Casual,
That was the most accurate and well written editorial I have seen in a long time. Thank you for expressing what MANY people have privately stated. I hope you send a copy of this to the Courier and S-T. I would also send it to Slager's paper. He claims he has no problem posting both sides, so let's see if he will publish this?

UR,
One of the issues Slager has is getting quotes or information from anyone. It is my opinion that he has crucified enough people and they do not return his calls or emails because of his attacks. The result is what you read on his site. If he had been a fair and proper journalist, this would not be the situation. You can see from how he handled the OVM issue and the racial baiting situation, he cares very little about ethics and getting the facts.

Casual has done a magnificient job of exposing his tactics and lies.

Of course, this is my opinion :)

Last edited by Larry McDonald (2009-08-11 14:54:02)

Everyone, not to sound like a political science professor, but here's how I think you can win.

Unless you nail a member of the BoS for doing something that forces them to resign it will have to be at the ballot box.



The group of knowledgeable and justifiably outraged Wareham residents who post here have already started a movement with lots of potential to effect drastic change. It will take two election cycles to bear fruition, but essentially you have to replace at least three members of the BoS and assure a good person is the chair.

I think it's time to make your voices are heard in the citizen's portion of each and every BoS meeting. This will reach those watching on cable, and if you have something newsworthy enough to say the real reporters there will write it up.

From watching citizens speak out at other town's BoS meetings I'd suggest it not be the same old same old people speaking at the BoS meetings. A variety of people, including those known to old timers, should stand before the microphone.

You want to avoid giving the impression that only a few disgruntled residents are challenging the status quo for their own misguided reasons. Make sure that you present something that will be perceived as a groundswell of public opinion because, in fact, that is what it is.

I think you do need several of your best spokespersons who the responsible press will call for quotes, and who will always stay after BoS meetings to talk to those reporters. Of course their message should always be consistent but not sound like canned talking points.

Ideas on how to get the truth out to those Robert Slager reaches with his rag who don't have the Internet and in many cases don't watch the BoS meetings on cable need to be discussed. You can't let him have a way to rally a group of voters to his cause, either in the elections or town meetings.

His use of blatant lies and distortions in print, just as on television, can be very convincing and difficult to counter. A print newspaper has lots of credibility with many people even if you and I know it is a propaganda rag.

I strongly suggest you start raising funds through an existing or new PAC so when the time comes and you're ready to back candidates for the BoS you have a war chest to take out half and full page ads in the Standard Times, Courier, and if he let's you, Robert Slager's Wareham Observer.

You have to play politics better than current board members.

Anticipate how the opposition will attack you and have a counter-attack ready.

Try not to make any mistakes but don't expect not to, just learn from them.

The good part is that you don't have to play it dirty to win like they do. Just organize better, rally your troops, arm yourselves with lots of cash.

When the BoS election campaign gets rolling, let the games begin!

Last edited by urneighbor (2009-08-11 16:38:30)

I don't know if I have ever posted this on site before, but I know I have told many of you via e-mail and private messages the following: the Chairman of the Board of Selectmen has no more or less power than any other member of the Board. He is simply a "facilitator". He speaks with various department heads, mostly the ITA I would imagine, and he notifies the members of the Board what may be coming before them in the next meeting or the next few meetings.
Never more than one at a time and never telling a Selectman what another Selectman is thinking. Sunshine Laws. Wonderful things.
The Chairman is expected to conduct the meeting of the Selectmen in a timely, civil, competent manner. He is not to be an arrogant, despotic figure that has the audacity to insult the people who actually elected him to office.
If any Selectman would sit at a meeting and allow (in my opinion) an idiot to spew his own views, shoot his mouth off to citizens and voters, insult businesses and individuals in Town, and that Selectman doesn't say anything about it, or stop it, or at least object to it...he/she has no business being a Selectman.
He/She is an embarrassment. He/She should go home and read the local paper to find out what happened after they left.
Time to say goodbye to them.

I don't know how your BoS meeting is conducted. At ours in the "other" portion at the end when residents can speak on whatever they choose they line up before the microphone.

If you do it this way it would be pretty obvious and obnoxious if someone waiting on line was denied the right to speak.

Here Robert Slager rants about his First Amendment rights....

Marny...from what I have been able to gather, looking at past agendas, etc., in oder to be guaranteed the right to speak you must ask to be placed on the agenda.
That means the ITA decides, at this point, what should or should not be on the agenda.
I would say that the ITA has had enough headaches that he wouldn't want to add to it by denying a legitimate request of a citizen to appear on the agenda.

