CAN EXPLORING THE F WORD (NO, NOT THAT ONE) BE THE KEY TO TURBOCHARGING OUR KIDS’ BRAINS AND SAVING THEIR FUTURE?

 Dragnet was an iconic tv cop show in the 1950s, starring Jack Webb as Sergeant Joe Friday. The show, the character, and the actor became famous for the catchphrase, “Just the facts, ma’am,” which he would frequently utter to some well-meaning but overly talkative female witness to get her to stick to the essential information, relevant to the case.

The phrase leapt off the tv screen (well, not exactly) and into our everyday life conversations and arguments, when one individual would encourage another to hurry up and get to their point. I can remember my sixth-grade teacher saying, “Just the facts, ma’am” or “Just the facts, sir” when one of us (often me) would begin rambling on when giving an oral report – usually a book report −in front of the class.

The reality is that Joe Friday never actually said: “Just the facts, ma’am.” He came close, when, in one episode, he said: “All we want are the facts, ma’am.”

So the statement that Joe Friday frequently uttered the phrase: “Just the facts, ma’am” is verifiably false, because tv geeks took the time to watch, from start to finish, all 276 episodes of Dragnet in search of the famous phrase and failed to find it.

That, my friends, is research, though you might consider the point of this particular research rather trivial. But it means something to me because it’s a perfect example of how misinformation can become “sticky” and how any information, whether true or false, could go “viral” well before the invention of the internet.

I attended Meadowbrook Junior High School (now the Charles E. Brown Middle School), in Newton, Massachusetts for eighth and ninth grade, which were the academic years beginning in 1961 and 1962. At the beginning of a ninth-grade social studies class, several instructors from Harvard showed up in our classroom to conduct a mini-course that would take place over several consecutive classes.

We had been told earlier that year that we should expect to be participants in special programs run by educators who specialized in those special programs. “Guinea pigs,” we joked.

Our social studies teacher, whose name I don’t remember, introduced the three visitors, told us we were in for a treat, then took a seat with the rest of us.

One of the instructors said, “We’re going to explore some concepts,” then went to the blackboard and wrote, in big letters: CRITICAL THINKING, and then asked us for a definition. Hands went up and the class was underway. Every time one of us offered a definition, the instructor asked: “Who else?” or “Give us an example.”

The two other instructors, positioned in different corners of the room, would throw out questions. What did we think about that definition? Other hands would go up.

They frequently asked us: “Who agrees?” and “Who disagrees?”

If my memory is correct, I had never before heard the term critical thinking and I believe that was true for most, if not all, of us.

This team from Harvard certainly knew how to engage a class. It was fast-paced and there were smiles and laughs all around, from them and from us. The room was energized as I had never before seen it.

But did we reach a consensus on the definition of this unfamiliar term − critical thinking? Not exactly. We came up with multiple definitions, which we eventually decided were all partial definitions.

Then, the instructor at the blackboard, who had been madly jotting down key points, smiled, shouted “Aha!” and wrote this, or something very close to this:

Being able to distinguish between fact and opinion is fundamental to critical thinking.

It might have been one of the instructors or it might have been one of us who suggested that we call that the “first cardinal principle” of critical thinking, which didn’t matter because it ended up seeming like a group decision.

So just how competent were we at distinguishing between fact and opinion? If we were going to consider ourselves critical thinkers, we would have to assess our competence and we would begin that process by defining those terms, which brought us to our “second cardinal principle.”

(This may not be exact but it’s pretty darn close)

In a serious discussion or debate, always define your terms, even when you believe the definitions are shared by everyone in the conversation.

And here the mood in the room would dramatically change.

The man with the chalk wrote FACT on the blackboard, underlined it, and asked us for the definition.

 A hand went up. “A fact is something that’s true,” one of us said. “Who agrees with that definition?” asked one of the instructors. Every hand, including mine, went up.

The man with the chalk wrote a definition on the blackboard, and then turned around to gauge the class response. After giving it a minute or two to sink into our heads, he read this definition:

A fact is any assertion that can be proved to be true or false.

I am sure we all looked puzzled. This was not the definition we grew up with. How could “The moon is made of blue cheese” possibly be called a fact?

 

A Way With Words is a radio show/podcast that deals with language. One episode, which aired in 2012, is titled: Can Facts Be False?

Here’s their introduction to the episode:

“Does a statement have to be true to be a fact? When it comes to the difference between facts and opinions, some may argue that facts are merely claims that can be proven true or false. Most dictionaries, however, assert that in order for an assertion to be a fact, it must be true.”

And that last sentence is true. Most current dictionaries define fact as a true statement. When dictionaries do list (what I will call) the “Meadowbrook definition,” it was well down the list of preferred definitions.

A listener to the podcast, named Eric, called in to relate this story. One morning he heard his eight-year-old daughter, a third-grader, saying aloud: “fact, fact, fact, fact.” He walked into the kitchen and saw her reading a cereal box. When he asked what she was doing, she explained that she was practicing a lesson taught at school on identifying facts and opinions.

In the course of telling him more about the lesson, up popped the definition of fact. And – as you may have guessed – it was the “Meadowbrook definition,” which Eric found disturbing enough to question her teacher, who explained that words change their meaning over time. And this was the “evolving” definition.

Eric wasn’t convinced. He remained disturbed by this changed definition and the two hosts of the podcast sided with him. They all agreed that a fact must be true or it is not a fact.

But wait! A commenter to the podcast, named Glenn, made my day with this written comment:

“Back when I was in 4th or 5th grade in 1980, I remember being taught the exact same lesson about facts being any verifiable piece of information vs. opinion. What’s remarkable is the fact that I remember that lesson clearly (yup, just as sticky for him as it was for me) − in my opinion, a great lesson that helps kids think. To this day, especially when talking politics with special relatives or friends, I often say ‘yes, those are your facts, but I can prove them wrong,” and I always think back to that lesson 30 years ago.’”

Exactly!

Have you watched a political debate, or two, when one candidate addressed the audience and said, “My opponent is entitled to his own opinions, but not his own facts?”

