Reporters and editors aren't high on many popular professions lists. But there's a rung on the ladder even lower, in the eyes of some journalists. It's called, Public Information Officer. With general disdain for PIOs whose jobs are to filter cold truths out of "news" and spin messages like bureaucratic tops, it's not often that journalists clamor for creation of more PIO jobs in the public sector. But we're clamoring for one now. Kootenai County is by far the biggest non-education governmental entity in the northern portion of Idaho, and its challenges at times tax the imagination. Three elected officials - commissioners - oversee the funding of the whole, yet have little actual influence over departments whose heads are also elected. Those elected officials, like the sheriff, county clerk and prosecutor, oversee their own fiefdoms. They can and, at times, they have, told the commissioners to get stuffed. But more meaningful to taxpayers and other county patrons, communication has suffered dreadfully. A good PIO can go a long way toward fixing that/Coeur d'Alene Press Editorial Board. More here.

Question: Do you think Kootenai County needs a public information officer?

---

---