Neffinger says the help he gets from Roberta Page, owner of Page One Productions, is "invaluable."
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Roberta Page of Page One Productions is West Springfield Mayor Gregory C. Neffinger's communications liaison.WEST SPRINGFIELD — Mayor Gregory C. Neffinger’s hiring of a $90-an-hour media consultant has surprised one town councilor and drawn criticism from another, who says the money could be better spent elsewhere.
Neffinger says, however, that the help he gets from Roberta Page, owner of Page One Productions, is “invaluable.”
Page’s work is part of getting Neffinger’s message to the people and fulfilling his campaign promise to make city government more transparent, the mayor said. “I would rather spend my time moving along CSX (rail freight issues) and the state than spending hours on a press release,” Neffinger said. “We just don’t have the time to stop and say, ‘This is what we are doing.’ ”
Neffinger is the only mayor in Hampden, Hampshire and Franklin counties to hire a media consultant. Mayors in Westfield, Greenfield, Northampton, Holyoke, Chicopee and Agawam all handle their own media needs.
In Springfield, which has a population of about 153,000, or about five times the size of West Springfield, Mayor Domenic Sarno employs a communications director, Thomas T. Walsh, who is paid $65,000 a year. Walsh estimates he spends about half his time on media work. He also represents the mayor at events, serves as a liaison to community groups like the city’s neighborhood councils, is on call nights and weekends and serves as the mayor’s representative to the Pioneer Valley Transit Authority board.
Former West Springfield Mayor Edward J. Gibson handled his own media relations, including conducting regular Tuesday afternoon meetings with area reporters.
Councilor Robert M. Mancini calls the hiring of Page “unnecessary spending.” “Why would you hire someone to do your press releases? We could give the money to a sports organization or spend the money on something for the town,” Mancini said.
“I was surprised to hear that,” Town Councilor Brian J. Griffin said of Page’s hiring. “It is something totally new to the town. It is not something we’ve needed in the past,”
Page is being paid from the mayor’s professional services account for which $32,671 was budgeted this year. It has been used to cover such expenses as the city’s cable television access coordinator’s pay as well as things like landscaping improvements at the historic Union Street Cemetery. Griffin said her pay is not under the council’s control.
A volunteer in Neffinger’s 2011 mayoral campaign, Page organized the mayor’s inaugural celebration and swearing-in ceremony in January without charge. She also contributed $25 to his campaign fund.
Page has worked as a part-time consultant since then, earning $1,170 for work done in January. At $90 per hour, that would cover 13 hours of work.
Page said she was hired to work several hours a week for the mayor as needed to provide overall public relations. She said she cannot quantify her work schedule because it varies week to week.
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Gregory NeffingerPage’s contract does not specify how many hours a week she will work; it states she is to “serve as communications liaison and provide overall public relations including, but not limited to, media and government relations and marketing and reporting directly to the mayor.” It also states she is not an employee of the town and no health or retirement benefits are included in compensation.
“It might be two hours one week, five hours another week,” Neffinger said. “In my mind it was to be three to four hours a week.”
The mayor said he may eventually have communications with the press and public done in-house. Page is also available for media and government relations as well as marketing services.
She said her job could include marketing the city and is basically whatever the mayor wants her to work on.
The mayor said his office consists of himself and his assistant, Joan George, who is paid about $50,000 a year. Each of them works at least 50 to 60 hours a week and does not have time to write press releases, he said.
The mayor said $90-an-hour is the going rate for consultants and that Page has also done work for the School Department.
Neffinger said he did not seek proposals for the media consultant post because he does not anticipate the expenses will exceed the $5,000 ceiling set by the state as the threshold for when competitive bids must be sought. “Anything after that ($5,000) we would have to rethink,” the mayor said.
Page said she does more than write press releases. She also compiles information, such as when the mayor hired a new principal assessor and the naming of a provisional police chief, both of which involved news conferences. Page also said she makes media contacts and takes photographs, having e-mailed The Republican recently one photograph of the provisional police chief.
As part of her work, Page has scheduled Tuesday afternoon “press conferences” that are more formal than the casual chats with reporters Gibson used to have. Page is also working to book Neffinger time on radio and television programs.
Page said most mayors have an individual to handle media for them, but could only cite Sarno as an example.
Page is a lifelong resident of the city with a master’s degree in business administration from Western New England University. She has worked in public relations for both Friendly Ice Cream Corp. and Westvaco Corp. Among her responsibilities were handling store openings for Friendly and new product launches for Westvaco, she said. In the 1970s, she taught English and French at West Springfield High School.
Page also represents and books jobs for entertainers and has served on the boards of such nonprofit groups as the Children’s Museum of Holyoke. Her business, Page One Productions, has no employees, other than herself, and does not have a website, according to Page.
In 2006, she was honored for serving on the board of trustees of Springfield Technical Community College in Springfield for 13 years. A long-time Town Meeting member, Page was campaign manager for Paul H. Boudo’s unsuccessful bid for mayor in 2009.
The consultant also launched a community access television show called “Talk of the Town” in 2009 that ran for more than a year and a half. Page had wanted to take it statewide, but she said she did not get the financial support needed to do that.
Contract for Services between West Springfield Office of the Mayor and Page One Productions