BeaconMediaNews.com
18 | AUGUST 1, 2013 - AUGUST 7, 2013
Clarification on an incident in Sierra Madre Continued from page 8
ly understands that.” Here is what actually happened: Beacon wordsmith Shel Segal was assigned to do a story on the Sierra Madre Water crisis and assigned to interview the city manager to uncover what really is going on. The day Segal telephoned the city manager for the interview, it became apparent that the conference should take place in person and that said meeting be recorded ( at Elaine Aguilar’s suggestion) as there is a wealth of information to pass on. They agreed to a dialogue the following week ( i.e. Tuesday) and that Segal would, in fact, record the interview. After hanging up the phone with Elaine Aguilar last week, Segal immediately called me to let me know he couldn’t really interview Elaine on the ‘phone and that he was going to reschedule and record the interview. The timing that particular day was bad for both Segal and Aguilar. Segal called the of-
fice directly after an Angels game and it was very noisy. I had trouble hearing Segal and thus grossly misconstrued what he was trying to tell me. I assumed I heard that the city manager did not want to be recorded. This, of course, was erroneous, a critical error on my part. However, to add insult to injury, I mentioned this ( in passing ) to a resident with whom I have been speaking about the water problems Sierra Madre is facing. In doing so, apparently said resident helped create a bit of a buzz in the local blog world. Well, before you know it I get a call from John Crawford on Sunday who had posted the aforementioned ditty referring, of course, to the use of a tape recorder which was never even an issue. It was a MY oversight, an error - a human faux pas - which leads me to believe I’ll have to listen much more carefully and say considerably less to people on the ‘phone. Sincere apologies to Sierra Madre City Man-
ager, Elaine Aguliar, for the misunderstanding for which I am solely responsible. I hold no blame to our friends over at Sierra Madre Tattler as John Crawford has done a huge amount of excellent research on the water and UTT issues for some time now. He was merely following up on what seemed like a rather good story due to my blunder and apparent hearing problem. Had any of the story been true, it would have made front page news, I assure you. Again, apologies to anyone else who was involved in the obvious case of he said/she said/they didn’t say/what did he say?…..and so on down the line. Mostly, however, a personal expression of regret to Elaine Aguilar for setting the wheels in motion for a fictional story that got completely out of hand. Perhaps I’ll have to get an ear trumpet next time someone calls me from an Angels game.