In This Corner - Robert Slager |
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The truth doesn't matter to the S-T
For the past year I have read in absolute amazement the increasingly desperate slant of the Standard-Times editorial board. It's no secret that the Standard-Times has been stuck in a downward financial spiral, closing its printing press and laying off dozens of employees last year. To offset its financial losses the paper has shamelessly pandered to Wareham’s power elite (and by extension the cranberry industry) in exchange for advertising revenue.
But an unsigned editorial in Friday’s paper is so over-the-top bizarre it seems as if editorial viewpoints are now for sale.
Whoever wrote Friday’s absolute hit piece (the Standard-Times refuses to identify the members of its editorial board) should find a new profession, one where journalistic ethics are not required.
During a public meeting Tuesday night, the Board of Selectmen offered no apology for allegedly violating open meeting law 16 times in the past year. John Cronan spent nearly an hour reading two lengthy letters from the Plymouth Country District Attorney’s office that detailed what the DA considered violations. After finishing, Cronan simply said town counsel will be responding to the letter. Selectmen offered no public apology nor a reason why they chose not to.
As expected, theStandard-Times went ballistic because most of these open meeting law complaints were filed not by citizens of Wareham but rather by Standard-Times senior correspondent Steve Urbon. That’s the same Steve Urbon who engaged in a heated shouting match with Chairman Bruce Sauvageau last summer in the parking lot of Town Hall. That’s the same Steve Urbon who initially told the Observer he had recorded his confrontation with Sauvageau but later admitted he had lied about that.
The Standard-Times didn’t mention Urbon’s role in filing the open meeting law complaints in its editorial, but the journalistic transgressions in the piece ran far deeper than that. If the Standard-Times believes selectmen should have apologized on Tuesday they are entitled to that viewpoint. But to support that premise with factual errors and gross distortions of the truth is inexcusable.
To offer a quick review of recent events, the DA’s office ruled that the selectmen violated open meeting law 14 times during the search for a new town administrator and twice during the computer audit last year. Of those alleged violations, one is legitimate – selectmen failed to publicly announce they had appointed themselves as the search committee for a town administrator. If they had made that announcement most of the alleged open meeting law violations would have been negated. But because the selectmen failed to utter that sentence in open session, the DA ruled that the board had no legal right to enter executive session while interviewing preliminary candidates (the three finalists were interviewed in open session).
Although it’s highly debatable if that should count as one open meeting law violation or eight as the DA suggests, selectmen did violate the law in this case and should have apologized for it. The DA's other alleged violations relating to the hiring of Mark Andrews – that the town didn’t send a response to the DA quickly enough (Sauvageau said the board never received the complaint) or that Cronan failed to note how each individual selectman voted in executive session even though the votes were unanimous – seem petty at best and vindictive at worst. It wouldn’t have hurt the selectmen to offer at least a token apology, however, for no other reason than to put this in the past.
But only a person with extreme bias could conclude there was some nefarious intent on the part of the selectmen to operate in secret. There was absolutely no motive for them to do so. Failing to utter a single sentence about naming themselves as the search committee was clearly just an oversight. What would be gained by it? There was nothing illegal about the selectmen serving on the search committee. They just needed to acknowledge it in public. They simply forgot to do that.
As hard as it may be for the Standard-Times to believe, people sometimes make honest mistakes. The Standard-Times made a huge one in its editorial on Friday, wrongly attributing a whole series of quotes to Brenda Eckstrom when those statements were, in fact, uttered by Jane Donahue. It’s unlikely that mistake was intentional. There doesn’t appear to be any motive for it. It was just a mistake. It can happen to anyone.
Of course the Standard-Times completely distorted what Donahue actually said. The selectman said the failure to publicly announce the board’s intention to serve as the search committee was “a violation of the Open Meeting Law, technically.”
The Standard-Times responded to that quote by stating “Hiring a new CEO in secret is a technicality? The assertion is laughable.”
No, the Standard-Times is laughable. There was no possible way for anyone to misconstrue what Donahue meant. I was standing right next to the Standard-Times reporter when Donahue made her statement. She was clearly speaking specifically about the board’s failure to publicly announce it had appointed itself as the search committee. For the editorial writer to suggest that Donahue was claiming the board had a right to hire Andrews “in secret” is an absolute fabrication. Donahue said nothing of the sort. That’s horrible, even for the Standard-Times.
