After Monday night’s Marion City Council meeting, reporter Phyllis Zorn sought out council members to introduce them to new Record reporter Finn Hartnett, who started work earlier in the day.

She waited for Mayor Mike Powers to conclude what had been a heated conversation outside city hall with former council member Ruth Herbel.

When she called out “Mr. Mayor?” to Powers, he walked away, yelling back at her: “You just want to play to the cameras.”

A camera crew from Herizon Productions, working on a documentary about the Record’s recovery from last summer’s police raid, had been in town all day to document Hartnett’s first day at work and the type of greeting he received from local officials.

Editor Eric Meyer interjected that he would stand in front of the documentary crew’s camera to block its view of Powers meeting Hartnett, but Powers persisted in walking away.