For Glenn, me, and some unknown number of others, everyone is entitled to their own facts and we are entitled to do the research, present the evidence, and do the thinking required to prove those facts false. It’s what our brains are wired to do and with the right training, it’s what our brains will do.

Does it matter that my definition of fact has lost the popularity contest? No. What’s important is knowing that our own facts are verifiably true and being competent at defending our true facts and at debunking their false facts. And that takes critical thinking.

Of course, people who stubbornly embrace their false facts are unlikely to be persuaded by logic. Can they be educated? Or should we regard them as hopeless? That’s a long conversation for another day.

I expected the next segment of our Meadowbrook mini-course – a simple fact/opinion quiz − to be entertaining and easy. The instructors would present a statement and we would raise our hands and answer either FACT or OPINION. It started with easy ones to lull us into a fall sense of self-confidence and then it got tricky.

Guess what, if you take a commonly held opinion and dress it up to look like a fact, you can fool even the so-called smart kids. And, when that started happening with statement after statement, fewer hands were being raised and most of those were kind of tentative.

I can’t specifically remember any of those dressed-up questions but some of them probably resembled this one:

Spinach is a healthy food.

Well, of course, that’s a fact. We’ve all been told often enough by parents and health experts to eat our spinach. But what about those who are allergic to spinach, where the symptoms range from a rash to anaphylaxis? Definitely unhealthy for them. So the sentence would have to be modified to be true.

How about this: Spinach is a healthy food except for those with a spinach allergy.

It sounds true to me but can it be called a fact or is it just an extremely popular opinion? Honestly, I don’t quite know where to put it, but had it not been for my mini-course in critical thinking, back in junior high, I might never be asking myself that kind of question.

Whenever I do find myself asking that kind of question, I automatically think back to my almost 60-year-old classroom experience, just as the commenter Glenn thinks back to the lesson he was taught 30 years before he listened to the All About Words podcast.

 

And now you will understand why this recent headline grabbed my attention.

ILLINOIS WILL NOW REQUIRE HIGH SCHOOLS TO TEACH MEDIA LITERACY

Here’s the opening to one reporting on this story:

“This academic year Illinois became the first state in the nation to require that media literacy be taught in high school classrooms. It’s an effort to combat misinformation.

The Literacy Education Law was signed in July of 2021, but went into effect this year and now requires a unit of instruction on media literacy that includes lessons on how to access information, evaluate media messages, create media, reflect on media consumption and explore one’s social responsibility to ethically consume media.”

My first thought was: Media literacy? This sounds like critical thinking expanded for a world where anyone with a smartphone can become a ‘trusted” information source.

My second thought was: Illinois? Not Massachusetts?

Being a critical thinker, since ninth grade, I naturally pulled up multiple articles written about the Illinois law and began reading the slightly different definitions of media literacy. Here’s one that I found both concise and comprehensive:

“Media literacy means the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, create, and communicate using a variety of forms, including, but not limited to: print, visual, audio, interactive, and digital texts.”

Can I sum up media literacy as critical thinking for those who consume media content and for those who produce it? I think so.

Illinois State Representative Lisa Hernandez, who championed the law, stated the obvious when she said: “it’s more important than ever that young people learn to discern truth from fiction."

Is it ever!

As ninth graders in the 1960s, many of us had one or two daily newspapers delivered to our doorsteps and we had three national news magazines and three network news programs to choose from. In my house, it was Time Magazine and usually the CBS Evening News With Walter Cronkite. One smart kid in my Meadowbrook mini-course voiced the opinion that U.S. News and World Report was his choice because it was “less biased.”

I think it’s safe to say that most of us didn’t worry about media bias back in the day. Most of my generation would likely agree that, compared to now, those were much simpler times for consuming information.

Our diet of generally reliable information, coming from mainstream news sources, may still arrive at our doorsteps and on our tv screens but now, through our electronic devices, information along with misinformation and disinformation constantly knock on our internal doors and ring our mental doorbells, begging, tempting, demanding to be let in. Without discipline, it’s easy to succumb to the noise.

According to a Pew Research 2021 study, 48% of U.S adults say they get their news from social media “either often or sometimes.” Of that 48%, 31% say they “get their news regularly” from Facebook, 22%  from YouTube, 13% from Twitter, and 11% from Instagram.

As for teenagers, an Ofcom survey revealed that more teens use Instagram as their main news source, with TikTok and YouTube coming in a close second and third. Perhaps most alarming is the fact that more TikTok users (47%), according to the study, get their news from “other people they follow” than from any news organization (24%).

Social media influencers, with millions of followers and few if any credentials, deliver misinformation to young people with such speed and in such volume that fact-checkers can rarely keep up. Information and misinformation in the age of Joe Friday could take months to go viral. A tweet from Taylor Swift or even about Taylor Swift can go viral in a matter of minutes.

One high school student, Braden Hajer, was acutely aware that teens need help in “deciphering fact from fiction.” As part of a project that he chose as a student at Naperville High School, he helped write the Illinois legislation and helped move it through the state legislature. State Rep Hernandez credits his efforts for “providing the inspiration” to get it done.

Once that mission was accomplished, Braden Hajer had this to say about integrating media literacy with standard curriculums:

“People love to complain about how school doesn't teach you what you need to know. Hopefully, this is one of those times where someone can look at a class and be like, huh, that's pragmatic.”

Before covid, Illinois began running pilot programs at schools across the state, where these skills were taught in biology and geology classes to ninth-graders, under an integrated curriculum called Civic Online Reasoning.

Here’s a discovery that shines a light on the problem:

Biology teacher Adrianne Toomey at Neuqua Valley High School, in Naperville, Illinois, asked her ninth-grade students, who were looking for information on the health effects of caffeine consumption, if they should trust the accuracy of the website foodinsight.org.

The biology teacher found that students tended to assume dot-org websites to be trustworthy. But after digging deeper, the students found that foodinsight.org was supported by beverage companies with a vested interest in selling caffeine to consumers.

This is exactly the kind of active, eye-opening discovery that makes a lesson stickier for young learners versus having passive information drummed into their heads. Such discoveries were not just eye-opening for the students, but for the teacher as well.

