Government promotes distrust when playing ‘I’ve Got a Secret’

ACHTUNG: The following is not a “fair and balanced” story. It is an editorial by the editor.

“I don’t trust guvmint… I trust the people.” — George W. Bush

“A secret’s worth depends on the people from whom it must be kept.” ― Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind

“Secrets are generally terrible. Beauty is not hidden–only ugliness and deformity.” ― L.M. Montgomer

“So long as I know it not, it hurteth mee not.” G.Pettie, 1576.

“Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations.” ― George Orwell

Public officials who wonder why there is so much lack of trust in government need look no further than when they discharge a public employee without adequately explaining why. We have come to expect secretive behavior from the corporate and business world, which will fire an executive and then offer a press release that suggests he resigned “to spend more time with his family.” There are times they deliberately ignore the change in personnel entirely, but issue a press release only welcoming the successor, as if the dearly departed now is persona non grata.

For example, there was a change in leadership for the Gun Lake Tribe last week. The name of former chairwoman Leah Sprague-Foror was left out of the press release entirely when the new chairman was announced.

Then there is debate about the nature of the departure. Wayland school officials say Finance Director Bill Melching “retired.” I believe it not.

The most recent troubling development was last summer when the Globe first reported that that city police officer Jay Anderson resigned, but last week changed the story to say he had been fired for undisclosed reasons.

This change prompted me to e-mail City Manager Tim McLean to ask what really happened here. His affable, but evasive reply was, “I can share with you the same information that has been shared with your colleagues in journalism. Jay Anderson is no longer an employee of the City of Wayland. It is an ongoing personnel matter and I am not able to comment further at this time.”

A CEO of a corporation couldn’t have said it better.

Public entities, in which the public pays the salaries of the employees, are supposed to be different in that they are more accountable for what they do. Though a business or corporation can fall back on being part of the private sector, public entities are supposed to be more candid. Just take a good look at the Freedom of Information Act and Open Meetings Act.

Yet there are ways for the public sector to avoid answering uncomfortable questions and one of the most successful is to hide behind the argument that “it’s a personnel matter.”

To be sure, I as a member of the pesky press, could file a FOIA request and begin a cumbersome and perhaps costly process they probably know I cannot afford.

The city and I were at loggerheads over this kind of thing four years ago when I cried foul at not knowing why Police Chief Dan Miller and City Manager Chris Yonker were sacked within the same six-month period. To this day, I have not received a satisfactory answer from any of the parties involved.

This reminds me of the Republican Party’s very effective political sign from a few years ago: “We like the way things are around here. Let’s keep it that way. Vote Republican.”

And don’t ask uncomfortable questions. We’ve got secrets we won’t tell.