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Councilwoman doesn't want to talk to constituents on social media, but not for the reason you think [1]

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Date: 2025-05-26

There are plenty of legitimate reasons why an elected official would not want to talk to constituents on social media. Things like privacy and Marc Zuckerberg bending the knee to Trump.

Whatever reason you’re thinking of, it’s probably not why fundamentally dishonest Councilwoman Gabriela Santiago-Romero, a nominal Democrat who supposedly represents District 6 in Detroit’s City Council, doesn’t want to be contacted through Facebook, Messenger or any other social media.

Last Monday, she posted this on Facebook:

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If only she could explain to Mommy and Daddy that she’s an elected official and that a lot of her constituents expect to talk to her through social media. Maybe Mommy and Daddy can raise the social media limit on her phone to two hours.

But she’s an adult, old enough to vote, old enough to run for elected office, old enough to betray the public trust and old enough to be tried as an adult.

The real reason Santiago-Romero does not want to be contacted on social media is that it could mean a notification on her phone, and potentially a disruption to whatever she would rather be doing than dealing with annoying constituents.

But a call to the 313 number in the Facebook post is not a direct call to her, but to someone on her staff. And then her staff can filter the calls, prioritizing the concerns of the wealthier constituents over the troubles of the poorer constituents.

We have a very good example of this with Black Tech Saturdays. When the founders of Black Tech Saturdays only had a dozen members a couple of years ago, Santiago-Romero didn’t give a damn what the Black Tech Saturdays founders have to say about anything.

But after Rocket gave Black Tech Saturdays more than a million dollars, Santiago-Romero is much more responsive to Black Tech Saturdays, even if Change.org doesn’t currently reflect that. Getting a million dollars from Rocket confers on Black Tech Saturdays an importance in the councilwoman’s eyes that most of her constituents will never have.

There was something council candidate Anita Martin said to me which confused me. Martin said Santiago-Romero doesn’t go to “coffee hours.” It wasn’t until later that I realized that Martin meant “office hours.”

Almost every Monday, but obviously not this Monday, Santiago-Romero has office hours at some rec center in the district from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. So you think you can go talk to her at that time, but you’d be wrong.

Santiago-Romero is never at her own office hours. She has her staffers go, which might be appropriate when a constituent needs something simple that any staffer can answer, but not when a constituent needs to talk to the councilwoman about a very serious problem the councilwoman has been ignoring.

One time I saw her jogging near the rec center where her office hours were taking place. It’s great that she’s getting physical activity, given how long the council meetings are (specially with goofy Councilman Coleman Young II eating up a lot of the time with misdirected questions).

But Santiago-Romero jogging near the place of her own office hours sends a clear message to her constituents: you’re not important enough for me to devote any time to you. Bother my staff instead.

Santiago-Romero actually said on the record “This job is hard.” I agree. Maybe this would be a good time for her to drop her re-election campaign and find some job where she isn’t bothered by pesky constituents.

She would be much better as an actor playing a politician on TV. Then she gets the fun of being on camera giving eloquent speeches without having to do any of the actual work those speeches suggest she would do. Then any harm to the fictional constituents is the fault of the writers, not hers.

If you want more and better Democrats from Detroit, keep looking.

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