Toomey says that when she started integrating media literacy, “she would never have guessed that identifying health and science misinformation would become as important inside and outside of the classroom.” She had expected that media-savvy teenagers would be good at fact-checking, but they weren’t.

In videos featuring individuals wearing scrubs, Even her “smartest kids” were fooled into assuming that those individuals were doctors.

“Overall,” she says, “they were much more adept at spotting disinformation by the end of the year.” But she adds, “it’s going to take a lot more practice across every subject to make media literacy second nature to them.”

 

I am encouraged by what is happening in schools across Illinois and in other school districts across the country, but I happen to live in Watertown, Massachusetts and I wonder if we have teachers like Adrianne Toomey and if we are nurturing students like Braden Hajer.

I wonder what our educators are doing to make critical thinking and  media literacy second nature to our future adults, given the challenges that await them. I wonder what our administrators and teachers are doing in the face of an international media il-literacy crisis.

And I think about Eric’s cereal-box-reading, eight-year-old daughter, whose third-grade teacher set her on a course of critical thinking to prepare her for navigating the information minefields she is sure to encounter for the rest of her life.

Do we have empowering teachers like that teacher? And are they empowered by critical thinking principals?

 

Medial Literacy Now is a national non-profit organization whose website provides this description:

“Media Literacy Now is leading the grassroots movement to create a public education system that ensures all students learn the 21st century literacy skills they need for health, well-being, economic participation, and citizenship.”

When browsing their website, I assumed they were based in Illinois. I was wrong. Erin McNeill, their President and Founder is based here in Watertown. You might want to go to their website and check out her bio as well as their Board of Directors, HQ Team, National Advisory Council, and State Chapter Leaders.

Very impressive!

Maybe you’ll agree that, with so much at stake, a resource like this one would be a terrible thing to waste.

Just my opinion, of course.

 

Bruce Coltin, The Battle For Watertown

MISSING PIECES IN THE LOCAL CRIME JIGSAW PUZZLE – QUESTIONS FOR THE NEXT POLICE CHIEF

Sometime in our near future, Watertown will have a new police chief. Whomever that individual turns out to be, they will bring with them to the office a new personality and a new relationship with members of the city council and with members of the community.

The new chief should be at ease fielding questions, complaints, and demands coming from all corners of our community, including from those who challenge the honesty, credibility, and legitimacy of the police.

As a member of the community, I have questions about how policing is being conducted in Watertown at a time when non-violent crime – shoplifting and other categories of theft – seems to be rampant while violent crimes, common in nearby communities, seem to be almost nonexistent within our borders.

At the top of my list of questions are:

What should the general public know about the threat of violent crime in Watertown? (How serious is it?)

How does the WPD deal with it? (I’m looking for specifics)

What should we not know about how the WPD deals with violent crime?

Why exactly should we not know it?

A recent story appeared a few months ago on the Massachusetts State Police Facebook page. There are three mentions that stand out to me.

One mention will be obvious everyone. One will be obvious to tv crime junkies like me and a third surprised me and might also surprise you unless you are a member or close observer of law enforcement.

We’ll see if you have the same reactions to those three mentions that I had. Also, I would like you to ask yourself two questions: What information does this story leave out? And what more would you like to know about this story, if you were allowed to know it?

Here’s the story:

August 21, 2022 – Massachusetts State Police

STATE POLICE, FEDERAL AGENTS, TASK FORCE INTERCEPT 15 KILOS OF COCAINE BROUGHT INTO MASS. FROM MEXICO, TAKE TWO INTO CUSTODY FOR TRAFFICKING

“Massachusetts State Police, federal agents, and members of a joint task force on Monday apprehended two Mexican nationals who brought 15 kilograms of cocaine into the state from Mexico in a tractor-trailer. The two suspects were arrested after surveillance officers observed a narcotics transaction at the Ludlow Service Plaza.”

“Gerardo Madrigal Quintero, 23, of Culiacan, Mexico, and Joel Enrique Armenta Castro, 30, of Mochis, Sinaloa, Mexico, were taken into custody by State Troopers, FBI-Boston special agents and task force officers assigned to the FBI Boston Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Strike Force, including members of the State Police Narcotics Section. Both men have been charged by the state with trafficking in 200 grams or more of cocaine and conspiracy to violate drug law and are being prosecuted by Hampden District Attorney Anthony Gulluni’s Office.”

“This case is being investigated by the Boston Organized Drug Enforcement Strike Force that includes the FBI Boston Division, members of the Massachusetts State Police Narcotics Section, the Concord, Hudson, Peabody, Reading, Waltham and Watertown Police Departments, Massachusetts Department of Correction, and the Norfolk County Sheriff’s Department.”

The stand-out mention obvious to everyone is the Waltham and Watertown Police Departments. What was conspicuously left out is: What was their involvement in this investigation? The arrests were made 75 miles away, in Ludlow.

The less obvious stand-out mention is Sinaloa, Mexico. If you binge-watched Narcos Mexico, you are aware that Sinaloa is home to one of the oldest, most prominent, and most ruthless drug cartels in the world. Were the two suspects independent operators? Highly unlikely. Were they members of the Sinaloa cartel? I would like to know.

The surprising stand-out mention (to me) referred to the number of law enforcement agencies involved in the investigation, comprised of federal, state, county, and local – totaling eleven! This raises several questions. Clearly (in my amateur opinion) this case did not begin with the arrests in Ludlow. So, where exactly did it begin? Possibly Mexico? And how did this investigation, involving an extensive network of law enforcement agencies begin?

If we had the whole picture, would we see a dotted line connecting the Sinaloa cartel and the WPD?

I doubt that we will learn more until the investigation moves forward to the point where the DOJ or the DEA makes more of the story public. In the meantime, I am forced to speculate.

We know that the Mexican and Latin American cartels are drug suppliers that smuggle heroin, counterfeit opioids, and fentanyl into the U.S. In fact, it is reasonable to suspect, from following recent trends, that the cocaine that was seized might be laced with fentanyl, making it more profitable, more addictive, and more deadly.

