See also:
Wrentham police union files ethics complaint against Firth (Bellingham Country Gazette 3/1/07).
Unlike The Sun Chronicle, the Country Gazette's reporter, Heather McCarron, seems to actually be trying to get her facts about Free Republic straight, not blaming PAR35 for a comment he didn't make and not calling this forum a left-wing "blog". From the end of the article:
Firth said she did not wish to discuss the thread in open session. During that Feb. 6 meeting, according to a taped recording, she stated, "I guess I don’t know how much we can talk about that particular thing in open session because it’s somebody’s reputation ... if we want to talk about the killing of a candidate and the things that are in the blog, then we’re going to have to go back into executive session."
The "kill your opponent" comment on the thread was made in response to a question posted by "Little Bill" on behalf of "Guinness Boy," identified by police as Labonte’s son in-law, Ron Groves, who was campaigning for Labonte and who wanted advice about running a winning race.
A poster identified only as "Phantom Lord" suggested: "winning tactic — kill your opponent." According to Phantom Lord’s profile on freerepublic.com, he is not even tied to Wrentham, residing in Apex, N.C. Little Bill is listed as a Massachusetts member of the Web community, but his home town is not included.
Firth this week said she does not know who the poster is. She also claims she doesn’t recall sending an e-mail to two fellow selectmen, Dion and Labonte, in which "a police officer writing derogatory things on various politically right-wing internet chat rooms" is referenced.
"Their (the police department’s) contention was that I had said it was a police officer," she said.
The confusion, she said, is that Labonte’s son in-law was taking part in the chat thread. Labonte also has a son who is a Wrentham police officer, but Groves isn’t a policeman and has never been connected with the Wrentham Police Department.
"I think there’s been a lot of confusion for two years," said Firth this week. "I think the confusion is around the fact that it was a relative (of Labonte) involved."
Firth said she is disappointed the chat thread has sparked so much rumor and has been allowed to fester over two years in the town’s undercurrents. "I find it unconscionable that it was ignored," she said.
Greg Pazurchek, meanwhile, said on Monday that, while the internet posting was disturbing, he never felt directly threatened. He is questioning why the thread has been brought up now, and why it has been allowed to get so out of hand, especially since, he said, Labonte could have stopped the entire conversation Feb. 6 simply by pointing out that his son-in-law, and not his police officer son, was involved.
"Why is he adding fuel to the fire instead of saying, ‘Wait a minute, this isn’t a police officer. Yeah, the guy (Groves) was trying to help me and some arbitrary person wrote this alleged threat’?" Pazurchek said, noting that, at the time the chat thread was active, "I knew it wasn’t a cop."
Labonte did not return a phone call seeking comment. Collamati was on vacation this week and could not be reached for comment.
I am getting sick of this. I posted a thread trying to help Guinnessboy work a campaign, Guinnessboy is a FRiend.
Some person posts a mild observation, if you are a rat, about how to win an election, and some airhead, self absorbed, Female, rat machine Selectman, has a PMS attack because her fellow rat machine pol, gets beat, then she accuses an innocent cop of the crime, get real.
This excludes her agenda.