WHITMAN – A week after Town Clerk Dawn Varley’s attempt to publish the personal phone numbers of town officials in a press release concerning the decision to close the office on Thursdays, it is the phone numbers that are still being discussed more than the hours adjustment.
Ryan Tressel, of 210 Temple St., who serves on the School Committee as well as being the chair of Whitman’s Community Preservation Committee spoke about the phone numbers in the capacity of a private citizen during the Select Board’s public forum.
Noting that some of the vacancies on town committees were read at the June 24 meeting as well, he said the CPC alone has had vacancies for about two years.
“The reason I want to bring it up is because I want to tie it into the incident that happened last week, where on Monday, [June 30] your home phone numbers and cell phone numbers, as well as the Finance Committee’s were posted on the town website with a call for citizens to reach out to you with their complaints about the closing of certain town offices,” Tressel said. “This really bothered me for a number of reasons.”
With the exception of Town Administrator Mary Beth Carter, all those officials listed are unpaid volunteers and the town provides them with an email address and a chance to speak at their meetings’ public forum as opportunities for residents to voice their opinions.
“I thought the choice to put the private home and cell phone numbers on the website, while obviously, I’m sure, very annoying for you guys, I think it’s damaging overall for our town,” he said. “I think all of us probably know multiple people in town who are smart and dedicated and care about this town.”
But when people are asked to run for office, Tressel noted that few take that step. He and Select Board members Justin Evans and Shawn Kain all ran unopposed in the May election.
“By any other means, it seems like it was a threat to put the personal information up of committee members and Select Board members on the internet in that way, and I think it has a deleterious effect on people’s willingness to step forward,” he said.
While he wasn’t seeking any Select Board action, Tressel “didn’t want this to be couple days’ skirmish on social media and two lines in the Express.”
“I wanted it on the public record that this happened, and that I think, as a citizen and someone who does volunteer his time in this community, that I think it’s unacceptable,” he said. “This is not to say that I think you guys are immune from criticism. I think exactly the opposite, but that’s what this podium is for and what your emails are for – to be criticized, to be questioned, to have the choices you’ve made be examined publicly that way.”
Select Board Chair Dr. Carl Kowalski, said Tressel’s comments led into a couple of remarks he wanted to make during his chairman’s report.
“I was out of town last week, and off the grid,” Kowalski said. “Where I was, the internet was really sketchy so I was not fully aware of what Ryan was talking about as far as social media was concerned.” But he did have some conversations with Carter during the week and was aware that the town clerk published the personal phone numbers and addressed of the Select Board, Finance Committee and administrative officials.
“I thought that doing that was reprehensible, it’s probably illegal and completely out of line,” he said. “If it isn’t doxxing, it’s really close, because it was sort of threatening to the people who make those decisions.”
He also said that he liked Tressel’s remarks that speaking at a meeting is the forum for airing disagreements.
“There were more than two lines in the Express,” he said, noting the paper’s article covered the whole event, and very well, “ and that was partly because of Mary Beth’s talking to [the editor] when she heard that the town clerk was having that same message, wanting it to be published in the Whitman-Hanson Express.”
The Express did not publish the phone numbers.
“And the article covered a whole lot of other things that were involved in the situation,” he said. “That’s all I wanted to say. I thought I needed to say something as Ryan did.”
Carter said her phone number on the press release was her business cell phone number. By the time the press release had been sent to the Express, the Finance Committee members’ phone numbers had been removed from it.
Carter had also sought guidance from town counsel on whether publishing personal phone numbers was appropriate.
“And you found out that it was not, and you contacted the town clerk and asked her to remove it from the town website,” Kowalski asked.
Carter said she first went to the clerk’s office to ask that the Select Board members’ numbers be removed, and Varley responded that it was public information.
“I said that doesn’t mean that, because you have access to it, you can post that kind of information,” Carter said during the Select Board meeting. She then asked if Varley had filed a public records request for the numbers and addresses.
“She said, ‘Maybe I did,’” Carter said. “I said, ‘Then I’d like a copy.’ And she said, ‘Well, no, I didn’t.’”
She then instructed Varley to take the information down.
“That’s private information,” Carter said, asking the clerk not to be difficult.
“She said, ‘Get me something from counsel,’” said Carter, who had received that information just that morning. She followed delivering the letter to Varley with an email again asking her to take down the personal information – this time instructing that it be done within an hour, or Carter would have IT do it.
“An hour and a half later, it was still up, so our IT department went in and removed the information,” she said.
Select Board member Laura Howe addressed another point that had been brought up.
“I have been asking, since I ran, for people to join [and run for office],” she said. “I was very disappointed – and I actually asked publicly, and that is no offense against my colleagues here, but there was two seats up this year and nobody ran [against them] this year,”
She said she was also pleased with how Carter handled the phone number situation, even though Howe, herself, has already “given my phone number to half the town,” as ACO.