Since Sept 2012, the Village of Lisle, the Lisle Library and the Lisle Park District have collectively purchased over 90 full pages of paid "advertising" in a relatively new publication called "Neighbors of Lisle." There is no record of any public discussion regarding the need for expenditure of public funds for this for-profit publication in the minutes of the open meetings of these three public bodies.
Each page of submitted material or "advertising" costs $400 per issue. Collectively, Lisle taxpayers have spent about $36,000 over that past 18 months to provide themselves with so-called "FREE" advertising. No problem spending thousands of tax dollars on unnecessary advertising, but submit a FOIA for a copy of a public record regarding budgets and taxes and your name will be posted online on the "citizen hit list" for using 1 hour of a government employee's time and valuable government resources. Hypocrisy? You bet.
Some might chose to call this submitted content "information" or "news."
Others are calling it "propaganda" in a for-profit publication that would likely not exist at all but for the taxpayer funding that props it up. If you run a publication and the primary sources of funding are from government funds, are you influenced to please your advertisers and write what they want written? Of course.
A detailed review of the content submitted by the Village of Lisle, the Lisle Park District and the Lisle Library shows that all of the submitted content is already available on the websites of those public bodies. In addition, the Lisle Library and the Lisle Park District spend tens of thousands of tax dollars per year printing their own full color direct mailers to taxpayers. In the case of the Lisle Library, that annual printing exceeds $25K and is done on a no-bid contract.
The bi-monthly print publication "Neighbors of Lisle" claims to be delivered "free" to every household in Lisle, however the borders of the Lisle Library and the Lisle Park District extend beyond the borders of the Village of Lisle into parts of unincorporated Naperville that do not receive the taxpayer funded publication.
There are no disclosures printed on the pages that are submitted by the Village of Lisle, the Lisle Library and the Lisle Park District that the content is paid advertising funded by taxpayers.
The "Neighbors of Lisle" publication came under fire recently on Facebook when members of the group of Lisle puppy mill protesters took issue with the recent coverage of pet rescues while ignoring the huge "elephant in the room" - i.e. Lisle's very own puppy mill right on Main Street. A group of animal rights activists have been protesting on Main/Ogden for over a year and calling on the village to take action to prohibit the retail sale of puppies from puppy mills in the Village. The subject of the protests is a retail establishment on Main Street that was named on the list of "Top 100 Worst Puppy Mills" in the country by the Humane Society of the U.S.
You can read the Facebook responses from "Neighbors of Lisle" HERE.
The local publisher of "Neighbors of Lisle" is Paula Gleason who is also the Chairman of the Lisle Area Chamber of Commerce. Ms. Gleason also works for Bensidoun USA the company under contract with the Village of Lisle to manage Lisle's French Market. Isn't that cozy?
Perhaps we need a Taxpayer Transparency Act in Lisle that ends covert propaganda and would require that any advertisement in print, online, on radio or television post a disclaimer at the bottom denoting its use of taxpayer funding with the phrase "Paid for at Taxpayer Expense."
Recommended Reading:
"Covert Propaganda," Cornell Law
Congressman Seek To Lift Propaganda Ban
Publicity or Propaganda, Cornell Law
