Confidence Betrayed

I was very surprised to read the Scarsdale Inquirer's coverage of the purportedly confidential proceedings of the Scarsdale Citizen's Nominating Committee (CNC) in their January 30th edition. This week the CNC announced their slate of candidates for Mayor and Village Trustees, and like the Inquirer, Scarsdale10583 reported that former Village Trustee Jon Mark had been selected for Mayor along with returning trustee Bill Stern, and new candidates Carl Finger and Matthew Callaghan. Missing from the list was Thomas Martin, a current trustee, who served one term and was eligible for re-nomination.

Since the proceedings of the committee are confidential the public should not have known whether Martin decided not to apply for a second term or had put in his hat and been turned down by the committee. Since I served on both the Citizens Nominating Committee and the School Board Nominating Committee I knew that all conversations in the room were to remain confidential and that committee members were instructed not to discuss the proceedings with outsiders. This rule was put into place to protect nominees and encourage interested residents to apply.

When I didn't see Martin's name on the slate, I recognized the importance of maintaining his privacy. That's why I was really puzzled to read the article titled "Mark, Callaghan, Finger in for board; Martint out,"on the front of the Scarsdale Inquirer by reporter Jason Chevras. The article announced that Martin had not been re-nominated and then went on to quote the one-term trustee about how surprised he was to learn that he was not re-nominated after receiving a warm reception from the nominating committee. According to the article, Martin said that after his eight minute interview he was rewarded with "a round of applause and congratulated by two of the members for doing a "great job."

So much for confidentiality – not only did the paper publish confidential conversations – but the reporter forced Martin to be up front about his application for a second term. Had he not been asked, Martin could simply have said that one term was enough. Since Chevras is relatively new to Scarsdale and the newspaper perhaps he was not aware of the subtleties of the workings of the non-partisan system?

Then, in an editorial titled "Secrecy's dark side" the editor questioned the decision of the nominating committee, claiming that the CNC judged Thomas Martin on his resume prior to his first term as Village Trustee. She wrote, "But it appears that the committee – some of whose members were on the CNC when it nominated Martin in 2013 – went back to the original criteria, finding Martin's resume wanting." Now how did the editor know that? Is this conjecture, or did she speak to members of the CNC, knowing full well that their proceedings are supposed to be confidential? Ironically, the article goes on to state that "when a sitting trustee is rejected, confidentiality becomes a stigma that is out of keeping with the system's intent to honor all who desire to serve."

The editor also questioned the judgment of the committee, surmising that Martin was not asked to return because of he was not well known, because he held minority views or because the CNC members were ignorant. Part of the committees' selection procedure is to do due diligence and ask for feedback on the nominees from the community. This information, which is attributable to the source, is shared and reviewed by the committee. We can only assume that the 34 committee members did their jobs this year and asked for comments on all of the candidates. With this information in hand they evaluated the applicants and selected the four that they believed would best serve the Village. They assumed that their deliberations would be kept private to save Martin from facing public embarrassment.

In this case, it's not the actions of the committee that should be second-guessed or criticized; it's the newpaper's for failing to honor the system and maintain the confidentiality of the proceedings which are essential to the success of a non-partisan system. The Inquirer made its first misstep in asking Martin to comment on his failure to be re-nominated and compounded the error by publishing confidential conversations and by questioning the judgment of 34 elected members of the nominating committee. While we do have freedom of the press here -- this right should be balanced against community mores -- which dictate respect for the process and sensitivity to applicants' needs for privacy.