Let me back up. Last week, Fowler emailed me a letter-to-the-editor. We try to run all the letters that come to us, and we are especially conscious of running letters that reflect a diversity of opinion on issues. We do not run every single letter that is sent to us, however. Sometimes, the letter presents "facts" we know to be incorrect. Sometimes, the letter is a diatribe, and we make a judgment decision that the letter would not contribute to the public dialogue. Other times, someone will send us a letter that isn't really an expression of opinion, but is, in fact, an effort to present a news story on the opinion page rather than on the news pages where such stories belong—or it is alerting us to a news story.

What we thought mattered from Fowler's letter was that the Girl Scouts get recognition for their awards. We think that's important, too. But the letter also suggested that we should be sending reporters and photographers to cover such events. With a limited staff, we just can't use our resources this way. What we need is a press release and photographs of the girls who were honored. That's what I told the councilman when I responded to his email. I also didn't want to give readers the impression that a paper our size can or should cover all events. I struggle each week with what we can cover and what we can't.

I also told him that I didn't want to run his letter because he had made a reference in it to a reception The Sun had held to reach out to community leaders in Sunnyvale. Our goal at that reception was to explain to city staff and officials, as well as school, business and community leaders, the changes we have made in the paper and the direction we have been moving. We talked a lot about Civic Journalism, a topic our executive editor has addressed a number of times in our opinion pages. The councilman's response was to tell me in another email that if he had known that we were holding a "secret, closed door meeting," he would not have attended.

I was dumbfounded that he would turn around our effort to improve communications with community leaders into something evil. He also accused me of setting up his email address in my spam-blocker! Spam-blockers at our company are out of my control. Does Councilman Fowler really believe that the editor of a local community newspaper would actually set up a spam-blocker to prevent emails from a member of the local city council?

Councilman Fowler has yet to send me information for a story about the Girl Scout awards. What he did do, however, was leave me a voice message expressing his disappointment that we were not going to run his letter and informing me that if we did not run it that he would read it at the "televised" city council meeting.

I presume this threat was supposed to make me change my mind and run his letter. Frankly, I'm not sure if I made the right decision in not running the letter in the first place. Maybe I should have changed my mind. At this point, I don't know if the letter will be read at the council meeting or not. But I can assure readers that there is no way the letter will run now.

People in the newspaper business do not take kindly to threats and intimidation. The whole thing, frankly, seems a little silly.

At least it did until I learned that Vic Ajlouny, the Public Safety Officers Association consultant, complained to my publisher about the fact that we were not running Fowler's letter.

Now I'm left wondering: Was this flap really about Girl Scouts or was it about Fowler's suggestion in his original letter that The Sun should, "stop looking inside city hall for your stories."

We certainly don't just look in city hall for our stories. That's why in the May 5 and May 12 issues, for example, we ran just one council story in each issue. The rest of the stories were about a soldier's efforts to help the wounded in Iraq, schools, business, senior issues, gardening, sports acrobats, the new India Center and more.

We intend to continue covering the whole community and not just the city council. But if Councilman Fowler thought the threat of reading a letter at a "televised" city council meeting would embarrass me and the newspaper and keep us out of city hall, he was mistaken. We are the only newspaper that attends the city council on a regular basis. We report both the positive efforts of the council as well as the controversial events. That's part of our job.

One of the designated roles of a newspaper is as watchdog over government. We intend to continue fulfilling that responsibility.

Sandy Sims is the editor of The Sun. Contact her at 408.200.1055 or via email, ssims@svcn.com.