City councillors are criticizing the use of taxpayer money for City of Prince George ads after such ads appeared alongside sexually-explicit personals. Councillors sounded the alarm after coming across city ads appearing on a web page of the online news site Opinion 250.
The page featured personal ads containing hardcore language that were reposted from the websites Kijiji and Craig's List.
Some of the personals included requests for explicit sexual acts or solicited money for sex.
Coun. Cameron Stolz said the content was brought to his attention by a member of the public. He said it speaks to a concern he's raised in the past.
"I think the bigger concern is how the city is using taxpayer dollars for advertising online. There is no contract and no competitive bid," Stolz said. "What's the purpose of money spent on this? It's a concern I brought up at finance and audit [committee], but didn't get anywhere with."
Coun. Brian Skakun agreed.
"I think there definitely has to be a review of what we're doing with our advertising," Skakun said. "Is there a minimum standard? I have a concern about how we advertise and what kind of content they put out."
In a response from a Freedom of Information request, city manager of supply and fleet services Scott Bone stated the city purchased $30,824.50 in advertising from Opinion 250 Inc. between 2008 and Sept. 27, 2011.
City communications and citizen engagement Mike Davis said the city has strict standards regarding its advertising, and includes restrictions in all its advertising contracts to ensure content is non-offensive.
He said the city conducted a review of the site's content prior to signing an advertising agreement.
"At the time when we signed the contract, there didn't seem to be any problems on our part," he said.
The city acted on Sunday, when the issue was brought to his attention, he said.
"We took action right away and told Opinion 250. We were notified [Sunday] morning, and within a matter of hours the content was off the website," Davis said. "It's definitely not something we're supporting."
Ads on the website work on a rotational basis, so all ads appear on all pages of the site, said Davis. The city did not specifically request that ads appear, or not appear, on the site's classifieds listings.
Calls to website's owner-operators were not returned. However in a written statement published on the site, Ben Meisner said the site will no longer be carrying personal classified ads due to the content.
"We thank those who contacted us to point out the issue and apologize for carrying this material, the ad content was certainly not up to the standards that Opinion 250 considers appropriate," Meisner wrote.
"This kind of unfortunate activity can happen when carrying syndicated feeds which are not within our direct editorial control."
