What happens in Opelika comes home to Roswell

She really got the short end of the stick. The City Council is staying at the Auburn Marriott Opelika Resort & Spa at Grand National. I tried to get her a room there too, but the entire place was booked. So, each day Delaney is making a quick drive over from Opelika’s Hampton Inn. Imagine that.

CARL APPEN Director of Content & Development

Here’s a bit of news trivia for you: The locations at the start of articles (you know, the ones that look like this: SANDY SPRINGS, Ga. — ) are called datelines. They’re used to show readers where the story is taking place. Some newsrooms use them to indicate a reporter had boots on the ground.

The last few weeks Appen Media has had some special datelines. We’ve published stories that start with GREENVILLE, S.C.; CHATTAHOOCHEE HILLS, Ga.; ATLANTA, and now OPELIKA, Al.

Using them means Appen Media had boots on the ground in all those places.

Most of our city governments go on “strategic retreats” every year. The whole city council and administrative staff will pack up and head out of town for a few days. They offer a range of reasons – to visit a downtown they want to model, team building or really buckling down to focus on the issues.

The meetings aren’t recorded or streamed online, and most city “notes” are scant. Last year Roswell went to Greenville for five days and came home with a plan to revise the city’s charter.

The meeting minutes – the official record of what took place that week –was 34 words long. If you’ve ever been to a Roswell City Council meeting, you know they speak more than one word every four hours.

Of course, by law these meetings are open to the public. Any time a quorum – or voting majority –of elected officials gather for city business, discussion, research or action, you’re allowed to be there.

But if the meeting is in Greenville, who is going to drive three hours just to go along and be in the room?

Well, us, I suppose.

When the Johns Creek City Council traveled to Greenville, S.C. for the weekend, Amber Perry went along too. Shelby Israel woke up at dawn on a Sunday to be in Chattahoochee Hills for the Alpharetta retreat. Then she did it again the following day.

Alex Popp had it easy. Sandy Springs held their retreat in Sandy Springs.

Delaney Tarr is spending the weekend in Opelika, Alabama, to cover the Roswell City Council retreat.

On behalf of city officials and staff, taxpayers are footing the bill for these excursions.

For the reporters in the room – and I assure you, we’re the only ones – that bill falls squarely on our shoulders. Your local newsroom. (So maybe after all, it’s a good thing every room was taken at the Grand National.)

We’re glad to do it.

In fact, Managing Editor Pat Fox and I think it’s pretty special that you can open up the local newspaper and see a dateline from South Carolina because there’s a newsroom willing to follow local officials there.

We have problems getting metropolitan dailies to show up at city council meetings to cover the city council.

Local news is not always local. Just because Roswell is strategizing in Opelika doesn’t mean what they do there happens in a vacuum.

Chattahoochee Hills is not Las Vegas. What happens there comes home.

Shelby was in the room when Alpharetta approved requests for funding increases.

Amber got to walk along the Reedy River with the Johns Creek City Council as they took notes on Greenville’s public art, civic partnerships and cohesive branding. Now those are all lessons the city will hope to implement as the Johns Creek Town Center moves forward.

I can tell you this much, Delaney’s report from Opelika is going to be a lot more comprehensive than the one that comes from the city.

So, we think it’s important to go.

If the Johns Creek City Council is meeting, the Johns Creek Herald should be in the room. Even if we have to pay our own way.

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