Branding Does Not Correct For Incompetence

I love Bay City. Even now, in the dead of winter, there is nowhere else I'd rather live. I chose to move here from the world-class city of Denver—that's how much I love it here. That being said, once again I find myself feeling frustrated with the city leadership.

Remember a few months ago when I wrote about the money Bay City wasted on developing the new city brand? A few years ago, the city paid nearly $50,000 for a horrible logo—an absolute abomination. Along with the horrible logo there is a trite saying. VOILA! There's our brand.

No matter how many times I scream it, a logo is not a brand!

Anyway, we've got our logo so we're all set, right? Bay City is on the rise again. No bad decision making or bad publicity can affect us because, after all, we've got that crappy logo...er...brand.

Our first stop on the bad-PR train came in December when a Wall Street Journal article featured a mention of Bay City alongside one of their trademark stipple images of our mayor, Charles Brunner. The city couldn't afford to put up the annual Festival of Lights display for Christmas this year and the story was wrapped into a Journal piece on cities feeling the economic crunch at Christmas time. This was a good decision by the mayor, it was just a small bit of bad PR. No city wants to be painted as anti-Christmas, but there we were on the front cover of one of the most-read newspapers in the world.

Fast forward one month to a much uglier story.

Two weeks ago the body of a 93-year-old man was found dead in his home on Bay City's southwest side. The house is actually only a mile away from mine. The man, a veteran who received the purple heart as a medic in World War II, died of hypothermia in his home. You read that correctly, he froze to death in his home. Due to unpaid electric bills, the city electric department had placed a device to restrict the amount of electricity he could use. He apparently didn't know what the device was or how to reset it and died a very slow and painful death.

His death has received all sorts of national attention, once again turning the nation's eyes to Bay City. MSNBC is among the many national news sources who carried the story.

According to our city manager, he didn't think the city did anything wrong. I understand that actions have to be taken when bills aren't paid, but you'd think they'd be a little more careful when it comes to something like this. The new policy is to not use limiters, but don't you think we could have come to this sensible policy, say, before an old man died needlessly?

One time after another, this city keeps giving itself a black eye.

You know what I think might help? A new logo...some new branding idea that clearly states that we no longer kill our elderly for unpaid electric bills.