Mass calling campaign

Quotes

The week before Town Meeting, Concord residents were subjected to a mass calling campaign.  The caller falsely announced a poll on behalf of the Light Plant, then proceeded to lambaste the Light Plant’s work regarding a Town network, apparently trying to turn the voter against Article 34 with this deception.  The individuals conducting the poll, when asked, shrank from admitting who paid for it.

According to several who have received the call, the script used in this call campaign proceeded more or less along the following lines:

"Hello Mr/s. --.  Do you have a moment?

"I’m calling on behalf of the Concord Light Plant [sometimes Town of Concord].

"At Town Meeting next week, you are going to have the opportunity to vote on Article 34.

"Your Light Plant has not released figures, but estimates are that it will cost $12 -$18 million.

"Beacon Hill Institute has done a study and concluded that it is highly, highly risky. They estimate there is a 60% probability that it will fail.

"Will you vote for Article 34, or against Article 34?

"Have a nice day."

Some residents have expressed their feelings about this behavior by way of the Concord list.  Below are some excerpts – signed.

We think it's important to take responsibility for the things we say.

The list archive is available at

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/concord/

For recent posts, access ‘Messages,’ near the top click ‘Last,’ then at that page near its top ‘Expand Messages.’

Excerpts from some quotes:

Thank you for your message. I was planning to post my comment, but you did a better job than I would have done.

Bob Harper [-signed]
Chair Concord Municipal Light board

--- In concord@yahoogroups.com, Anita Tekle, Concord Town Clerk, wrote:

The Concord Municipal Light Plant HAS NOT commissioned this study.  At the Public Hearing in March, someone from the Beacon Hill Institute asked permission to speak, and when asked, he made it clear that funding for the "study" came from the cable/telecom industry providers. I suspect that both the mailing and the polling [are] being financed by the same source.

Anita Tekle [-signed]

I challenge Comcast:

As the recipient of an unprecedented barrage of anonymous anti-article 34 propaganda including a full page Concord Journal advertisement, 3 leaflet mailings and 3 supposed "one question poll" calls by the telemarketer, Integral Resources who, before asking me how I intended to vote on Article 34, read a list of supposed urgent reasons why passage of 34 would be BAD for Concord. The three telemarketing operators who called me on the evening of Friday, April 23 all began by stating that they were calling from the Town of Concord Light Plant. This is simply a lie! I actually spoke with the chairman of the Concord light board and he categorically denied the light plant was making any such calls. None of the 3 telemarketers who called me would divulge the name of the client who had hired them to make these fraudulent calls.

I challenge Comcast to publicly and definitively prove they have no knowledge of or complicity in this unprecedented, surreptitious and anti-democratic attack on Concord’s 369 year old tradition of Town Meeting Government.

Whoever turns out to be involved in this massive effort to subvert the will of the Concord Town Meeting, I hope will be barred indefinitely from entering into any contractual agreements with the Town of Concord. Whoever is involved in this bald faced Town of Concord Municipal Light Plant impersonation scheme should probably go to jail, but at the very least they should be banned from doing any business with the Town.

I will vote yes or no on article 34 based on what I think is best for concord, but I will be damned if I will fall prey to the scurrilous tactics of some anonymous lobbyist with deep pockets.

Rich Stevenson [-signed]
63 Prescott Rd
Concord, MA 01742

I just got my very own Comcast poll call! Interestingly, the woman didn’t identify herself or the organization that was doing this until I asked. She said she was from “Integral” something. She immediately quoted the 60% failure rate, and I asked who was funding this poll. She said “the town”. I asked for clarification, and she ended up saying directly that it was funded by the “town of Concord”.

After she asked if I was going to vote for 34 (and I said “yes”), I said that this poll didn’t sound like something the town would commission, since that was the purpose of the town meeting, and she hung up.

I can’t believe that this is legal. Is this something that should be brought to the attention of the Mass. Atty. General?

Stoney Ballard [-signed]

"Excuse me, did you say, ‘on behalf of the Light Plant’?"

"Yes."

"Meaning, the Light Plant asked you to call?"

"Yes."

"And the Light Plant is paying you to call me?"

"Yes."

"I know for a fact that the Light Plant is not paying for this."

"Well, I’m sorry, sir, but I’m calling on behalf of the Light Plant."

Stalling tactics to keep her on the phone as long as possible....

"But what I want to know is whether you will vote for Article 34?"

"I will vote to put your employers in jail."

Hang up. 

So even after several days of public discussion they are still outright lying to us. I agree with other posters. This is illegal and the Attorney General should be notified. It is unquestionably sponsored by and disguised (is that libel?), and I’ll bet the link and the deception could be fairly easily shown.

