By Samantha Allen Selectmen in the town of Westford, Mass., have to release emails exchanged during what the state is calling a “serial deliberation” about whether to pay a retiring fire chief $25,000. The Sun requested this spring all emails related to the negotiations. Westford Town Manager Jodi Ross said there were about 1,500 pages of emails that […]

By Dan Kennedy U.S. Sen. Ed Markey doesn’t seem like your typical enemy of free speech. Progressive and amiable, the Massachusetts Democrat is known mainly for speaking up on behalf of liberal causes such as fighting climate change and preserving funding for public broadcasting. Earlier this year, though, Markey sponsored a bill to monitor so-called hate […]

By Steph Machado At least two heartbreaking deaths of toddlers occurred in Vermont recently and the state’s Department for Children and Families may have been able to prevent them. In one case, police said 2-year-old Dezirae Sheldon was murdered by her stepfather, just weeks after DCF and a judge allowed the child to return home. DCF […]

By Michael Shepherd For months, the Kennebec Journal received tips about a police officer in Hallowell, Maine, alleging she was sexually assaulted by the chief of her department. The Maine State Police, according to the tips, began a criminal investigation last year into the officer’s allegation. I confirmed those tips and wrote a story last month in […]

By Alex Wood I’ve spent a good deal of time in the last two years on three cases I filed with the Connecticut Freedom of Information Commission. The cases were against the state’s Board of Pardons and Paroles, and demonstrate that you can change governmental practices through this appeals process — but you may have serious […]

By Zach Despart The Vermont Public Service Board, a quasi-judicial agency that oversees Vermont utilities, recently approved a protective order that will limit public access to records related to a controversial pipeline project in the state. A Vermont utility company leading the project requested the order. The order (.pdf) allows Vermont Gas Systems to, under specified criteria, request that […]

By Lindsay Tice In 2012, the deputy director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention told state employees to destroy public documents. She called them “working documents” and said she routinely got rid of such paperwork. She wanted to destroy these documents as “version control,” concerned, she said, that people would get confused. The […]

By Joe Choquette This past legislative session, lawmakers in Vermont passed a bill that they hope will improve the public’s ability to know what state and local governments are doing. But even as the bill headed to Gov. Peter Shumlin for signature, Secretary of State Jim Condos called out a local government body for voting […]

Editor’s Note: The following article is written by Jacqueline Wattles, who studied journalism and recently graduated from the University of Connecticut. She will be attending the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism this fall. Most of the reporting she did for this article can also be found at UConn’s The Daily Campus and CTNewsJunkie.com. This article is posted […]

Editor’s Note: The following article is written by Jacqueline Wattles, who studied journalism and recently graduated from the University of Connecticut. She will be attending the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism this fall. Most of the reporting she did for this article can also be found at UConn’s The Daily Campus and CTNewsJunkie.com. This […]