's first year is nothing for him to brag about. The mayor has not proven to be a skillful politican. In fact Sac Bee writer Marcos Breton said it best, "Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson is his own worse enemy" http://www.sacbee.com/734/story/2363195.html

There are seven main techniques used in modern propaganda. Johnson has used them all.

1) Assertion: an enthusiastic or energetic statement presented as fact, although it is not necessarily true. The statements require no explanation or back up, but should be merely accepted without questions.

2) Bandwagon: an appeal to follow the crowd, to join in because others are doing so. Bandwagon propaganda is essentially trying to convince the subject that one side is the winning side because more people have joined it. The subject is meant to believe that since so many people have joined, victory is inevitable and defeat impossible. Since the average person always wants to be on the winning side, he or she is compelled to join in. Johnson continuously uses the 50,000 signatures, the 77,000 strong, the people have spoken to influence community members to jump on the bandwagon.

3) Card-stacking: selective omission, only presenting information that is positive to an idea or proposal and omiting information contrary to it. When I first began reading The Sacramento Press I continuously read card-stacking posts by mayoral assistant Steve Maviglio. According to the Institute for Propaganda Analysis, card-stacking is extremely effective in convincing the public and is dangerous because it omits important information.

4) Glittering generalities: words that have different positive meaning for individual subjects but are linked to highly valued concepts. Johnson and his associates continuously give us glittering generalities with using the words "change," "status quo," "businesses as usual," world-class," etc.

5) Lesser of two evils: to convince us of an idea or proposal by presenting it as the least offensive option. The idea or proposal is often depicted as one of the only options or paths.

6) Name-calling: words that carry a negative connotation (business as usual, status quo...). The propaganda attempts to arouse prejudice among the public by labeling the target something that the public dislikes, often using sarcasm and ridicule. Our mayor puts a spotlight on councilmembers' flaws (dismissing his own) and allows his assistants to do the name-calling.

7) Pinpointing the enemy/ Plain folks: an attempt to simplfy a complex situation by presenting one specific group as the enemy (those against the SMP. The plain-folks device is an attempt by a propagandist to convince the public that his views reflect those of the common person and that they are also working for the benefit of the common person.

Lessons learned: Johnson has not shown us transparency his first year in office. Johnson will not hold himself accountable. Johnson has shown us he is a propagandist and that he surrounds himself with volunteer propagandists to further sway public interest and opinion.

A Look Back: Mayor Johnson failed to provide city residents with accountability or transparency but gave us plenty of propaganda.

—Rhonda Erwin
Part 2 of the Mayor's Year One and A Look Back will address Johnson's second segment of his report: Public Safety. Our mayor's first year in office has been a grave disappointment, and I will have to divide this into several ongoing segments.