The outrage continues in Florence over the city’s failed rebranding last month, and on Tuesday night, city council members again heard earfuls from upset residents.
Â鶹Çø’s I-Team has been on the story for weeks, obtaining hundreds of pages of documents and getting answers to questions about the selection process for the vendor the city hired to handle the rebranding.
If Florence City leaders thought the logo branding fiasco had blown over, they were apparently wrong. Even though the rebranding wasn’t listed in the meeting agenda, the council heard a lot about it from citizens Tuesday.
“What the logo thing has done is brought a lot of light on this council that beforehand people weren’t paying attention (to),†one resident said Tuesday.
Few marketing ploys have generated as much buzz, not only in North Alabama but also elsewhere as the story garnered national media coverage.
“You threw away $10,000 already. It’s already gone, that company has it,†said another resident, upset over the results of the rebranding and the city’s position that no local designer could handle the rebranding.
That Birmingham design firm, Tatum Design, and the city agreed to part ways and not move forward with the additional $75,000 contract for a city website redesign earlier this month. Tatum had already been approved to begin working on that project before the backlash over the rebrand forced at least two city council members to request suspending the deal with Tatum.
Â鶹Çø filed open records requests, and as we have reported extensively, the mayor admitted they made mistakes.
Â鶹Çø conducted interviews and spoke directly with the majority of the council during the course of the reporting to date, but multiple calls and emails to council member Michelle Eubanks went unanswered.
After numerous attempts for comment from Eubanks, Â鶹Çø tried to ask for an interview again Tuesday during a break between the council work session and regular meeting.
Eubanks told Â鶹Çø’s Matt Kroschel she didn’t trust him to tell the story and when Kroschel offered for her to speak with another journalist in the newsroom, she said she didn’t trust the station.
She didn’t address any of the questions our newsroom has about her pre-existing personal relationship with the owner of Tatum Design — something she did address in a Facebook comment following criticism for not making that connection known before voting on the matter.
Eubanks also refused to clarify her decision to abstain from voting on the issue during the last council work session but then, an hour later, voting to push the vote to the next council meeting.
Eubanks would not answer questions about her use as a politician of her official Facebook page after several residents alleged they have been blocked and had comments removed from the page.
“You stood up there and said I don’t trust you. I don’t trust you because you didn’t even quote me correctly,†Eubanks said after the meeting, after she asked Kroschel to come up to speak with her.
“I said I don’t trust you to tell the story, so that’s exactly why I will not share anything with you or your station, thanks so much.â€
As of Wednesday morning, Eubanks has not asked for any corrections from Â鶹Çø.
Four of the other council members did respond to some of Â鶹Çø’s questions Tuesday evening, though it appears not much has changed from the last time the council met two weeks ago.
“Mr. Matt with Channel 31, I wish I could answer some of your questions. I don’t wanna speak on behalf of the council, but it is my understanding that the website has been paused until we find someone to do it,†council member Jimmy Oliver said.
Other council members indicated they want to meet soon to review the rebranding and website projects.
