With less than two weeks before the close of our election season voters in our community are being inundated with campaign materials in the form of fliers, ads, mailers and email communications. It is the latter that causes me some measure of concern, and the “Athertonians” Yahoo e-mail group in particular.
Many people in our town signed onto this group with the understanding that it was an open forum to keep people informed on town events and issues, and that it was a town-sponsored site. It is not a town- sponsored site. The site operated as a relatively open forum until about a year ago. The biased tone and agenda-driven communication seems to coincide with the Atherton Library’s becoming a controversial issue.
Today, this forum is increasingly used to communicate a biased political agenda by: the so called “moderators” who choose to remain anonymous, select City Council members, the Teamsters’ Union and those allowed by the “moderators.” Dissenting views are not posted and some members of our community have simply been denied access.
Certainly the “moderators” are entitled to their First Amendment rights, but I am curious as to why they don’t think it appropriate to extend those rights to all. Equally disturbing is the moderators’ complete disregard for verifiable facts.
Regardless of how you decide to vote, I encourage voters to dismiss anonymous, mean-spirited misstatements and focus on verifiable facts.