Once smuggled into the U.S., distributors take over, either selling the product directly to users or wholesaling it to dealers. These distributors are violent street gangs, waging ongoing battles for territory and customers while terrorizing the neighborhoods they occupy.

Ten miles from the Ludlow service plaza is the city of Springfield, home to approximately 30 violent street gangs, including the infamous Latin Kings. All of them distribute or deal illicit drugs.

So, what exactly does the WPD know about how much of the cocaine supply was headed to Waltham and Watertown, how it would arrive here, and how it would be sold once it arrived?

Another case that is even more alarming and also hits close to home is this one. Like the previous case, it provides us with some valuable puzzle pieces but keeps some key pieces in a box, out of our sight.

(I’ve mentioned this one in a previous blog post, Gangbangers, Fentanyl, Snapchat and Why Teenagers Are Sitting Ducks but it has equal relevance here)

February 16, 2022

Department of Justice, U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Massachusetts

TWO RHODE ISLAND MEN CHARGED IN WIDE-RANGING FENTANYL TRAFFICKING CONSPIRACY

“Jasdrual Perez, 33, of Cranston, R.I., and Erik Ventura, 33, of Providence, R.I., were charged with one count each of conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute 400 grams or more of fentanyl.

According to the charging documents, in September 2019, agents began an investigation into a drug trafficking organization (DTO) headed by Perez. The investigation revealed that Perez, Ventura and others allegedly conspired to distribute large quantities of controlled substances, including fentanyl pills, to customers in numerous locations across Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New York.

The investigation further revealed that the DTO manufactured fentanyl pills for distribution. In July 2021, law enforcement seized close to 1,100 counterfeit oxycodone pills suspected to contain fentanyl in Dedham, allegedly attributable to the Perez DTO.”

So, this press release is alarming because it identifies “counterfeit oxycodone pills, suspected of containing fentanyl.” And while it indicates intended distribution across Massachusetts and specifically mentions Dedham, there is no specific mention of Watertown or Waltham.

However, the Facebook page of the Newton Police Department adds a critical piece of information. Here’s the headline:

February 16, 2022

ANOTHER HUGE CASE INVOLVING A NEWTON POLICE TASK FORCE OFFICER THAT RESULTED IN THE ARREST OF TWO INDIVIDUALS AND MORE THAN 50,000 COUNTERFEIT OXYCODONE PILLS SUSPECTED TO CONTAIN FENTANYL SEIZED.

Here’s their shoutout to a Newton police detective:

“TFO Detective Spirito was instrumental to this case and the culmination of this incredibly successful investigation. We are grateful to Detective Spirito for representing NPD as a member of the DEA task force and for the team's efforts in removing this poison from our communities and holding drug trafficking organizations accountable.”

So why was a Newton police detective involved in the arrests of two Rhode Island drug dealers?

I asked that question through the Newton Police Department’s Facebook page.

The answer provided was that the Newton officer was assigned to the Boston area task force of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and he “was a significant asset in assistance with the investigation.”

I also asked if the fact that a Newton police officer was involved in the case meant that some amount of those counterfeit pills was intended to be distributed in Newton. Because if Newton was one of the communities being targeted, residents of Watertown might have reason to be concerned that some of those counterfeit oxycodone pills, laced with fentanyl − a drug 50 times stronger than heroin − would have gotten into the hands of some unsuspecting Watertown residents, including school kids.

Here’s the answer I received from the Newton Police Department:

“We have no direct information that any of the drugs seized were heading to Newton, but with that large amount, I'm sure some would have definitely made it this way!”

Well, if “made it this way” means Newton, it also means Waltham, Belmont, and Watertown. Drug dealers go where the customers are. And there are customers everywhere.

If we add to these two stories, the many reports of drug-related gang turf wars in Boston, Lawrence, Lowell, New Bedford, Cambridge, and Somerville and the reports of drug deals and arrests in Watertown (there are dozens), Waltham, Newton, Belmont, and other Boston suburbs, over the past few years, a picture emerges of a serious regional crime threat being countered by a regional law enforcement network.

I’m guessing that there are many ongoing investigations, some of them interconnected, and that key information cannot be shared with the public without those investigations and future prosecutions being compromised. The jigsaw puzzle will always have missing pieces because, when releasing information, there must be a line that can’t be crossed.

But the new police chief might be willing and able to bring us closer to that line and give us a better reading on Watertown’s current crime threat and some valuable insight into how the WPD addresses it.

Maybe then, we can begin to gain valuable perspective on the challenges of policing in a rapidly changing environment that surrounds and permeates a rapidly changing city.

 

Bruce Coltin, The Battle for Watertown

 

CATCHING LIGHTNING IN A BOTTLE - WATERTOWN'S SNAGGING OF GEORGE PROAKIS

If you don’t spend a lot of time on social media sites, good for you! If you use that spare time to get healthier, wealthier, or wiser, you are a much happier person than many of your friends and neighbors – and former neighbors.

On the other hand, there is something you are missing.

I am speaking, or course, of the animosity and resentment that exists between longtime residents regarding relative newcomers, homeowners regarding renters, drivers regarding bicyclists, bicyclists regarding drivers, residents regarding developers, and ordinary people regarding local government.

Here are some specific comments that I’ve collected from the past two years:

“There are ugly buildings everywhere you look. The council is only interested in money.”

“The town has sold out to the developers. It’s a shame.”

“The traffic is ridiculous. You can’t drive down Main Street anymore.”

“They keep taking away parking spaces from businesses. Nobody cares. Their customers will just go someplace else.”

“The town I grew up in is ruined. I will never move back.”

“I came back to Watertown to visit my mother and I couldn’t even recognize the streets. I will never move back here.”

“This was a special town. Not anymore. What made it special is gone.

“Normal people can’t afford to live here.”

“Newcomers from Cambridge are trying to turn us into another Cambridge.”

“We have already turned into Somerville.”

 

Enter the new Watertown City Manager, the former Executive Director of Strategic Planning and Development of the City of Somerville, George Proakis.

The city manager search committee reviewed twenty-three applications from those wishing to be interviewed. Twenty either failed to make the cut or dropped out for reasons of their own.

