Saugus resident offers opinion on freedom of speech at meeting

SAUGUS – Apple Lane resident John Truesdale gave the Board of Selectmen his opinion on freedom of speech Tuesday along with a detailed plan of how the citizen’s forum portion of the meeting should be resurrected.”I will take that under advisement,” said board Chairman Donald Wong. “And I’ll talk to the other board members individually.”He made no move, however, to discuss the issue during the meeting.Truesdale said he would like to see the board make a compromise regarding the forum, which it deleted in name from the basic meeting agenda in January. In the past, residents could attend a meeting and wait until the end to speak to the board, but now they must make a request to be heard during the correspondence portion of the meeting.Wong, along with colleagues Stephen Castinetti and Peter Rossetti, said the move was to streamline the meeting and give residents a chance to be heard earlier in the meeting. Critics, however, called the move unfair and a violation of freedom of speech.Truesdale likened it to the roadways. He said the new format has essentially become a one-way street and, while one-way streets are necessary, he preferred the old format that was closer to a two-way street between residents and the board.”To get back in the good graces, if you can, I would like you to do it this way here,” Truesdale said before walking the board through a plan that, for all intents and purposes, simply reinstated citizen’s forum. He argued that the board could still ask people to request to be on the agenda under correspondence.”But if someone wants to just come up and speak at the end of a meeting – maybe they won’t get an answer – but if they’re OK with that then fine,” he said. “You have to give people the right to talk if they want to.”Truesdale reminded the board it gave the folks from the Route 1 mobile home park the right to speak after they received an astronomical water/sewer bill.”Technically you broke the law,” he said. “But it was the right thing to do.”Selectman Stephen Horlick told Truesdale he supported his plan but conceded that if the issue were to come to a vote the full board should be there. Castinetti was absent from the meeting.”I don’t have a problem with that,” Truesdale said. “I didn’t realize you would be missing a member tonight.”