[Infowarrior] - UC Davis spent thousands to scrub pepper spray references from Internet

[Richard Forno]

UC Davis spent thousands to scrub pepper spray references from Internet

By Sam Stanton and Diana Lambertsstanton at sacbee.com

http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article71659992.html

UC Davis contracted with consultants for at least $175,000 to scrub the Internet of negative online postings following the November 2011 pepper spraying of students and to improve the reputations of both the university and Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi, newly released documents show.

The payments were made as the university was trying to boost its image online and were among several contracts issued following the pepper spray incident.

Some payments were made in hopes of improving the results computer users obtained when searching for information about the university or Katehi, results that one consultant labeled “venomous rhetoric about UC Davis and the chancellor.”

Others sought to improve the school’s use of social media and to devise a new plan for the UC Davis strategic communications office, which has seen its budget rise substantially since Katehi took the chancellor’s post in 2009. Figures released by UC Davis show the strategic communications budget increased from $2.93 million in 2009 to $5.47 million in 2015.

“We have worked to ensure that the reputation of the university, which the chancellor leads, is fairly portrayed,” said UC Davis spokeswoman Dana Topousis. “We wanted to promote and advance the important teaching, research and public service done by our students, faculty and staff, which is the core mission of our university.”

Money to pay the consultants came from the communications department budget, Topousis said.

It is one more example of how out of touch the leadership at UC Davis is when it comes to their public perspective. Doug Elmets, public affairs consultant

The documents outlining the expenditures were released to The Sacramento Bee this week in response to requests filed last month under the California Public Records Act.

The documents reflect an aggressive effort to counteract an avalanche of negative publicity that arose after the Nov. 18, 2011 pepper spraying of student protesters by campus police. Fallout from that incident continued for more than a year, as investigations and lawsuits played out and spawned criticism of UC Davis and demands that Katehi resign.

In January 2013, UC Davis signed on with a Maryland company called Nevins & Associates for a six-month contract that paid $15,000 a month.

“Nevins & Associates is prepared to create and execute an online branding campaign designed to clean up the negative attention the University of California, Davis, and Chancellor Katehi have received related to the events that transpired in November 2011,” a six-page proposal from Nevins promised.

“Online evidence and the venomous rhetoric about UC Davis and the Chancellor are being filtered through the 24-hour news cycle, but it is at a tepid pace,” the proposal said.

The objectives Nevins outlined for the contract included “eradication of references to the pepper spray incident in search results on Google for the university and the Chancellor.”

That objective was to be achieved by advising UC Davis officials on the use of Google platforms as part of “an aggressive and comprehensive online campaign to eliminate the negative search results for UC Davis and the Chancellor.”

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In June 2014, the university hired Sacramento-based ID Media Partners in an $82,500 contract to “design and execute a comprehensive search engine results management strategy.”

The firm, which does business under the name IDMLOCO, said in documents provided by the university that its “primary goal” was to “achieve a reasonable balance of positive natural search results on common terms concerning UC Davis and Chancellor Katehi.”

A second contract was awarded to IDMLOCO in February 2015 for a fee of $8,000 a month – up to a limit of $96,000 – to develop an “integrated social media program for executive communications.”

IDMLOCO was awarded a third contract in September 2015 for $22,500 a month, or a maximum of $67,500, to “provide an assessment of the University’s Strategic Communications redesign.”

“Given the recent changes in the Strategic Communications team, this is the right opportunity to fully understand and thoughtfully design an organization that maps to the Chancellor’s goals for the university,” IDMLOCO said in a proposal to Karl Engelbach, Katehi’s associate chancellor.

IDMLOCO has offices on L Street and was co-founded by Matt Eagan, a campaign aide to former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Bryan Merica, a technology consultant who also is a co-founded of the Fox&Hounds blog that focuses on politics and business.

Merica and Eagan did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday.


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