A war of words broke out this week between two Dunwoody residents, but it wasn’t your average civic showdown.
The dispute pits a part-time blogger who works full-time as a DeKalb County employee against a potential mayoral candidate.
It started when Bob Lundsten blogged unfavorably about James Sibold’s possible run for Dunwoody mayor.
Lundsten is chief of staff for DeKalb Commissioner Elaine Boyer, whose district includes Dunwoody.
“I just don’t think, as a county employee, he should be able to say the things he did,” Sibold said Friday.
Lundsten, who identifies himself in the blog as Boyer’s chief of staff, said he doesn’t blog on county time or equipment and he doesn’t blog about county issues, just the city in which he lives.
“I have been a citizen of Dunwoody for 30 years and have the right to be critical of the actions of that city or potential candidates,” he said.
According to the DeKalb County policy on social media, he does have that right. The county’s policy only governs those who are “under the administration of the CEO,” county spokesman Burke Brennan said.
Boyer said she doesn’t plan on asking him to stop.
“Most people know Bob," she said, "and they know he doesn’t speak for me or on my behalf.”
Whether people like Lundsten should be able to blog in their personal time about political matters is a question that is being asked more often, said Judy Nadler, senior fellow in government ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics in Santa Clara, Calif.
“There is a certain responsibility to being a public servant, or someone who is paid with tax dollars,” she said. “Am I saying people who work in public service give up their citizenship or first amendment rights? No, but they do give up some things about being a private citizen.”
Nadler’s opinion did not resonate with Hank Klibanoff, former managing editor of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and now a media ethics professor at Emory University.
“I draw the line pretty tight, but my bells just don’t go off on this one,” he said. “He’s not flying under false colors and he’s not using his position to access information that is not available to the general public.”
But the full disclosure that Lundsten provides about his job almost makes the matter worse, Nadler argued.
“People can look at his opinion as highly informed,” she said. “He bases his opinion on his insider knowledge, information that may not be readily available to the public, whether he realizes it or not.”
About the Author
