Editorial: The mayor said it out loud. Now the council has to act.

By Brandi Makuski

For months, concerns about city staff being blocked from speaking with the press have been publicly brushed off as a misunderstanding — or worse, dismissed as misleading.

So we’re releasing the audio.

This week, the Metro Wire is publishing the full recording of an Oct. 16 meeting with Mayor Mike Wiza, where he explains — in his own words — why department heads can’t speak directly with reporters.

His reasoning wasn’t complicated.

“Because I’m not allowing that,” Wiza said when asked why Public Works Director Scott Beduhn couldn’t meet to discuss the Business 51 project.

“Scott isn’t talking to you about anything — and not just Scott, other [department heads] — because we have a media policy in place that directs you and your questions to my office.”

The city’s written media policy hasn’t changed since 2020. It still lists department heads as authorized spokespersons. For years, those conversations happened routinely.

Then they stopped.

Scheduled interviews were canceled. Access narrowed. Information that once came straight from the people running city projects began getting routed through one office.

That’s not speculation. It’s on tape.

We raised these concerns publicly at the Common Council in October. Nothing followed — no review, no discussion, no action.

Months later, on Jan. 27, we sent a letter to every council member formally asking them to finally address it.

The recording makes this simple.

This isn’t confusion. It isn’t interpretation. It’s a decision.

Now the council has to decide what to do about it. And you, the constituents, can decide for yourself. Below, we’ve included the unedited, raw interview and a shorter version focusing on the press access. The full media policy is at the bottom of this story.

Here’s the summarized version:

For those who need the full audio, here it is, unedited: