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Residents denounce anonymous campaign letter and urge council to promote transparency
Summary
At Birchwood Village’s Oct. 9 meeting multiple residents criticized an anonymous letter attacking a local candidate and raised questions about a 2020 council pay raise timing; the council acknowledged confusion about a data request and said staff would clarify how resident contact lists are handled.
Several Birchwood residents used the council’s public forum on Oct. 9 to criticize an anonymous mailer that they said mischaracterized a 2020 council pay raise and sought to influence the upcoming election.
Ruth Jensen of 701 Hall Avenue told the council, “it’s the anonymity of the letter that makes me so mad,” and said the mailer read like a “hit piece” intended to disgrace a candidate. Jensen and other speakers traced the pay-raise timeline to 2020 and said an anonymous resident later flagged a procedural mistake that affected when the raises took effect.
Nick Leaves and Ryan Eisy said the anonymous nature of the mailing worried neighbors and asked the council to be more transparent about how resident emails and addresses are handled. Administrator Becky responded that the city does not release resident mailing addresses as a matter of routine practice, and that the city had fulfilled a data request for materials the municipality held but did not provide a list of resident email addresses.
Council members acknowledged the ethical concern raised by speakers and said the city would not be able to impose legal penalties on anonymous mailers but could publicly discourage the use of misleading anonymous communications during local elections. The council did not take formal action at the meeting to pursue an investigation into the mailing.
The meeting’s public forum lasted until the council closed the record by unanimous motion; members reminded speakers to identify themselves and that each public-comment slot was limited to three minutes.
