‘Absolute garbage’ — councillor lashes out at SooToday coverage

In a 7½-minute video story posted late last night on her Facebook page, Ward 2 Coun. Angela Caputo has turned sharply critical of SooToday's city hall coverage, characterizing it as "a Beaverton or an Onion" or "snippets and jokes."

Caputo was responding to an exclusive SooToday article published about one hour earlier.

Based on documents released under Ontario's Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, the story probed the use of group chats by members of Sault Ste. Marie city council.

"They certainly seem to like to talk about me," Caputo said, referencing a 1,100-word news story in which, except for chat-group transcripts, her name appears only twice, in the 11th and 12th paragraphs.

Our article concluded that the released documents provide no evidence supporting Ward 4 Coun. Stephan Kinach's allegation of secret group-chat discussions during a recent city council meeting, and that most of the released chat exchanges were little more than friendly banter.

SooToday also reported last night that we had asked the province's information and privacy commissioner to order a more comprehensive search for group-chat messages, after we noticed that all four responding councillors failed to report some exchanges disclosed by other council members.

SooToday reached out to Caputo on Friday by email at 5:02 p.m. and by text message at 8:13 p.m., offering her an opportunity to respond to issues raised by the soon-to-be-published news story.

Instead, she chose to respond using her own Facebook account around 11 p.m. last night.

"Our friend at SooToday is at it again," she said. "I'm sure none of you... have been following the saga that they tried to make up about council having group chats.

"Coun. Kinach actually came up with that accusation. There was a freedom of information [request] and we were asked to give up any group chats that we had."

"So they have posted in SooToday that I said that I wasn't a part of any group chat, and then I turned in two. But you have to understand, I'm not part of any council group chats.

"Must be a slow day in the news. So again, throw the face in there. The only reason I'm dignifying this with a response or even giving it any air on my own platform, is because I'm so continually disappointed in the way that municipal affairs are reported in Sault Ste. Marie.

"There is one individual responsible on the biggest platform in Sault Ste. Marie for reporting the political municipal politics and this person's article is often some posts that should be in The Onion.

"It's always like some satire.... Because this individual can't be serious for one second about something very serious.

"To me, that headline should have read that Coun. Kinach's accusations against fellow councillors have been disproved."

"The FOI [freedom of information request] was so vague and it is difficult to find group chats. It's difficult to find things that just don't exist. We were all scrambling and scrounging asking, like, do we have to turn this in?"

"There's no chat about anything that is upcoming at council. We do not discuss council business via group chat. Rather than taking the upstanding road, we again find ourselves under the microscope.

"I guess on a slow day in the news, the news is that councillors get along. Councillors don't talk about council business.

Caputo said her personal takeaway from the freedom-of-information story is that Coun. Kinach's accusations against the rest of council have been discredited and are now "a waste of dollars and time."

Caputo also questioned SooToday's practice of disabling comments on stories at times when editors aren't available to moderate, "perhaps because people don't agree with the narrative that they're pushing."

"But you know, I will stand on this hill. I will die on this hill," she declared.

"I'm so sorry to the residents of Sault Ste. Marie who are so underserved in the news. You get like a Beaverton or an Onion. That's what you're getting.

"You are not getting facts, you're getting snippets and jokes. It's disheartening. So let's see where this witch hunt takes us."

"When we are looking for folks to elect to our municipal councils, why do people not want to do this? I worked my entire life to make a good reputation and a great name for myself in this community.

"I've been a community leader when nobody was watching. I did all the things I did to make my name, not because I was trying to make a name for myself, but because I was trying to build a community.

"And that led me to want to run for council, and I will tell you things like this are the reason other folks do not want to do this, and why people leave, because it's not really fun to be bullied online on SooToday."

"My belief is that nothing shady is going on.... I am proud to sit in that council seat because I want to work for the community and things like this just make it more difficult to actually focus on the work that needs to be done. It is absolute garbage," Caputo said in her Facebook video story.

SooToday posts live-streamed video of all open city council meetings and archived videos are available for viewing on our site for any reader wishing to gauge the accuracy or fairness of our coverage.