Liz, I hope you and the gnome  send a copy of the email to the Massachusetts State Ethics Commission (link)

I'd also suggest writing a letter to the Standard Times and Courier if he tried to speak and isn't allowed to.

Last edited by urneighbor (2009-08-11 18:02:22)

urneighbor wrote:

Liz, I hope you and the gnome  send a copy of the email to the Massachusetts State Ethics Commission (link)

I'd also suggest writing a letter to the Standard Times and Courier if he tried to speak and isn't allowed to.

i have not but that certainly is another step we are dealing with an appeal now.. thank you for the advice and link though..

Right, Marny...but...from what we have been told by Liz and others, the Chairman has hijacked the agenda. If he doesn't like your looks, apparently he thinks he has the right to not recognize you or allow you to speak.
If you are LEGITIMATELY on the agenda, they have to hear you.
Now we are told that the Chairman has hijacked that as well.
Any lawyers out there that would work pro-bono to get one of these citizens their time before the BOS?
I don't think it would take more than a letter if someone is denied the right to be placed on the agenda.
If the Chairman "stonewalls" at that point, I think it is time to call in everyone you can think of outside of the Town: The State Police, The Attorney General, The Feds., whatever.
Don't be intimidated by a bunch of punks.

Alright, I haven't actually laughed out loud through this entire process until now....but I just saw that Slager responsedto my blog post(s) on his site, and it's utterly ridiculous.  He misrepresented the truth, or flat-out-lied FIVE AND A HALF TIMES when he was responding to me calling him out for lying.  And he didn't even respond to most of the areas where I pointed out his lies.  I have to assume he thought this was the "low hanging fruit", but it was still and epic FAIL.  I'm only going to quote his responses where absolutely necessary - for the rest, I will only describe them.  Lord knows we don't want a copyright infringement lawsuit on our hands!

First, he says he doesn't post on this site.  That's true, but it leaves me wondering why.  I'm guessing he doesn't want to leave the protected solace of his pay-to-play elitist comment system.  That's fine, but I refuse to be forced to pay to have a voice in this debate, so I'm staying right here.  He said a while back that his lawyer told him not to post because it could look like he engaged in debate with Bill, but one would have to assume that writing posts like "The Delusion of Bill Whitehouse" would count towards participating in that debate.

Then he claims that I said Savageau "won't speak" to any other papers.  That's not true - I said Slager gets exclusive commentary.  Have you seen any other quotes from Bruce on this Slager-fueled library "controversy" in other papers?  I sure haven't.  Sounds to me like an exclusive.  There's our first misrepresentation

Next he claims that I said the Observer "has never written anything critical of the Board of Selectmen".  If you look at my post, you'll see I actually said he has "not reported on anything that this writer would consider critical of the current Board and its members in several months, if not years."  Now, I've been saving an evening copy of his site on my hard drive when I get back from work every day.  In the past 2 months, by my count, he has made 38 posts with some sort of political angle to them in that time.  Of those, nine painted the selectmen in a positive light, zero were negative towards them.  On the flip side, thirty-three portrayed selectmen "opposition" (Brady, bloggers, Coleman witnesses, etc) negatively not a single post was positive towards them.  I'm going to count this one as two misrepresentations - one for lying about what I said, and one for continuing to suggest that he's balanced.  And yes, I have the spreadsheet, so don't try accusing me of making this up.  I didn't go back any further than the two months because it was very time consuming, and the pattern had already become very evident.  Note that some articles were both positive for the selectmen and negative for the opposition, so that's why the numbers don't add up.

Next, he says that I claimed nobody could take a screen shot of his site to obtain a digital image.  He just made this up.  100%.  I never claimed such a thing - I just pointed out that I, and many others, are a little suspicious about how the administration got a hold of this ad and used it to attempt to create a protest out of thin air.  We're up to four misrepresentations in his three rebuttals so far.

Next he calls me a liar for claiming that he never responded to my email.  I don't know how to feel about this - I'm actually impressed that he put 2 and 2 together and actually got 4, but I'm completely flabbergasted that he would claim he responded to the email when he knows I have an email from him saying "I do not respond to anonymous questionnaires, especially those with an obvious political slant."  For those who are interested, I've included the original email, to which he never responded (and he knows he never responded) at the end of this email.  I sent the original email on June 5, with the intention stated in the email that I was trying to get both sides of the story.  I asked him 9 questions, including if he planned on performing a cost/benefit analysis of the audit when it was complete to see if it was worthwhile (seemed like a good 'investigative journalism' piece), about the technology behind his site, if he was going to notify readers of updates, a couple of questions about media bias, both in general and related to him, and a few other things.  On June 20th, he replied to a follow-up email that I sent asking if he received the email, and inquiring into whether or not he was going to reply.  It was in this reply that he said he was not going to respond to me.  Now he's claiming that he responded.  Bizarre.  We're up to 5 misrepresentations now.