On May 9, at a special meeting of the city council, the three finalists came before the public to introduce themselves and to be grilled. George Proakis was up first.

I expected that many of the questions would be very specific focusing on whatever particular issue was nearest and dearest to the resident asking their question.

I went to the podium to ask him my own question. I wanted it to be broad. I wanted to see if, without prompting, his answer would address deep divisions within the Somerville community that would have a bearing on how he would address deep divisions in Watertown.

I asked him this question:

What was the single biggest struggle you faced in dealing with the people of Somerville and how did you handle that?

Here is the beginning of his answer:

“I think the single biggest struggle occurred early in my time in Somerville when we were trying to solve…one of the quintessential problems of local government in Massachusetts is trying to solve the pull and disagreement between those who want nothing to change and those who want to make all of the difference in the world in our community by changing everything.”

The “pull and disagreement.” He certainly hit that nail on the head. He might have stopped right here and taken the next question from the podium but we would soon be learning that when George Proakis answers a question, he leaves no particle of it unanswered.

He continued:

“And I think really when you get down to it, one of the fundamental issues is that communities are going to change. They’re going to change whether you like them to change or don’t like them to change they’re going to change.”

Change is going to happen, whether you like it or not. This will of course upset a bunch of people who air their grievances mostly or only on social media sites – especially those who believe that the Watertown they once knew has been hijacked by developers with the help of our elected representatives.

“What you have in a position of city manager or in a position as I have in Somerville right now is a determination to make whether you let those changes happen or whether you guide those changes.”

How will the new manager guide change? He provided a solid road map in the remainder of this answer and in his answers to other questions in both the meeting on May 9 and the meeting on May 12, where this time he would face questions, not from the public, but from each member of the city council.

At the May 12 meeting, George was up last.

Councilor Izzo asked him a question that needed to be asked. Of the three finalists, George was alone in not being a current town/city manager. She asked him how he would handle being a first-time CEO.

“The challenge of being the chief executive officer involves having the right team, doing a lot of listening, doing a lot of delegating and making sure that the team as a whole is pulling in the direction of the vision and values of the community and where the council wants everybody to go and that is certainly on a larger scale than what I have done in communities where I have worked but I do believe that I can pull those pieces together and continue to do that in that circumstance.”

This is the first part of his answer and it was pitch-perfect, summarizing his management style, while conveying the rare managerial combination of confidence and humility. He then went on to add details and examples.

Here and throughout the process, George did what the two other candidates did not do. Both of the other candidates took every opportunity to assure us that they could do the job. George used his time to demonstrate how he would do the job.

The sharp contrast between a three-dimensional candidate and his two opponents, who both came off as two dimensional by comparison, was crystal clear.

At the end of the March 12 meeting, with all the interviews completed, City Council President, Mark Sideris opened the meeting for discussion. There would not be an official vote – that would come later – just discussion. Would the councilors tip their hands as to where they were leaning or would they choose to play it close to the vest?

Well, they did more than just tip their hands. They threw their cards on the table for all to see.

Council Vice President Piccirilli, deciding that there was no reason for subtlety or nuance, or hand wringing (They were all so great, it’s hard to decide) declared that “George Proakis was head and shoulders above the rest.”

Council President Sideris ended the discussion with his own declaration that he would be voting for George Proakis and he would not be changing his mind.

Every other councilor, except for one, either stated or strongly hinted that they would be voting for George. Councilor Palomba told us that he was not ready to weigh-in, because he needed to go back through his notes.

Go back through his notes? What did he see that the others didn’t? Or what did he miss that the others saw so clearly?

But it was Councilor Gardner (I can’t believe I’m saying this) who best captured the essence of the Proakis performance.

“I too was so impressed by George Proakis and I don’t want to pile on but I just will say I thought his answers were the most substantive and specific, which I really appreciated. There were a lot of generalities that were said over and over again.”

True. Giving generalities is playing it safe. But we saw for ourselves that generalities are not part of the Proakis repertoire. At this moment, when transparency is such a popular buzz word, he was not just transparent, he was aggressively transparent.

“I think he really understands at a level that I don’t think I yet understand, I hope I do one day, the intricate connectivity of the issues that we’re facing. Climate has to do with transportation, has to do with urban growth has to do with revenue growth from businesses coming in, has to go back to housing so we have all these things that have to work to together and I think he thinks of these things in a systemic way which I think is important.

And I think he’s a learning machine.”

Yes, Councilor, he demonstrated that he is both teacher and student − natural roles for a manager who embodies generous amounts of both confidence and humility.

The councilor continues:

“And I think we’re going to need him, because whoever gets this job is going to have to hit the ground running very very quickly.”

In an answer to a resident’s question, at the May 9 meeting, George said: “There a thousand ideas swarming through my head of what I might do if I get this job but I haven’t figured out what I will do first.”

I strongly suspect that he has already hit the ground running and that some of those thousand swarming ideas have already begun to see the light of day. We will soon know what he decided to do first.

The councilor ends with a final observation:

“And I think he’s got a very curious mind.”

Yes, Councilor, all lifelong students are driven by their irrepressible curiosity.

On May 24, by a unanimous vote of the city council, George Proakis became Watertown’s first city manager in over twenty-nine years.

As he goes about his job and as his actions and style become known to the general public, social media will begin to heat-up. It is the nature of the job that he will become a hero to some, a villain to others, and probably a mixed bag to the majority.

Probably sooner than he would like, he will be facing some very deep-seated cynicism.

Government doesn’t give a damn about what we think!

Government does whatever it wants to do!

Government thinks we’re stupid!

Government has always told us lies and always will!

What those of us who have carefully watched the interviews have learned is that George is both a world-class explainer and listener. He will be on an endless mission of reaching out to the entire community.

The question is:

How much of the community will be reaching back?

 

Bruce Coltin, The Battle for Watertown

 

 

AT THE CITY COUNCIL MEETING ON JULY 12, THE BRAT PACK WON AND THE INSTITUTION LOST

There are several versions of this meme currently circulating on social media. One of them goes like this:

WHEN SOMEONE INVITES ME TO MAKE MYSELF AT HOME

I REARRANGE THEIR FURNITURE

AND DISCIPLINE THEIR CHILDREN 

At the risk of overanalyzing the joke, the reason it’s funny is because we can so vividly picture the outrageous behavior. It’s a kind of Marxist humor – Groucho, not Karl. Although, maybe some of both.

