Montgomery County MD Pommels Live Nation Report: Fair Game or PR Run Amok?

The staff of Montgomery County Maryland's County Executive apparently didn't care for the recent Associated Content (AC) article Music Promoter Live Nation's Maryland Concert Hall Plans: Done Deal or Not? Patrick Lacefield, Director of Montgomery County's Office of Public Information, composed a 5 page response to the Live Nation article and asked a member of the Citizen Advisory Board to post it on the author's neighborhood listserve where a link to the article previously had been distributed.

Then Montgomery County's Director of Public Information posted a comment about the article on the author's AC Content Producer (CP) page under his own name. Next, in a move of dubious legality and ethics, someone- apparently either Mr. Lacefield or his staff- signed up "Montgomery County" as an AC Content Producer, describing the functions of Mr. Lacefield's office in "Montgomery County's" biographical profile. New CP "Montgomery County" then posted a comment on the author's CP page alleging that the Live Nation article had errors and did not have accurate information about the project or the process leading to it. This comment requested that "in the interest of fairness" readers access a link to Montgomery County Director of Public Information Patrick Lacefield's 5 page response to the Live Nation article, which he has apparently posted on Montgomery County Maryland's official website as well. You can read it here.

"Montgomery County" designated the Live Nation article author its "favorite," enabling "Montgomery County" to receive notification of every article she publishes.

Is Big Brother watching?

Like any competent writer, the Live Nation article author strives to write accurate articles. So after reading what Mr. Lacefield wrote about the Live Nation article, the author examined the Live Nation article to assess the merit of Mr. Lacefield's contentions. The findings- analyzing Mr. Lacefield's four challenges to the article's accuracy- are reported below.

How will the $8 million in public funding be spent in the Montgomery County-Live Nation-Lee Development Group deal?