He then says that he's not going to respond to anything else, followed immediately by a comment about me saying that he didn't note his latest article as an editorial.  I'm going to cut him some slack and not count his comment about not responding any more as a lie, even though it technically was :)  I'll admit, I didn't see the Editorial notation at the end of his article.  What I did see, though, was the section header that said "FrontPage News" right above the headline, and the lack of his standard "In This Corner" headline and pic. The notation of "Editorial" occurs at the very end of the article, after the "Read More" link, and the font size in the HTML code is "-2".  Real clear there Rob-O.  This is another example of his tactics - he slipped this in there, presumably so that people like me wouldn't notice it, but he can sit back and say "but it says editorial!"  Given that he technically had the word in there, I'll only give him half a misrep. 

So now that we've debunked all his claims, let's list some the things he didn't address:
Nothing about his violation of many parts of the code of journalism ethics
Nothing about his spin/propoganda tactics
Nothing about how his own math didn't support his claim of a $250k loss - when he claimed that $361k + $60k of donations equates to a $241k loss, a claim which he removed without notice from his site after I pointed out the lie.
Nothing about how he's taking about 4 minutes from a 2 hour meeting and using that to say it was a "recall meeting"
Nothing about how he's making improper and misleading claims about the 4th ammendment
Nothing about misrepresenting Cara Winslow's quote about the "traitor in our midst"
Nothing about implying that the former library trustees were "missing" $250k

etc, etc, etc...  It probably shouldn't be, but it's amazing to me that he picked these items to try to refute, and so utterly failed at all of them.  I suppose I should be proud of the fact that Slager finally lied about me.  Do I get to learn the secret handshake for the club now?


Finally, as promised, here's the original email I sent to Slager, to which he didn't reply.  He did reply to a followup email, and told me in that email that he would not respond to this one.  This is straight copy & paste, with email addresses removed:

From: Me
Date: Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 4:23 PM
Subject: Some Questions About Wareham
To: slager


Mr. Slager,

I am not a resident of Wareham, but have family who live there and I am immensely intrigued by the current situation in the town.  Like many, I believe there are three sides to any story - mine, yours, and the truth.  In this case, it would seem to line up as The Standard Times/Bloggers, The Wareham Observer/Board of Selectmen, and The Truth somewhere in between.  I have spoken to some of the "bloggers", and reaching out to you is my first attempt to ask some questions of the other side.  Please don't take these questions as attacks - they are not meant to be, as I am simply trying to understand where each side is coming from.  I will not be publishing your responses anywhere, but I hope to be able to engage in a substantive discussion on these issues with you.