Someone else’s home is not really our home and we would never presume to take our host’s invitation so literally but we can laugh at the image of someone who does, while understanding the violation of boundaries underlying the joke.

Most of us have had someone in our lives who disrespected obvious boundaries and in doing so, disrespected us. We probably stopped inviting them in.

About an hour into the July 12, 2022 meeting of the Watertown City Council, after dealing with mundane, routine business concerning NSTAR and National Grid, the time arrived for Councilor Bays to present her resolution, titled:

RESOLUTION IN SUPPORT OF A STATE HOUSE SENATE EMPLOYEE UNION

You can hear it being read in its entirety here at 1:06:00 or you can go directly to my transcript of Council Vice President Piccirilli’s statement as to why he would be voting no on the resolution:

(the underlining is mine)

Council Vice President Piccirilli:

“Let me just begin by saying I consistently support unions and organized labor and I personally support the Massachusetts Senate staff forming a union, but I’m conflicted about this resolution.

I will be voting no for the simple reason that we are elected to manage the affairs of Watertown and this resolution deals with an internal labor issue in the state senate which has nothing to do with the City of Watertown or the general interest of our residents.

Furthermore a resolution is an official policy directive from the City of Watertown and this one’s about a matter that is beyond the jurisdiction of the City Council.

I feel it’s presumptuous for us to weigh-in with a policy recommendation for the internal affairs of another elected body.

Collective bargaining is an area where emotions run high as this council is well aware. And Watertown has always taken the prudent approach during labor disputes by not making public statements and letting the designated representative negotiate.

 Imagine how the City Council would feel if the state senate issued a resolution telling us what we should be doing for a labor dispute in Watertown.

I personally support the senate staff in forming a union but I do not support the Watertown City Council issuing a resolution about it.”

Council Vice President Piccirilli’s statement is about respecting boundaries. His statement should be required reading for every new council member and suggested reading for every new council candidate.

Councilor Gannon followed with his statement in favor of the resolution.

Councilor Gannon:

“I speak in support of the resolution. I am a member of a union. I come from a family of union members. And I am a leader in my union. So adopting this may have to do with another bargaining unit but I think voting for this union, we as a Watertown City Council express support for our own unionized work forces. We have many unions between the city side and the school side. I think supporting this resolution would honor our own existing unionized work force whom we support. And in my experience a unionized household is well represented in the workplace and has a bigger voice than individual members. We’ve seen that in other workplaces but I think it’s strong to authorize to support this resolution and by doing so we support the many members of our own unionized workforce.”

Councilor Gannon’s statement, which can be summed up as: I am union born and union bred and when I die, I’ll be union dead should also be required reading for every new council member and suggested reading for every new council candidate.

His statement could have served as a powerful example of clarity and courage had he concluded it with: Though I am union through and through, it pains me to tell you that because I have such enormous respect for the integrity of the Watertown City Council – the people’s governing body and the institution on which I serve  − that I have no choice but to vote no on this resolution.

Councilor Bays followed with a statement of her own, for which she sounded oddly unprepared, considering the fact that this was her resolution.

Councilor Bays:

“I was going to say something similar. I understand where Councilor Piccirilli is coming from but when it comes to unions, unions are made strong by the fact that other unions support them. Unions tend to support each other across the  board and I think that if we are supporting a union anywhere, if we support unions, we are compelled to be supporting unions across the state and anywhere, if anyone is asking us for their support we should be giving it to them if we’re actually in support of unions.”

No, Councilor Bays, the council is not compelled to support unions “across the state or anywhere,” even if they are asking for the council’s support. Will you be offering future resolutions to support the unionizing efforts of Starbucks baristas and Amazon warehouse workers across the state or anywhere − especially if they ask for the support of the Watertown City Council?

Council President Sideris offered the final comment.

Council President Sideris:

“I’m going to wrap up by saying that I also fully support the union efforts and what they mean to the workforce but I have to agree with Councilor Piccirilli. This is a statehouse matter that you see by our agenda tonight that was four pages long, has nothing to do with what we do here in the City of Watertown, unfortunately. That doesn’t mean that if I’m not supporting it I don’t support unions. I just feel like Councilor Piccirilli that this is not the place to start making statements. We’re opening the door for every potential issue that has nothing to do with Watertown and to continue to come here in front of us so I will not be supporting it, not because I don’t support unions but because I don’t feel that this is the appropriate place to be talking about it.”

Opening the door to every potential issue that has nothing to do with Watertown? Oh yes, that door has swung wide open.

The resolution passed by a five to four vote. Councilors Palomba, Gardner, and Feltner made no statements of their own but joined Gannon and Bays to make the resolution an official position statement from the Watertown City Council – way out of its jurisdiction and squarely into the internal affairs of another elected body – somewhat like going into someone else’s house and rearranging the furniture and disciplining their children.

Yes, it's a joke but no, it’s not at all funny.

The state senate is someone else’s house. The city council is also someone else’s house. It belongs to the people of Watertown, not to the nine current inhabitants. It’s boundaries are meant to serve the people of Watertown, as frustratingly limited as that might be to one whose body is stuck in city hall while her heart and mind yearn for the statehouse.

Those inhabitants who find it too confining really should look for a more suitable home. There is a lot of real work to be done, real problems to be solved, and potential crises to be averted.

And that leaves little time for virtue signaling and grandstanding. 

 

Bruce Coltin, The Battle for Watertown 

 

QUESTIONING THE LEGACY OF COLUMBUS. FEARING THE LESSONS OF COLUMBINE

If you missed the special meeting of your city council on Tuesday, June 21, you might be unaware of the issue that burns in the souls of a number of your neighbors. These are stressful times, so understandably you may have been too busy dealing with everyday life to attend or tune-in.

If gas and grocery prices have you struggling to make ends meet and your kid’s college fund is dwindling by the hour, this might be a bad time to ask you to go watch a recording of the meeting, which one might call the trial of Christopher Columbus.

