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Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Politics / City Bruce Harrell Wants You to Come to His Press Conference. There Will Be Candy.

Posted by Jonah Spangenthal-Lee on Wed, May 13, 2009 at 2:14 PM

City Councilmember Bruce Harrell sent out an email to about 100 city hall staffers earlier today promising them candy if they showed up to his press conference on the digital broadcast changeover. Really:

Okay, now that I got your attention. Today (5/3) at 3:15 in Bertha KL room, I am asking for about 15-20 of you to volunteer for about 15 minutes. All you have to do is attend and look engaged:) I received a call from the FCC late last week, requesting that I present a 30 day countdown for the digital tv transition. It is a press conference format and Seattle Channel 21 will be there. A few of you have already agreed and they are entitled to free candy for the rest of the year:) I would like to have about 12 more people. Will you press reply if you can attend. In all seriousness, our Committee has put a lot of energy into equipping our citizens to prepare for the transition and I agreed to accommodate the FCC on their late notice since they made the overture to us. Thanks for helping out a colleague.

Bruce A. Harrell
Seattle City Councilmember

5b68/1242248848-7098_dt.jpg Oh, Bruce. I'm sorry to have to keep razzing you on Slog. But really? Any city hall reporter worth their snuff would notice that they're in a press conference packed with city hall staffers scarfing down boxes of Whitman's Samplers.

You can watch video of Harrell's sure-to-be-packed press conference here at 3:15 or show up to the Bertha Knight-Landes room at city hall.

Comments (9) RSS

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The "Stranger with Candy" approach is disturbing.

Posted by Zander on May 13, 2009 at 2:25 PM

Dozens of staffing hearing the changeover news -- if you have cable there's no problem, but if you have rabbit ears you have to deal with it?

Lollygagging.

In other news Obama came out strongly against release of the torture photos, saying they are too inflammatory.

Um . . . .

Posted by PC on May 13, 2009 at 2:32 PM

How come PBS nightly news is now showing truncated on my old TV even though I have digital cable from Comcast?

News flash: most of us aren't using HDTV. Just ask the retail market - they KNOW this.

Posted by Will in Seattle

on May 13, 2009 at 3:03 PM

Brucie my boy, your use of emoticons in your e-mail just convinced me to vote for whoever it is that opposes you in the next election cycle. :(

Posted by Robert Paulson

on May 13, 2009 at 4:23 PM

That's really funny in a The Office kinda way.

Posted by DawginExile on May 13, 2009 at 7:13 PM

I find it fascinating that whatever Bruce does, he gets criticized for it by the Stranger. One has to ask what would the great Peter Steinbrueck, and hero of all Stranger writers and readers, have done to get people to this conference? I'm sure PS's memo would have made the Gettysburg address look like a comic book had he had the chance.

Posted by 2l2q on May 13, 2009 at 8:26 PM

Mmmm... free candy.

It's councilicious.

Posted by drewl on May 13, 2009 at 11:06 PM

Charming and what a normal person (as opposed to all the too cool people here) would do. The email reads as if he knocked on the office door and said it. And I am not even a big fan of the guy.

Posted by Aww on May 14, 2009 at 12:13 AM

I love this guy and the work he does. He's smart, bright and hard-working and the future of Seattle. He should be our next mayor but is probably focused on learning his job to do it well before going to the next level. He is a class-act cut in the Obama cloth. Look for him to do better things over time. AND he has a sense of humor too. :-) Yes, the research is done.

Posted by Josiah Brown on June 5, 2009 at 10:47 PM