The Standard-Times’ view on the computer audit is even more twisted. Personally I applaud the selectmen for not apologizing for the absurd accusations made by the DA’s office regarding the audit. Assistant District Attorney Mary Lee concluded that selectmen violated open meeting law because Cronan called Municipal Maintenance Director Mark Gifford and Pollution Control Facility manager David Simmons “two of the biggest rats in town” during a non-infamous illegally recorded executive session meeting (interesting how convenient that illegal broadcast seems now). According to Lee, that was a violation because Gifford and Simmons were not invited to the meeting to defend themselves (even though Cronan’s comments were isolated and no further discussion of Gifford and Simmons ensued).
The allegation is pure nonsense. It presumes the other selectmen are mind-readers. Nobody knew Cronan was going to make such a spur-of-the-moment comment. Cronan said he didn’t plan to make such a statement in advance, so how could anyone have known to invite Gifford and Simmons?
The other accusation by the DA’s office cuts to the heart of the entire matter. The DA is claiming that executive session minutes regarding the computer audit don’t reflect evidence of a criminal investigation on the part of selectmen and should have precluded private discussion of the computer audit in executive session.
The Standard-Times jumped all over this claim, stating in the editorial “The unlawfully closed-door meetings involved the hiring of a new town administrator — essentially the town's CEO — and the launch of a covert search of town computers. The latter was an outrageous breach of public trust passed off as an "audit" of all non-school computers owned by the town. In reality, members of the board were trying to ferret out employees who posted negative comments about them online — not because the employees were making personal use of town computers, but to identify political enemies.”
The only appropriate response to that is “huh?” If the Standard-Times wants to shamelessly echo the political talking points of local hate bloggers it might behoove the newspaper to at least do some homework first. The initial motivation for the audit stemmed, in part, from a desire to investigate a horrific racial comment made on the local hate site about Town Clerk Mary Ann Silva that was believed to have come from a town-owned computer. Silva contacted the FBI to report the hate crime, and the FBI launched an investigation, which is still ongoing pending further evidence that may be contained on the computer disks. Selectmen, after hearing about allegations of corruption as well as specific misuse of town-owned computers, subsequently decided to use their legal authority under Massachusetts State Law to investigate other town departments. They chose a computer audit as one of the methods of that investigation.
There is no evidence whatsoever that the Board of Selectmen called the audit to “identify political enemies.” If the Standard-Times has such evidence I challenge them to share it with the rest of the world.
Here are the facts: The DA based its open meeting law ruling on what was contained in the minutes of executive session meetings. Did the DA or the Standard-Times ever consider that maybe specific details of the selectmen’s investigation into alleged corruption weren’t included in the minutes on purpose? On a number of occasions last summer Sauvageau publicly said the board would not discuss the investigation for fear of violating the civil rights of certain town employees. That certainly makes sense. For all the complaining the partisans have done about legal bills you would think they would praise the board for not incurring more.
Selectmen expected an independent digital forensic company to prepare a report in a matter of weeks. But then the DA swooped in and took all the computer disks, never telling anyone why and doing so without a court order. Despite repeated demands to return the disks to the town, the DA sat on them for more than seven months. It wasn’t until the Inspector General’s office flexed its muscles that the disks were finally shaken from the DA’s clutches. According to town counsel, the DA’s office didn’t even examine most of the disks. At least that’s what the DA’s office is claiming. Personally I don’t believe that for a second.
The only witch hunt going on here is being conducted by the DA. The Observer has publicly accused the DA’s office of intentionally trying to squash the selectmen’s investigation for political purposes. The Inspector General’s office has been investigating allegations of corruption in Wareham for nearly a year, before the computer audit even started. One of the primary targets has been the Municipal Maintenance Department, which is run by Mark Gifford. Gifford’s wife is a Republican State Representative. DA Tim Cruz is an outspoken Republican who openly campaigns for other Republicans in the county.
The DA’s goal seems simple – he wants to know exactly what the selectmen may have on Mark Gifford and other prominent local Republicans and apparently he isn’t going to stop until he finds out. That's why the DA wants more details on the executive session meeting minutes relating to the computer audit. He's trying to force the selectmen into sharing everything they know.
The selectmen didn’t apologize Tuesday night because they know exactly what is motivating the DA’s office. They also know the Inspector General’s office went over the DA’s head and took the disks so the state could launch the investigation the DA’s office should have launched seven months ago. They also know the town will finally get a copy of the disks back after every attempt by the DA to show that the computer audit was illegal failed miserably.
The Standard-Times should be applauding the selectmen's political courage in attempting to strike at the very heart of corruption in Wareham. But all the S-T can offer is a ridiculous claim that selectmen have only been motivated to discover the identities of hate bloggers. That shows a frightening disregard for the truth and exhibits an undeniable bias on the part of the Standard-Times.
Perhaps they should be the ones apologizing to Wareham.
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In This Corner - Robert Slager - 10 opinions posted | 