Do Not Be Silent, Wakefield

Our Constitutional right and civic duty to speak out, to voice our opinions, our support or opposition, is so fundamental to our way of life that when we encounter efforts to stem that freedom, it comes as a shock to our sensibilities.

When I heard Board of Selectmen (BOS) Chairman Brian Falvey’s six minute diatribe at the end of the March 10th BOS meeting, I replayed the tape to make sure I’d heard it correctly. I had.

In response to the myriad letters to the Wakefield Item’s Forum section which have questioned and criticized town government and the handling of a variety of important issues, Chairman Falvey said this: “The folks who are in their dark back offices in their homes coming up with letters they can write to the newspaper full of erroneous and intentionally-negligent facts, lies and so forth…..these people are using this opportunity to take over this town and mislead us and prevent us from doing great things because they’re not part of it.”

That is a loaded and very revealing quote, indeed. It says something very important as it is full of Chairman Falvey’s own assumptions as to why he thinks people write letters to the paper. More importantly, one can easily infer from this quote that Chairman Falvey does not consider the citizenry of the town as ‘part of’ our town government process, that dissenting opinions are not valued, that voters, meeting-goers and letter-writers are not a valid and integral component of the town process. This is a very troubling perspective from an elected official, especially an elected official who just spent several minutes (at the BOS meeting) talking about the importance of accountability.

Chairman Falvey goes on to say, “Stop throwing rocks at the good things and good ideas that are going on in town. When you read that stuff, do not be entertained. Find these people in the street and tell ‘em that and maybe we can fix it.” Fix what, exactly? Does ‘fix’ mean stop the voice of opposition? I understand the BOS may feel frustrated with letters of opposition and I support the board members’ right to express that frustration. But it crosses the line to tell people to stop speaking their mind, and then go on to solicit the aid of the public to seek out the offenders and ‘correct’ them in the streets. Way over the line.

Chairman Falvey went on to say, “The letters, especially the ones laden with facts and figures and data – there’s nothin’ better than to advance a great lie than to pepper in numbers and data and statistics… .” Damn those pesky facts. They sure do get in the way sometimes. This does sound like ‘shut up’ to me and that is certainly not a characteristic of someone I want making decisions in my hometown. Fear of retribution by town officials is already rampant across our citizenry, businesses and some members of our boards without the Chairman of our Selectmen telling people to be quiet.

So, as I sit here in my well-lit and sunny front room, I send my sincere thanks and kudos to all our local papers for continuing to provide a venue for all opinions and embracing our fundamental right of free speech. This brave and righteous protection of our freedom of speech, despite certain pressures to do otherwise, is commendable.

To the citizens of Wakefield, keep those letters coming! Remember “A choir is made up of many voices, including yours and mine. If one by one all go silent then all that will be left are the soloists.” And soloists do not a democracy make.