By Marty Benson
The following statement was read at the School Committee meeting on May 18, 2023. This is an ongoing process exposing records of communication between Town and School officials.
At the last meeting during his update, Mr. Light elaborated that his goal for the District is to implement more transparent communication with the community. This is welcome news considering how over the last few years the administration has lacked transparency when communicating on issues including the retirement of the Colonial mascot, last fall’s lock down, changes to leveling, and the budget. Furthermore, despite its commitment to transparency, the administration continues to disregard Public Records Laws which were enacted for the sole purpose of increasing transparency.
On January 21, 2021, I filed a robust records request seeking documents related to the mascot’s retirement and the District’s response to the Zoom Bombing. In an effort to prevent the release of these records, the District sent me an offer to produce the records for the exorbitant fee of $1,187 dollars. On March 12, 2021, the District received my payment of the requested fee as an act of acceptance to its offer. The District was then obligated contractually and under the law to provide all of the requested records as outlined in our agreement.
However, when the District turned over the records on April 30, 2021, the response was minimal and multiple sections were not included. Despite being granted a time extension, the District claimed it ran out of time and that I would need to pay an additional fee to receive some of the records from the sections which had yet to be released. Under the Public Records Law, “Once fees are paid, a records custodian must provide the responsive records.” Thus, I appealed to the Secretary of State, and for two years, the School District fought the release of these records.
While this case was being determined, I submitted a records request to the Town of Acton seeking some of the same records I had requested from the School District. The Town’s response included hundreds of communications which the School District had illegally withheld from me. The records revealed that Mr. Light and the Town Manager sought to use the Zoom Bombing as push back on the Colonial mascot supporters. When the police investigation determined that the Zoom Bomber was actually from Arizona, the pair coordinated the withholding of important information from both elected leaders and the community.
Following six appeals, on February 10, 2023, in case SPR23/0114, the Secretary of State concurred with my assessment that “[t]he District’s insistence of an additional fee of $224 is nothing more than an attempt to orchestrate an act of acceptance to a new contract which deceitfully redefines the search terms of our previous agreement.” The District was ordered to provide me with a response compliant with the law. Thereafter, I received an email from Andrew Shen regarding the remaining records and requesting that I offer search terms in order to narrow the scope of my request. I responded by explaining that we had already agreed to the terms of our agreement and the District had to abide by those terms. Mr. Shen is now maintaining that I will need to pay additional fees to receive the records I have already paid for.
Rather than being transparent and complying with the Public Records Law, Mr. Light has wasted taxpayer money in an effort to hide the truth. He brazenly boasted on the record during a School Committee meeting (January 13, 2022) of his plans to disregard the law and withhold public records by saying “. . . we’re moving on . . .” If the Superintendent is serious about transparency, then he will immediately release all remaining records which are being illegally withheld.
I wouldn’t hold your breath, Marty. The town manager and superintendent, with the approval of majority of the School Committee and Board of Selectmen, have spent nearly three years suppressing the truth so as to keep their preferred narrative in tact.
You’ve exposed violations of state open meeting law and school committee bylaws, collusion between the town manager and superintendent in manipulating BoS agenda items, at least two undisclosed conflicts of interest (by the same SC member!) and manipulation & bullying of students.
These people are shameless. They are incapable of admitting they were wrong and accepting responsibility for the harmful impact their actions had on students and the broader community. They certainly aren’t about to start doing the right thing now.
I have exposed fraud by the Acton/Boxborough School Committee going back to 2018. I had previously exposed fraud in both Framingham and Natick and both school committees illegally excluded my child, abused her to the point she is now fully disabled. Natick’s attorneys (MHTL) are aware and complicit, I believe Acton still has the same attorney, Andy Waugh, – if you look at the ABSC policy for the laws G.L. c 44 s 53a, it should be policy DD and states how grants (Covid 19 Relief) are supposed to be controlled by the school committee. There is no policy for how the school committee is appropriating the grants which allows them to commit fraud, no paper trail. Same thing happened in Brockton and now they have a $14 million dollar budget deficit, same attorneys. Today, I requested to be placed on an upcoming agenda for public disclosure to require Acton SC address the fraud and the behavior of their superintendent (who is acting on their behalf) – please consider also requesting the matter be placed on an agenda