Jim Reynolds [-signed]

Subject: Phone poll is police matter

I made a complaint to the Concord PD this afternoon (Friday Apr 23).

The woman said she was calling from the Municipal Light Plant. I said I was pleased they were taking a survey. She later admitted she was not calling from the Light Plant when I squawked about the bogus question.

Who could be arranging such a deception? Which well known cable company would be the only one to benefit in the slightest degree?

Concord Journal reports a cable industry lobbying group has been financing the brochures. Who’s been financing the phone poll? Who’s been financing the New England Cable and Telecommunications Association, Inc.? If Comcast were a contributor, the case could be made that Comcast indirectly financed the phone poll deception. If so, it would be guilty of criminal activity in violation of Mass. General Laws chap. 266, sec. 91.

JR Getsinger [-signed]

If you need another name for the AG add me – the poor telemarketer that called me tonight may still be shell-shocked. After she gave the “calling on behalf of the Concord Light Plant” lie I asked her to repeat what she had just said and she did. I told her “That’s a bald-faced lie” and that she knew well that she was calling on behalf of the cable industry. She went on to state a few more falsehoods and then gave up after I replied to each one with “that’s another bald-faced lie”.

Now here’s another possible legal angle – if it’s funded by the cable industry then it’s not non-profit so shouldn’t be exempt from the state do-not-call list which I am on – and I have no prior business relationship with the cable folks (half a dozen broadcast channels with nothing on worth watching is more than enough) so there’s no exemption there. Maybe if enough of us fit this category we can get the cable industry fines to cover the 12 million risk.

Gerry Tolman [-signed]

To buy a mass telephone (anti-)marketing campaign, disguise it as a poll, then present the ‘poll’ as coming from that which is attacked, is, by any other name - fraud.  Comes out of the same ‘moral’ code that endeared the Enron’s, Worldcom’s and a sad list of others to us.  Tacit acceptance back then reaped the whirlwind for us – not today, not now.

David Allen [-signed]

after he repeated that the poll was commissioned by the concord light plant and the town of concord and that it was a neutral poll, i asked if it didn’t seem odd that though he had just given me a list of reasons why the article should fail, this could still be a neutral poll.  he somewhat agreed with me at which point i ventured that in fact the poll and the beacon hill study had nothing whatsoever to do with the light plant or the Town of Concord but were from the Cable industry.

[Then I said] he was flat out lying, that he was committing a fraud and that if he kept calling people in Concord and lying to them like this he, his supervisor, and who ever hired his polling company would be in big legal trouble.  i told him in no uncertain terms that the Massachusetts Attorney General was going to hear about this whole campaign.  i couldn’t tell at which point in my delivery he hung up, but by the time my blood pressure had returned to normal, i could only hear dead air on the phone line.

rich stevenson [-signed]

Dear Fellow Concordians:

Have you received a telephone "poll" which said it was from either the Town of Concord or the Municipal Light Plant re: Article 34 (http://www.concordnet.org/townmgr/warrant04/article34.htm)? According to our Town Clerk, this poll does NOT come from any Town office. The telemarketing firm conducting this "poll" claims it is their client’s right to withhold their identity, so no one knows who is funding these calls.

Many members of the Concord Discussion List (a 6-year-old online discussion group about Concord) are concerned about this misrepresentation and its unfair effect on the process of Town Meeting. We pass along this message not in an attempt to tell you how you should vote on Article 34, but to alert you to the fact that this poll has not been sponsored by a town entity.

We feel knowledge is power, and that in passing this along we are helping to preserve our right to accurate information and honest discussion. Feel free to forward this email to other Concord residents -- please respect peoples’ privacy and send this to them via the bcc (blind copy).

For more information on Article 34, there are two websites you can look at for "yes" and "no" viewpoints:

http://www.Citizensfor34.org/

http://www.Noto34.info/ – [NB: Subsequent to our successful vote against them, Comcast has obliterated noto34.info]

To find out what other Concordians are talking about on this and other Town Meeting topics, you can read or participate in the Concord Discussion List. For more info, go to

http://www.ConcordMA.com/list.html. (While guesses can be made, if you have any knowledge or evidence of who is behind this "poll", please let us know on the list.)

If you do forward this message to others, please do not alter or omit its content in any way (though feel free to add your own introductory note above the greeting above). If you do alter it, please remove my name and email address as the sender so as to not misrepresent my position. We apologize if you receive this email more than once.

Best,
Deborah Bier [-signed]
Concord Discussion List Owner

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