On that Tuesday evening, the great explorer stood trial before the honorable city council where a wacky fringe of Watertown’s Progressive Left prosecuted an open and shut case against the man who in fourteen hundred and ninety-two sailed the ocean blue for the express purpose of turning peaceful natives into slaves and forcing them to mine for gold so he could send the loot and the slaves he didn’t need back to Spain to pay off his employers and investors.

The prosecutor, whose name is Mishy, told us that when slaves failed to find gold, they would have their hands cut off. After hearing her say that, I have no doubt that if Columbus were alive today, he would be rotting away in the supermax prison in Colorado after being captured by Seal Team Six.

Thankfully, most of what we call civilization has evolved since the fifteenth century. We did away with the Spanish Inquisition, the Salem Witch Trials, slavery, and performing surgery without anesthesia.

Is it okay to allow people to honor Columbus the adventurer, the navigator, and the discoverer and recognize that he was a product of an old world where expansion was inevitable?

At Tuesday’s trial, members of our Italian-American community mounted a passionate but hopeless defense. When Progressives are on a mission, they show up organized, rehearsed, and morally empowered. And they show up as a voting block with a track record of delivering at the polls. 

Spectators from Newton, Malden, and Cambridge felt compelled to add their proverbial two cents, giving the proceedings a kind of regional flavor. (Thanks for your interest folks but please mind your own business.)

City hall’s Richard E. Mastrangelo Chamber was packed and so noisy that Mastrangelo could not be heard rolling over in his grave.

From the very start, the trial was heated and that’s an understatement. The council president gave fair warning that the rules would be obeyed or the gavel would pound. And pound it did, again and again, as the two-minute time limit for comments was routinely ignored by commenters on both sides of the issue.

The famously even-tempered president reached his boiling point, which thanks to the noncompliance of the angry crowd, kept on boiling.

Chief prosecutor Mishy led the proceedings by laying out the case that Columbus enslaved, tortured, and murdered Indigenous people and really had not discovered America, so he was pretty much a phony hero who didn’t deserve to have his name commemorated on a local rock that few people ever noticed – a rock that says (or screams, depending on your point view) Columbus Delta.

Bottom line: The Delta needs to be renamed and the pornographic rock needs to be sledgehammered into smithereens.

Mishy informed us that “one of the greatest expressions of love is to tell the truth no matter how painful” just before telling the painful truth to the Italian-American community about their bogus hero.

Please note: She had to inflict this pain because she loves them.

Well, who hasn’t benefited from tough love at some point in their lives? − usually when they were children. Missy had tears in her voice when she wondered aloud how different things might have been had the legendary adventurer arrived with “love in his heart.”

Her speech resembled an epic poem, delivered in a kind of hypnotic monotone that made it seem much longer than it actually was. Mishy spared us no details of Columbus’s routine atrocities and of the kind and gentle behavior of the people who became his victims. It was like she was right there, 530 years ago, shadowing him like an embedded news reporter who was granted special access by a clueless member of his team who had no idea how dangerous she was.

But let’s get back to the crux of the issue − the rock that almost nobody noticed until now and a patch of grass that was widely known as simply: The Delta.

The crusaders of social justice made it a point to notice that rock because when someone somewhere might be offended, no stone should be left unturned, or in this case, unseen. Once Mishy and her followers saw it, they couldn’t unsee it.

Social justice demands that the honorable city council rectify the moral error of honoring Columbus by scrubbing his name from the rock and from the patch of grass on which it sits. Instead, how about honoring the Indigenous people − the Pequossettes – who were displaced from the land that we now inhabit?

While Mishy’s wish might appear to be extremely divisive, you should try not see it that way. You should see it as being inclusive. That’s right – inclusive! Because once Watertowners take the time to educate themselves, they will clearly see that dumping Columbus will benefit the entire community by setting us free from a history of lies and thus enabling us to find our moral compass.

Yes, my friends, Watertown will become one big happy family once we all shed our ignorance and accept our shared guilt for the oppression that took place hundreds of years in the past by oppressors we never came close to meeting. Think of Mishy and her missionaries as angels, with love in their hearts, graciously guiding us toward the path of truth, justice, and enlightenment.

The trial came to a merciful end with a vote by the council.

As determined by a seven to two vote of the council members, a committee will be charged to further examine the issue and make a recommendation to the full council. Only two members were able to resist the popular temptation to jump aboard the pander wagon and tossed their political fortunes into the wind by voting no. Perhaps they were temporarily overcome by the inescapable smell of baloney.

It was just about a year ago when the Progressive Left commandeered the city council’s committee on public safety, consuming months of the committee’s time waging an all-out assault on the Watertown Police Department in the name of racial justice.

They came armed with charts, stats, and a strong sense of entitlement. They did not get their way with the committee, but that doesn’t mean that they won’t be back for another try.

What I often hear from some of those crusaders is: What’s the harm?

If they get their way, they just might find a few Derek Chauvins hiding in the ranks of the WPD. And if they find nothing, at least they checked and we can all breathe a huge sigh of relief. No harm done. Unless, of course, you consider the potential demoralization of a young, dedicated, hardworking police department.

What’s the harm in taking up the time and attention of the city council with social justice causes that disturb the consciences of a small group of the morally enlightened but not of the average citizen?

I would suggest that the harm is a three-headed beast: distraction, overload, and false priorities.

The cultural hurricane set-off by the murder of George Floyd is now dying down. It triggered some good things and some not-so-good things. Urgently needed police reform began taking place across the country, including Watertown – where it was accepted (Thanks, Chief Lawn!) early and willingly. Some troubled cities acquiesced to demands to defund the police, then when violent crime skyrocketed, they couldn’t get their cops back.

If I am reading the winds correctly (and I think I am), the next cultural storm is steadily building in intensity. Its name is Uvalde.

The tragedy at Uvalde was completely preventable. Forget what didn’t happen on a national or state level regarding guns and mental health. It was preventable on a local level just as Parkland was preventable on a local level in 2018.

