It’s a celebration of open and transparent government, and a free press
By Will Collette
 |
| This is Charlestown's idea of open government |
Even in a small town like Charlestown, town leaders fight
constantly to keep public business secret and to thwart prying eyes.
Charlestown has been ruled for the past decade by a shadowy political action committee called the Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA Party).
They meet in secret, allow no one to join, publish no public agenda or
minutes and yet they make all the decisions for Charlestown. Sunshine is the LAST
thing the CCA wants.
In 2013, they hired Mark Stankiewicz, a Stoughton MA resident, as town administrator and they keep him because he follows orders.
Early on in his tenure, Stankiewicz told me that he fully understands he works for
the CCA as long as they hold power in Charlestown.
That has put us at odds because, in the past year, I have been working to uncover the inner deal-making by the CCA Party.
Like most political writers, I make full
use of the state’s open records law, the Access to Public Records Act, in a
quest to get documents and evidence on shady deals out into the public eye.
It has been Stankiewicz’s mission, at the behest of the CCA
Party, to keep as much hidden as possible. He has the benefit of several
loopholes that state legislators imbedded in the APRA to make public disclosure of potentially embarrassing documents difficult if not impossible.
The public’s right to know is not absolute – there are some
government records you do not – and should not – have the right to see, such as
employee records, on-going investigations, proprietary business information, security information and
the like.
But neither are these exemptions absolute. As the Chief of
the Attorney General's Open Government Unit Kathy Sadeck told me, “Just because you CAN withhold a
record doesn’t mean you SHOULD withhold that record, especially if it’s in the
public interest.”
One of the most abused exemptions under the APRA is the one
that allows ANY communication that is by or to an “elected official” in their
official capacity to be deemed exempt from public disclosure.
Under Stankiewicz’s interpretation of this exemption, ALL
e-mails that show an elected official even in the “c.c.” line are considered
exempt from disclosure. To make a town e-mail secret, all you have to do is list and send a copy to Planning Commissar Ruth Platner, any Council or Planning
Commission member, even Charlie Beck, our elected Town Moderator.
Under this exemption, Stankiewicz prevented public access to
dozens of e-mails related to the recently concluded “SPA-Gate” scandal
where a CCA Party ally attempted to sell a small piece of land at a highly
inflated price. The e-mails could have revealed who was involved in this deal
and what was driving it. CLICK
HERE for more detail.
Incidentally, Ruth Platner avoids the issue of whether her e-mails should become public by not using the town's official e-mail system. That way, I can't get to see what they're blacking out. As I've speculated before, maybe Ruthie only communicates verbally or by leaving clandestine messages in the forest.
 |
| Stankiewicz is Charlestown's Centurion of Secrecy |
It apparently interprets a federal court decision to dismiss
civil rights charges brought by Narragansett leader Bella Noka against the town
and the Charlestown Police Department.
See the e-mail in its entirety, as it was sent to me at
Stankiewicz’s direction, above left.
Ironically, the actual decision IS a public record and you can read it HERE even though you CANNOT read Stankiewicz’s commentary on it.
In my reading of
federal District Judge Mary s, McElroy’s March 8 decision, Ms. Noka’s case against
the Town was dismissed on procedural grounds. Judge McElroy noted “The facts
relevant to deciding this Motion for Summary Judgement are largely undisputed.”
Nonetheless, I believe town residents have the right to see
Stankiewicz’s spin on events but because his e-mail is addressed TO elected
officials (the Town Council), he has blacked out all the content.
Ah yes, gotta love Sunshine Week.
In addition to the APRA covering public access to records,
the state also has a pretty good Open Meetings Act.
Meetings must be open to the public, meeting notices and
agendas must be properly posted and procedures to allow public participation
must be in place and followed.
Charlestown has been coping with its obligations to comply
with the open meetings law and the constraints caused by the pandemic through
its use of virtual technology. One technology allows you to actually attend and
participate on line.
Another technology allows you to look at past meetings and
review documents that were discussed at those meetings.
Neither technology is especially easy or intuitive.
Logging on to a meeting about to commence or in progress is
relatively easy – you can click on “Virtual meetings”
on Charlestown’s home page to get
access to coverage via Cisco WebEx, an app you need to download. There are some
instruction in the left-hand column.
You can't get there from here
However, if you want to view a recent meeting (or even an
old one) and read the documents discussed, that’s an entirely different and far more difficult process. Let’s look at how you find the link to video and content for the March 8 Town Council
meeting.
NOTE: the Town doesn't post this content until about a week after the meeting takes place so you must wait before you can look.
There is nothing on the Town home page to start you off. You will probably click on “virtual meetings” a few times, but that’s
a dead-end.
You might click on “Agenda and Minutes” under the “Government”
tab, but that’s another dead end. You won’t find it under the “Town Council”
either.
Even if you click on the March 8 Council meeting in the “Calendar
of Meetings/Events,” you don’t get there. It’s not on the Town Clerk’s web page
either.
I finally found my way in by using the search engine in the
upper right of the Town’s home page, asking for “IQM2.” IQM2 is the name of the flawed
program Charlestown has been using since 2015 to cover its duty under the Open Meetings Act.
I finally got to the IQM2 Meeting Calendar
page. NOTE: There are NO instructions on how to use this program. If you
don’t know what you are looking for, you probably won’t find it. If you don't have better than average computer skills, you won't find it either.
Click on the “Media” tab. Just trust me. This takes you to a page with a long alphabetical list of town bodies, and under each body, a long, long chronological list of meetings .
Click on Town Council meeting, March 8, regular meeting. And
presto, you get the March 8 meeting with a tiny video screen to watch the
proceedings and links to documents. NOTE: copied links from IQM2 often don't work. For example, this is the link I copied for the March 8 meeting but it goes no where. Try it and see.
I have been raising concerns about IQM2 with Mark
Stankiewicz since February 2015 and most recently, throughout the SPA-Gate
scandal.
Though I don’t feel a complaint under the Open Meetings Act
is warranted against the Town for its WebEx access to live meetings, I think a formal
OMA complaint regarding the ridiculous problems of access to past meetings
through IQM2 is long past due.
I had suggested one simple initial fix – putting an IQM2
link on the Charlestown home page with some clear instructions – but no response from
Stankiewicz and no action to fix this obvious problem.
I hope this issue comes up at next month’s Town Council
meeting on April 12 when the Town Council conducts its formal evaluation of
Stankiewicz’s performance. I suppose by the CCA Party’s “screw the public”
standards, Stankiewicz will get high marks. But if you are a Charlestown
citizens seeking to exercise your right to know, Stankiewicz has let you down.