1. You recently stated "In the private sector, no one would have batted an eye over such an audit. Employers have every right to know what their employees are doing on company time".  While it is true that employers have that right, this is most definitely a non-standard approach to performing such an audit.  I have spent my entire career in IT, specifically in information security, and I have significant experience performing these types of audits.  If I were a taxpaying citizen of Wareham, I would be furious at the cost incurred given the overall financial difficulties.  If the employer is searching for evidence of specific misconduct, a "carpet bombing" approach like what appears to have been performed seems improper.  If it's specific to Internet use, such information can be gleaned rather simply by installing monitoring software at central access points, bypassing the need to spend the time copying so many hard drives.  I would be interested to see a cost/benefit analysis of this investigation once information becomes public - do you have plans to write something to show if it was truly worthwhile?
2. You also state "...the logic question to ask is if nobody has anything to hide, why is there so much panic?" (SIC: I believe you meant to say "the logical question").  This seems to be a bit of a slippery-slope argument - taken to the fullest extent, why do we need the fourth amendment?  If nobody has anything to hide, shouldn't the government be able to examine everything, at any time, for the sake of our protection?  From what I've seen, there is a certain element of crazy-blogger-types who are freaking out and typing ignorant comments in all caps, but there's also a rational subset who is angry at the fact that the selectmen appear to be targeting specific groups of employees, or even individuals, and they are doing so with great cost to the town.  The silence from the selectmen and the TA can be deafening in this case, as it only spins the rumor mill up higher.
3. In your article when you state that two selectmen are convinced that the broadcasting of the executive session meeting was intentional, are you going to update it to denote WCTV's position that the broadcast was due to human error, and that Mr. Sanguinet apparently knew that "something" was wrong, but assumed that he fixed the problem when he turned off the speakers?
4. I am most definitely not a lawyer, but it's my understanding that executive sessions can only begin after a public meeting with a noted statement of purpose.  It seems that the executive session in question was held before the selectman's meeting - is that correct?  If so, is this a violation of MA meeting laws?  Also, you indirectly accused (through the "we're not accusing anybody of anything, but...." technique) a WCTV employee of being in league with the bloggers, otherwise how else would they have known to watch?  Will you be reporting anything about the claims that people tuned in to watch the public meeting, but heard the executive session instead?
5. I'm quite intrigued by the position you have taken regarding reporting of information from the broadcast.  If one of your sources gave you the same information as was included in the broadcast (which I have not heard), would you print it?  It is difficult to understand your position on this after you published some information from the investigation - specifically, the pornography that is alleged to have been found on police computers.  Where do you draw the line between what is, and is not, able to be reported from such an investigation?
6. You accused the Courier of giving Chief Joyce a "free pass", making it obvious why the Chief would talk to them to "spin" his resignation.  Would you agree that your publication has been predominantly supportive of the current Board of Selectmen?  If so, do you think that affects your access to the Selectmen for quotes, and do you feel that they view your publication to "spin" their initiatives?
7. When I look to the national media, the comparison I can make to your publication is Fox News (Depending on your political affiliation, you probably either absolutely love, or absolutely hate that comparison).  Fox has historically claimed to be independent, when it has statistically been shown that they are supportive of conservative and/or Republican causes.  However, the argument for their independence can be made with the balance that it brought to the traditionally liberal media spectrum.  Do you feel like your publication is truly "independent", or that it is supportive of one side of the debate, but balances said debate overall?
8. I have noticed that some of the articles on your website change without notice.   For example, the paragraph "On Wednesday morning, Sauvageau said Town Counsel is drafting a letter to be sent to the Plymouth Country District Attorney's Office as well as one to be sent to Wareham Community Television, requesting a full investigation." appears to have been added to your "Warrehamgate" article after it was written - it originally showed up in a different font than the rest of the article, but has since been changed to be the same font as the rest of the article.  Will you be adding notification when you modify articles to denote any changes that are made?  This seems to be standard practice on other media websites, and I'm surprised you don't have a policy to do the same.
9. Out of curiosity, do you have plans to update your website to use current technology standards such as RSS feeds to be able to follow the stories more easily? 
I hope you take the time to respond.  I'm sure you have concerns with my not giving my name, but given how heated the discussion has gotten in the town, I do not want my family's name to become involved.

Thank you.

I cannot believe slager interviewed sweet brucie about financial advice. Don't these people realize asking a "financial advisor" who owes 181,000 dollars in back taxes about the trustees is quite humerous

Apparently Slager attempted to refute my facts above again, and again he failed.  The only claim he countered was the positive/negative portrayals of each side of the debate.  He says he wrote a jeer about sweet Brucie on 7/17, and in his corner on 7/30, he wrote that the selectmen have said some boneheaded things.  Now, even if these were both accurate (which they're not, i'll get to that), then it would be 8 positve/2 negative about the selectmen, and ZERO positive/33 negative about the other side.  If Slager thinks that's "fair" reporting, then I give up, because that's just insane.  Now, let's look at his claims to show why they're bunk:

7/17 - The word "Sauvageau" appears in a poll, an 8-line blip about selectmen arguing at meeting, and a note saying he's not a wife beater.  The only jeer on the main page is when he calls a member of this forum "one seriously moronic, delusional and hateful human being" and another a "psycho stalker".  Maybe he wrote a jeer about Bruce and buried it somewhere, but it wasn't freely-available.  And if you call me a liar again Slager, I'll send you the copy of the file, along with the forenically-acceptable digital signature proving it hasn't been modified.  You're either lying here, or trying to game the truth to suit your agenda.  Either way you should be ashamed.

7/30 - He appeared to be referencing his "Ending the Civil War in Wareham" post.  The same post that has gems like:

Over the next month the remnants of the power elite will do everything within its power to bring down the government in Wareham. The one-sided propaganda battle has already begun.

I might start using the following line when I correct Slager...seems like it might be fun

“Mr. Urbon, you do a disservice to the people of Wareham when you write such blatant misinformation. I realize you will not run a correction on these matters because that runs counter to the editorial objective of the Standard-Times, but I thought I would bring the matter to your attention nonetheless.”

People tell me I should ignore the bloggers, but I can’t. These are not nameless, faceless people. Most of them are past and present police officers, town officials, library lobbyists and others who have a personal stake in the selectmen’s investigation into corruption in Town Hall and beyond. They are the true evil in this town

This is no “community” meeting, despite what Brady is claiming. It is a recall rally, plain and simple, one held in a public building that was paid for by your tax dollars

The line below was followed by "history lesson" comparing Brady to the Nazi minister of propaganda.