Parkland provided a textbook case (see this timeline) of municipal institutions failing the community they were charged to serve. Their government, their school district, and their law enforcement agencies each failed separately and failed together by their inability to perform as a synchronized unit when their community needed it most.

The writing of the Uvalde massacre textbook case is currently on-hold because after initially firing off false and conflicting information, federal, state, and county officials have retreated behind a wall of silence. The mayor and city council claim that they are being stonewalled just like everyone else.

What we already know is damning enough for all involved.

The dominating story is the one of police officers, from multiple agencies, waiting for over an hour before rushing the shooter. The number of children who could have been saved is currently unknown.

What is known is that those officers would have never been in that position, had it not been for inadequate security systems – not to excuse those officers.

Initial reports said that a school resource officer had engaged the shooter as the shooter was approaching the school. That report was soon proclaimed to be incorrect. There has since been no mention of a school resource officer’s presence on the scene. Was there a school resource officer who was negligently missing in action?

Before the shooter even entered the building, a school employee used the security app on his phone to trigger the school’s warning system. He hit a lockdown button that sent emergency emails and texts to co-workers. At least one teacher did not get the messages.

Security experts say that the system was less than optimal. A centralized alert system, featuring a panic button in each classroom, would have notified everyone at once without reliance on personal devices.

On that day, all of the door locking systems, including those on the outside doors and the classroom doors could only be locked from the outside. It has yet to be determined (or revealed) if this was intentional or if the system had malfunctioned.

When police officers first entered the building, they were not able to communicate by radio without leaving the building to get a signal. Border Patrol officers had radios that did work inside the building but just barely.

We more recently learned that a police officer had a brief moment to take-out the shooter before the shooter entered the building but decided not to take the shot for fear of hitting a bystander. Was that a good decision or a bad one? In hindsight, it appears to be a bad one.

Parkland went through their finger-pointing stage. Uvalde is now going through theirs and blame will be assigned accordingly when all the facts are in.

You might be thinking that Uvalde is obviously led by exceptionally inept people who were glaringly unaware of their most obvious security weaknesses and should not be considered at all typical. Or maybe because they are small (a population of about 16,000) and rural, they should be held to a lower standard.

We might also consider that with a median household income of only $42,000, the town could not afford first-class school security systems. Perhaps upgrades were on their to-do list but other projects took priority.

The suburban city of Parkland might be a better example. Parkland is 30 miles from Fort Lauderdale and 20 miles from Boca Raton and has a population of 34,000 (Watertown has 36,000) and a median household income of $160,000 (Watertown’s is $100,000). (All income numbers are from the 2020 census report.)

When the shooter, Nikolas Cruz, walked through a security gate outside of the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School – a gate that was supposed be locked − he was immediately spotted by an unarmed adult security monitor, patrolling the grounds, who saw that he was carrying a rifle case.

It should be noted that this security monitor recognized Cruz as a former student at the high school, who was nicknamed “Crazy Boy” and had been widely referred to as the student “most likely to shoot up the school.”

The security monitor could have stopped him from entering the school. Or he could have used his radio to call a Code Red, which would have locked down the school and he could have called 911. He did none of the above. Instead he used his radio to call another security monitor who also did none of the above. Had either of them called a Code Red, all students and teachers would have been locked down in their classrooms.

Later the two men and other security monitors who were inside the school said that they didn’t know the protocol for calling a Code Red. Most of the victims were killed in either the hallways or the stairwells. A few were killed inside classrooms. Standing in the hallway, Cruz shot them through the door windows. 

All of the classrooms had safe corners, away from the classroom door windows where students could not be seen from the hallway. Unfortunately, most of the teachers used those safe corners to store furniture, making them inaccessible to those trying to hide.

The shooting set off the fire alarm sending students and teachers, who were unaware of the shooter’s presence, out into the hallways and stairwells. A Code Red would have kept them inside their locked classrooms.

The first 911 call had to be rerouted to the sheriff's office, wasting precious minutes, because the 911 system was not equipped to efficiently handle a call made from a cell phone.

The school had a video monitoring system that school administrators turned over to the police to help them locate the shooter. Unfortunately, they did not make it clear that the system was on a twenty-minute delay so the police didn’t realize they were using a delayed video to track down the shooter who by that time had left the building, totally unseen.

There is quite a bit more, including no one taking charge within police departments and no communication between police departments at both the Parkland and Uvalde crime scenes but I think you get the point.

In both Parkland and Uvalde, up until the massacres of their children, comprehensive school security was absent from the minds of their leaders. The Uvalde massacre marked the 27^th school shooting so far this year. In a post-Columbine, post-Newtown, and post-Parkland America, what explanation is there for so many guardians of the public trust to have been missing in action?

I think the answer is disturbingly simple. The “it can’t happen here” mentality creates a fool’s paradise.

Experts tell us that potential school shooters study the methods used by their predecessors, especially the methods of the two Columbine shooters, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris and that they look up to high-profile school shooters, who are either dead or in prison, as an elite fraternity of the alienated and rejected who decided to end their lives in a spectacular act of revenge.

As a rule, school mass-shooters do not discriminate on which children to shoot. Their delusional claim to fame and their imagined admittance into that elite fraternity is based on building a high body count. Every high-profile school massacre since Columbine has inspired copycats.

Municipal leaders should find this terrifying. Parents already do. And they should.

If history is to be our guide, eighteen-year-old Salvador Ramos who fatally shot nineteen children and two teachers and wounded seventeen others at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas is the new hero being studied and revered by a tiny but determined number of deranged adolescent boys who are considering ending their lives in their own spectacular act of revenge.

Failure to recognize that “it absolutely can happen here” starts with government – the representatives we elect and the officials they appoint. Distractions of their attention, overload of their time and effort, and their focus on false priorities make-up the three-headed beast that feeds on well-meaning municipal leaders.

What’s the harm in renaming the delta?

What’s the harm in imposing this burden, along with existing burdens, on a part-time and already overstretched city council for the purpose of having a highly controversial, highly divisive act of symbolic moral justice mandated by government?

In a fool’s paradise, harm always happens someplace else.

 

Bruce Coltin, The Battle for Watertown