Editor's
Note: When there is something personal the editor/publisher of this
blog wants to post, she will do so under her own name as she has done
here.
The Concord Magazine Blog is discussing a variety of things pertaining to "Sunshine Week," not the
least of which will be my husband, Rich Stevenson's, Public Records Request
to the Town of Concord in April, 2008. A year later, this is far from resolved: the Town's response was appealed by my husband to the State and that appeal is still open.
While this may seem to some like a subject this blog should stay away from because of a perceived "bias" that I may have, let me assure you: every publication written by human beings has biases... they just can't be truly and fully avoided.
Nonetheless keeping that in mind, this blog can perform a public service by simply sticking to the facts as they exist, allowing readers to come to their own informed opinions. And that will be what I focus on as publisher and editor of this blog after this post: facts, documents, and other concrete information. Facts to read with your own eyes, ponder with your own mind, and to consult within your own heart. This will allow you to take a position based on knowledge of the facts -- not rumor, innuendo, and hyped-up emotionality. (The Concord Magazine Blog will publish documentation right after this post showing what has transpired; you can form your own reactions thereby.)
There's certainly been plenty of unsubstantiated gossip -- in fact, I haven't yet heard one thing circulating about my own involvement that is even close to accurate. Of course, there has been a dearth of concrete information because I haven't publicly spoken of my role in this before. But that's no excuse for passing around wild guesses as if they were true, which is what I've observed has occurred.
So I hereby elect to straighten out a few of these fractured tales through this post, though I feel no obligation to the public to do so. I write here to point out how many unfounded conclusions have been jumped to -- so many that Concord could mount its own Olympic conclusion-jumping team! In the absence of more solid information, some have decided they know "the truth" -- being human, based upon their own biases, agendas and false assumptions, of course. Is this the level of intellectual honesty we hold as a standard here? I believe we can do much better and so often do.
Keep in mind that I am choosing to release my personal right to privacy for a moment to relate these things here -- individual privacy being an overwhelming right granted each citizen. This is in stark contrast to the overwhelming obligation that the government has to be fully transparent. I will resume my right to privacy hereafter.
So, here's the straight scoop from the source herself:
It's been quite something to watch the events around Rich's request unfold. The high drama it has evoked within a small clique of citizens and Town officials has been nothing less than astonishing to observe. Some folks seem to take this so personally, when it plainly is not. The personal invective I've been subject to around this from that small -- but noisy -- group of folks has been just plain bizarre.
In the end (though this isn't anything close to the end of this saga), I have become very proud of my husband. He is a good citizen lawfully exercising his rights for the greater good of the community -- and taking both some crap and a lot more praise for doing so with a very measured, calm stride. I utterly support his -- and any citizen's -- right to make public document requests, and to have them answered in a lawful manner.
If we as a country applaud the strengthening of democracy around the world, how come some condemn citizens for exercising it right here? May Concord forever nurture and celebrate those who are willing to defend our rights and liberties -- we did so in 1775, so why not in 2009?
Photo Credit: That local character, that one-of-a-kind Rich Stevenson © 2009 Local Color Images
The Concord Magazine Blog is discussing a variety of things pertaining to "Sunshine Week," not the
least of which will be my husband, Rich Stevenson's, Public Records Request
to the Town of Concord in April, 2008. A year later, this is far from resolved: the Town's response was appealed by my husband to the State and that appeal is still open.While this may seem to some like a subject this blog should stay away from because of a perceived "bias" that I may have, let me assure you: every publication written by human beings has biases... they just can't be truly and fully avoided.
Nonetheless keeping that in mind, this blog can perform a public service by simply sticking to the facts as they exist, allowing readers to come to their own informed opinions. And that will be what I focus on as publisher and editor of this blog after this post: facts, documents, and other concrete information. Facts to read with your own eyes, ponder with your own mind, and to consult within your own heart. This will allow you to take a position based on knowledge of the facts -- not rumor, innuendo, and hyped-up emotionality. (The Concord Magazine Blog will publish documentation right after this post showing what has transpired; you can form your own reactions thereby.)
There's certainly been plenty of unsubstantiated gossip -- in fact, I haven't yet heard one thing circulating about my own involvement that is even close to accurate. Of course, there has been a dearth of concrete information because I haven't publicly spoken of my role in this before. But that's no excuse for passing around wild guesses as if they were true, which is what I've observed has occurred.
So I hereby elect to straighten out a few of these fractured tales through this post, though I feel no obligation to the public to do so. I write here to point out how many unfounded conclusions have been jumped to -- so many that Concord could mount its own Olympic conclusion-jumping team! In the absence of more solid information, some have decided they know "the truth" -- being human, based upon their own biases, agendas and false assumptions, of course. Is this the level of intellectual honesty we hold as a standard here? I believe we can do much better and so often do.
Keep in mind that I am choosing to release my personal right to privacy for a moment to relate these things here -- individual privacy being an overwhelming right granted each citizen. This is in stark contrast to the overwhelming obligation that the government has to be fully transparent. I will resume my right to privacy hereafter.
So, here's the straight scoop from the source herself:
I hadn't a clue that my husband was making this public document request -- he kept me in the dark entirely. I found out about it after Town officials did.- At the time, I was really upset with him when he made this documents request. I thought the timing was particularly poor for three reasons. First, it was just before Town Meeting, and who needs something like this to add to the already-thick-and-heady pre-TM mix? It was a distraction for everyone at a very busy time. Second, because he hadn't talked it over with me ahead of time, and it surprised me greatly. And last, because he refused to tell me why he did it beforehand, much less afterward.
- I still don't really know why he made this request, though I've come to understand it better over the past year. Though I doubt I'm aware of all there is to know; he continues to keep me partly in the dark. Many of you partnered folks know that there are some things you just have to allow to unfold in their own time within a long-term relationship. And since his "why" is really his story, it is also his to tell in his own way and time. I take this as my lesson in acceptance and patience.
- Reading during the past year about the abuses of the Public Records Law by the state and municipalities in Massachusetts, it shows a sorry record... though this particular case seems to me perhaps beyond those previously cited in the press as shocking examples. Is this a meaningful display indicative of our local exercise of democracy, transparency, accountability and administrative organization? You judge that for yourself; the correspondence between the Town and the State in particular about Rich's appeal reads to me like the script of a poorly-crafted made-for-TV-movie.
It's been quite something to watch the events around Rich's request unfold. The high drama it has evoked within a small clique of citizens and Town officials has been nothing less than astonishing to observe. Some folks seem to take this so personally, when it plainly is not. The personal invective I've been subject to around this from that small -- but noisy -- group of folks has been just plain bizarre.
In the end (though this isn't anything close to the end of this saga), I have become very proud of my husband. He is a good citizen lawfully exercising his rights for the greater good of the community -- and taking both some crap and a lot more praise for doing so with a very measured, calm stride. I utterly support his -- and any citizen's -- right to make public document requests, and to have them answered in a lawful manner.
If we as a country applaud the strengthening of democracy around the world, how come some condemn citizens for exercising it right here? May Concord forever nurture and celebrate those who are willing to defend our rights and liberties -- we did so in 1775, so why not in 2009?
Photo Credit: That local character, that one-of-a-kind Rich Stevenson © 2009 Local Color Images
