Harold Doucet assured his fellow Port Arthur City Council members he wasn’t being personal.

Nor would he “belabor” the point, he said.

But he was just warming up.

The District 4 councilman took his colleagues down a lengthy and circuitous path at Tuesday morning’s regularly scheduled meeting, assailing the Port Arthur News for what he characterized as unfair and demeaning coverage of city leaders and how they conduct the people’s business.

Doucet charged that news coverage did not give both sides, that it was “biased” and that he was “not happy with it.”

In specific, he said he was displeased by:

• A Dec. 2 story that listed how much City Council members spent to attend the three-day Texas Municipal League Annual Conference. Doucet said the Port Arthur News did not hold other cities to the same standard of accountability.
• A Dec. 10 opinion column by News Publisher Rich Macke, which cited five instances in which city leaders spent the taxpayer’s money without sufficient accountability, including expenditure of $11,852 for the Houston trip.

“Don’t make us look incompetent by giving us your opinion,” Doucet said.

Doucet’s comments opened a brisk and spirited exchange of opinions among council members. Underlying the conversation appeared to be a veiled threat by Doucet to withdraw the city’s legal advertising from the Port Arthur News, the paper of record for Port Arthur, and send it to a competing publication.

That didn’t happen, although Macke was present and prepared to explain to council members legal mandates for publishing legal advertising, which compel the city to advertise legal notices in the Port Arthur News, the dominant paper for circulation – and, incidentally, the only news outlet that covered Tuesday’s meeting.

Instead, the council voted to send a copy of the meeting to Boone Newspapers Inc., parent company of the Port Arthur News, to express concern about news coverage and editorial content.

District 6 Councilman Osman Swati countered Doucet on two fronts – the first, that the city charter has clear rules for legal advertising and, second, that as public officials, “We should all be open to criticism. That’s our job, to be transparent,” he said.

Later, Swati read the content of the First Amendment to the council, and suggested that any threat to withhold legal advertising based on editorial content represented “prior restraint” on a press freedom.

District 7 Councilwoman Charlotte Moses said she believes the newspaper holds a negative attitude toward “our citizens,” but seemed to agree the city has to “follow the guidelines” when it comes to publishing city notices.

“If you are not going to print facts you are not entitled to an opinion,” said District 5 Councilman Willie “Bae” Lewis Jr., looking straight at Macke. By way of illustration, he said the city spent $102,000 on legal notices regarding annexation.

Port Arthur News records reflect those expenditures, legally required, totaled about $50,000.

Mayor Derrick Freeman, who guided the exchanges, said little until the end when he said, as public servants, council members should “put our big boy pants on” and work past news media criticism.

“Sometimes we don’t agree,” he suggested, but elected leaders have responsibilities to carry out their jobs without being distracted by hurt personal feelings.

That wasn’t good enough for District 1 Councilman Raymond Scott Jr., who spoke plainly about his disappointment that the Port Arthur News had not endorsed him in the last city election.

Like some of his colleagues, he said other cities – the implication was Port Neches, Nederland and Groves – “do the same things we do with no negative comment.”

“It’s about hearing us today,” he said.