APCC will be in court on Friday to compel the Massachusetts Guard to immediately produce public records on a pressing matter of great public importance, which APCC properly requested and the Massachusetts Guard is unlawfully withholding, in violation of the state public records law. Back in July, APCC filed a lawful records request with the Massachusetts Guard to produce without delay its records “relating to the preparation, formulation and submittal of ‘Project # 250194 Automated Multipurpose Machine Gun Range REBID – Camp Edwards’ by the Massachusetts Military Division.’”
The requested records are not protected from disclosure under any applicable statutory exemption, and the Massachusetts Guard’s contentions to the contrary cannot withstand scrutiny. APCC has filed 21 state and federal records requests related to the machine gun range project and, as a matter of routine, the Guard resists responding until ordered to do so by the Secretary of State (SOS). Even then, of the eight times the SOS has ordered a response, only six times has the Guard complied. None of the nine records requests filed under the federal disclosure law have been responded to. Given the Guard’s well-established pattern of ignoring its legal obligations, APCC felt compelled to ask the court to vindicate its rights and to hold the Massachusetts Guard immediately accountable to comply with its legal obligation to produce the records.
The requested records concern the Massachusetts Guard’s preparation, formulation, and submittal of the public constructing rebidding documents by which the Guard now seeks—quickly, quietly, and without any public scrutiny—to contractually commit over $9 million of imminently-expiring federal funding to the construction of just a portion of its highly controversial, environmentally unacceptable, and fundamentally unnecessary larger project, which federal and state environmental authorities have not permitted it to build. The project in question is a proposed multipurpose machine gun range at Camp Edwards on Joint Base Cape Cod, a military base that spans parts of Mashpee, Bourne, and Sandwich, and abuts the town of Falmouth. The Massachusetts Guard seeks to build directly on top of the sole source aquifer that provides the critical drinking water supply for a substantial portion of Cape Cod, notwithstanding the U.S. EPA’s alarming preliminary determination that the project entails a significant public health hazard.
While the substance of the issue of the MPMGR is familiar to many, there is another critical principle at stake here that seems lost on the Guard. There are public records laws for a reason. The public, in whose name the Guard and other government agencies work, has a right to know what is being done in its name and to then use information to hold agencies accountable. The practice of shielding deliberative information from public view is corrosive to the proper operation of our system of government and conveys a contempt for the rights of the governed to basic information. To be clear, APCC is not seeking classified documents, nor bids from contractors that would compromise the fairness of the contracting process. What we are seeking are insights that went into the decision to change the scope of the project at the 11th hour.
Even saying that implies that APCC agrees that our request for records must meet some litmus test. It does not. The law presumes a public right to know, except under very narrow circumstances and does not require further justification of the request. The truth is, we don’t know what the records we have requested will reveal. The people that do know are working awfully hard to make sure we never know. I am left to wonder what they don’t want you, me or the governor to see. We expect the judge to agree and you can be sure we will share what we discover.
