Like most people I know, when something cool happens to me I like to tell people about it. An upcoming or recent vacation, a new car or work to the house, a child going to college; all the stuff of happy comments made to friends and family, in person and nowadays on Facebook.
The same is true in the workplace. When I get a new job, or some particular project is coming up, I’ll let folks know. I like to be associated with good work, and take some personal and professional pride in my small role in something cool.
That’s why it always strikes me as kind of odd, and perhaps more than a little puzzling and off-putting when a similar occasion – a new exciting professional opportunity in the case about which I will speak – stimulates not pride but a kind of shame, not a desire to tell people all about the great work I will do, but an impulse to cover up and dissemble: to settle scores, to lie.
This morning I am feeling that puzzlement. Yesterday, I posted a note in response to a comment attacking me and my motives in opposing Mayor Tony Mack’s ill-considered and illegal plan to open the long-closed neighborhood branches of the Trenton Free Public Library (TFPL) as something that he calls “The Mayor’s Learning Center Libraries.” An attack not only on me, but an oddly personal and obsessive diatribe on the person of the TFPL Director Kimberly Matthews.
After I posted that note, I did a little more on-line digging, and found pretty persuasive evidence that the comment in question, signed “ISU” and written from an email account named “Shirley204,” was in fact written by Brian White.
Mr. White was named in this Matt Fair article last week for the Trenton Times as being a member of the Mayor’s “Committee” responsible for the plans leading to today’s reopening of the first of the four neighborhood branches, and at least one of the individuals who are being hired to work in these libraries. At least, according to Mr. White: “I’m just an adviser, just a consultant until they figure out how much I’m going to be getting. So I’m just volunteering my time right now. I’ve been guaranteed a job though. I want you to know that,” he told the Times.
A couple of years ago, during the campaign over the successful referendum to stop then-Mayor Doug Palmer’s proposal to sell off the suburban assets of the Trenton Water Works to American Water, a nationwide commercial water utility, I identified several anonymous or pseudonymous comments posted to my blog supporting the sale as having been sent from American Water offices or paid consultants around the country. I did that by tracing the IP addresses of the commenters.
After I publicly made note of their identities, I stopped getting those comments. I suppose those people weren’t exactly proud of what they were doing either. And they forgot that even “anonymous” comments lead a quite visible and easily followed trail back to the point of origin.
I did the same thing yesterday. I won’t reveal personal details of what I found yesterday (since they involve other uninvolved people), but I will say that the IP address of the note from “ISU” or “Shirley204” or whomever was located in Clementon, New Jersey, a private residence inhabited by people named… White.
Coincidence? Perhaps. If “ISU” or Brian White care to contact me, I will be glad to provide all the details I have and ask either of them to set me straight – if I have made the wrong conclusion.
But, put aside this particular comment made to my blog, whoever was responsible for it. I would like to stay on Mr. White and his publicly available statements about his upcoming position at the Mayor’s new libraries. Perhaps I have missed them, but I have not heard any comments talking about how exciting this new job will be, about all the great work he hopes to do for the community, about the pride in re-opening the neighborhood branches that have been dark for nearly two years.
No, we hear mostly rants about the Library Director. According to this account recorded in the official March Minutes of the TFPL Trustees, the following comments are attributed to Mr. White by the Trustees: “He has spoken with Telly Brown, our maintenance supervisor, asking for assistance and information about the branch facilities and referring to Director Matthews as a ‘bitch’. In a text sent to Katheryn Spalding, Principal Librarian, Mr. White called Director Matthews an ‘evil person’ and wrote that ‘City hall wants her out by all means. And they will.’
Mr. White also posted this comment on the Facebook Wall of one of our sitting Councilwomen: “THX SIS IM WORKING ON THE MAYORS LEARNING CENTER LIBRARY FELT THAT IT WOULD BE IMPORTANT TO CONNECT WITH U WE LIBRARIANS ARE SO SICK OF KIM MATTHEWS SIS, WE WILL TELL U ABOUT ANOTHER TIME . HAVE A NICE DAY”
This obsession with Ms. Matthews, and the bad grammar, sure does sound similar to “ISU,” doesn’t it?
What I don’t get is why, if this new Library project of the Mayor is so great, why is Mr. White so negative about it, and why is he concealing his identity to make anonymous comments on a local blog? Why isn’t he happy about this opportunity, and proud of his role in this? Why has he been working in the dark on this all this time?
Is it perhaps possible that he is actually ashamed of his participation on this project? I can’t see into his soul to know for sure, but from what I can see, that is one possible explanation.
Come to think of it, that hypothetical feeling of shame might explain the actions of Mayor Mack, and his “Aide” Anthony Roberts, and the members of “The Mayor’s Learning Center Committee.” These guys have worked for quite some time in secret: lying about their meetings and their plans; deliberately excluding the Trustees of the TFPL (the only lawful authority in a town that can operate public libraries according to the State of New Jersey) from any knowledge of or participation in planning or management; and hiding their plans from City Council and failing to seek legal authorization to spend money and hire people.
Everyone in this City was deliberately kept in the dark about the Mayor’s plans to reopen the neighborhood libraries until the last minute, right before the Grand Opening. Their plan was to open these libraries as done deals, and dare anyone else to oppose them.
As if they were actually ashamed of what they were doing, instead of proud.
You know, in selecting someone like Brian White to take a leading role in these counterfeit Libraries, Tony Mack has apparently picked someone Just. Like. Him.
I love IP tracking software, that’s how I caught (with a little help from a friend) LT. DeHart and a couple of other idiots who thought they were going to anonymously attack or threaten me.
Good Job!
great job, Wikipedia had a similar problem, until someone sniffed out the “XXX”
I’d be curious as to who the, “sitting councilwoman,” is. But, and it is a big BUT, South Ward Councilman George Muschal was NOT invited to the ceremony for the Skelton branch. Interesting.
Pat, since it’s Facebook – and I am perhaps one of the last people who think of Facebook posts as semi-private, only for the benefit of the individual and their friends – I included the post, but without attribution.