"I can dictate who gets in" is an interesting choice of words. Does that mean the future of Wareham will be a "dictatorship?" Just wondering.

Will members of this wonderful community be barred from attending the meeting? I can't wait to hear Mr. Brady try and justify that one. The lawsuits could be staggering.

The Observer has been predicting this recall attempt for more than a year.

(The Recall Crew/CBW/Power Elite) are so desperate to control the flow of information that they no longer care how dirty they have to play to accomplish their goals.

I support (the Board of Selectmen's) collective mission.

Now for a whopping five sentences of not-blind-support for the selectmen:

The selectmen have given their political adversaries plenty of ammunition to distract attention from that mission, however. Selectmen have made more than their share of bonehead statements during meetings. They have sometimes responded with anger to the relentless pounding they have endured. They have been too dismissive of other viewpoints at times. They haven’t always been publicly forthcoming with information.

Ok, back to supporting them and ripping the opponents:

But (the selectmen) have never wavered from their commitment to changing Wareham for the better. I have never seen any indication that anyone on the board has acted with premeditated malice. Despite what they may lack in political grace I have always believed they have the best interest of Wareham at heart.

I do not believe that is the case with most of their political opponents. I have heard lie after lie after lie from some of these people.

They stay in the shadows because if the level of their self-interest were exposed they would quickly lose their propaganda war, and they know it.

The recall crew will try to keep the good people of Wareham from having a say in their own future.

The only way the wounds of Wareham will heal is when people learn to stop being afraid of these bullies.

So that's Slager's example of his recent writing that has been critical of the Board.  I'm not going to do the math, but it looks like 5 somewhat critical sentences about the board, 3 supportive, and the rest is a hit job on the other side of the debate.  This is the example that he came up with to prove that he's been critical of the board.  I hope his readers take a look at this post so they see how blatantly misleading Slager's writing is, and how he continues to stay on the attack, and get even more aggressive, when he's wrong.

update..rip dinkle on break i am filling in..
COA director Marcia Griswold has told slager that "somebody came into the Senior Center shortly after" he "dropped off 100 free papers intended for local seniors and the Meals on Wheelers program and stole them all. Shortly after the hatebloggers started complaining that the Observer gives free papers to local seniors. These people are sick. How they can claim they aren't trying to censor the news is beyond me."

When were the papers stolen? Last week? Because today is Wednesday and I thought the rag came out on Thursday afternoon. This sounds a little fishy to me. So is she saying that the seniors didn't get any papers last week? Why just mention it now? You would have thought ragboy would have been all over it if it happened last week.

Maybe I misunderstand your posting Liz. Can you qualify your comments?

I agree with Larry. Let's not stoop to the level of they who shall not be named. Actually, even Voldamort has more character and moral fiber than these jokers.

Molly wrote:

When were the papers stolen? Last week? Because today is Wednesday and I thought the rag came out on Thursday afternoon. This sounds a little fishy to me. So is she saying that the seniors didn't get any papers last week? Why just mention it now? You would have thought ragboy would have been all over it if it happened last week.

Maybe I misunderstand your posting Liz. Can you qualify your comments?

I agree with Larry. Let's not stoop to the level of they who shall not be named. Actually, even Voldamort has more character and moral fiber than these jokers.

no other info was given update though mslilly want slager to charge her for the papers and give the papers directly to mr gaines to hand out so this wont happen again john donahue has asked slager to bill him half of the cost to split with mslilly..

Now that is funny. Did Marcia call the police? I think she should! There needs to be an investigation. People shouldn't steal and they should be caught.

Maybe he thinks he is debating himself?
That is his standard procedure. As an example:

By: robertslager on 8/12/09
COA director Marcia Griswold just informed me that somebody came into the Senior Center shortly after I dropped off 100 free papers intended for local seniors and the Meals on Wheelers program and stole them all. Shortly after the hatebloggers started complaining that the Observer gives free papers to local seniors. These people are sick. How they can claim they aren't trying to censor the news is beyond me.

He NEVER says the hatebloggers stole the papers, but he insinuates that is the case by how he writes the comment. Now he is going with poor pitiful. Look what the hate bloggers have done?

The questions that need to be asked, Did Marcia call the police? This is a theft and needs to be reported. Did she see who took the papers? If she was there when they were delivered, maybe she saw who took them.

The desired effect is to point the finger at the hate bloggers, but the bigger picture is that this is a crime and needs to be reported. Period.

Common,
My point is, I would like to know the facts, not slagers twisted comments. You are right, I 'll go and ask her myself. I was curious whether she reported it or not.