By Alex Wood
Journal Inquirer
Published: Tuesday, February 16, 2010 11:44 AM EST

VERNON — A company that wants to put a controversial 2,000-seat outdoor concert venue south of Interstate 84 has asked the Journal Inquirer to take its Vernon reporter off the story, alleging that she may be biased because she lives with her parents “close in proximity” to the proposed site.

Journal Inquirer Managing Editor Chris Powell has rejected the request, made by a public relations firm on behalf of TicketNetwork Forest LLC.

In an e-mail sent Friday to Viveca Woods of VMW Public Relations LLC in Greenwich, Powell disputed Woods’ statement that reporter Suzanne Carlson’s home “borders the site of the proposed venue.”

Carlson lives with her parents on Valley Falls Road.

“By my reading of the map, the reporter lives about a third of a mile away from the site property as the crow flies, something more than a mile by road,” Powell wrote.

TicketNetwork said in a statement e-mailed to the JI today by Woods that Carlson had failed to disclose in her initial stories on the concert-venue proposal the following relationships that the company said present “a biased situation and the potential for biased coverage”:

• The proximity of her home on Valley Falls Road to the site at 60 South Frontage Road, which the company alleged gives her interests “directly connected” to the story.

• A neighbor on Valley Falls Road, Jon Roe, “is the biggest opponent of the venue proposal.”

• Her father works for the town.

Carlson said her father, Jeffrey A. Carlson, works in the town’s Parks and Recreation Department. He also serves as a volunteer on the Permanent Municipal Building Committee and a committee on school building projects. She said her mother works in an after-school town recreation program.

Powell said none of those positions are related to the concert-venue proposal.

In response to a Thursday e-mail from Woods alleging potential bias based on the location of Carlson’s home, Powell wrote, “Are you saying that anyone who lives within a certain radius of the site has some reasons to oppose the project? If so, what are those reasons? The JI has many subscribers in any radius drawn in Vernon and will continue to try to represent their interest in information about their town.”

Referring to requests for specifics that he had made in previous e-mails, Powell wrote, “You still haven’t identified for me anything objectionable in the JI’s coverage. Until you do, it’s hard for me to take your complaint seriously.”

Contacted Monday by the JI, Donald J. Vaccaro, who is described in official records as a “member” of TicketNetwork Forest LLC and president of TicketNetwork Inc., said a neighbor of Carlson’s had made “racist allegations” that Carlson “didn’t put in the story.”

Vaccaro didn’t elaborate on those statements in a brief conversation with a reporter, whose call he said had come while he was in a meeting, or in the company’s subsequent written statement.

Carlson said Vaccaro has brought up such an issue with her, referring to a comment on an Internet site. She said she didn’t quote the comment because she was unable to find it online.

Vaccaro also questioned how the JI could objectively do a story on its own reporter.

In a Jan. 25 e-mail sent to Carlson and her supervising editor, Kimberly Phillips, Woods wrote: “Of the recent stories published by the Journal Inquirer, all four of them focus entirely on complaints of local residents. Of course, this is an important angle that should be covered, but the angle of how a concert venue can benefit the Vernon community should also be covered.”

Woods went on to say that TicketNetwork’s side of the story “hasn’t been addressed at all.”

Phillips responded that same day with a detailed e-mail citing instances in which Carlson and her predecessor in reporting about Vernon, Max Bakke, had quoted Vaccaro and other company representatives on their views of the proposal.

After the JI published a Jan. 8 story by Carlson on the previous day’s session of the Planning and Zoning Commission’s public hearing on the proposed concert venue, the paper published a brief item cor recting a factual error in the story and clarifying two other points.

The story described the proposed venue as being in “a quiet residential neighborhood.” But the correction acknowledged that the area along South Frontage Road, where the venue is planned, is in a commercial zone.

The story also mentioned “an October 2008 violation for work in a wetlands area without a permit.” The subsequent item, published Jan. 14, clarified that the cease-and-desist order on work in the wetlands area was canceled last March.

The story said the amphitheater is to be built “on nearly 9 acres of forest.” The Jan. 14 item described the site as “heavily treed” but said it isn’t legally classified as being forested.

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