SOUTHWICK — During the Select Board meeting on July 28, former member Joseph Deedy suggested that current board member Russ Anderson is spying on him using Town Hall security camera footage and requested a public investigation to determine if his allegations are true.
“It has come to my attention that Select Board member Russ Anderson has been reviewing security footage of me,” said Deedy as Anderson and board members Diane Gale and Douglas Moglin listened.
Deedy said Anderson had been reviewing the footage to see what paperwork he might have been carrying in Town Hall, who he was meeting with and “making notes of my movements.”
He also accused the town’s Chief Administrative Officer Nicole Parker of monitoring him in Town Hall.
“This is not just troubling on a personal level but deeply concerning in terms of ethics, professionalism and the culture we’re creating in this building,” he said.
Deedy acknowledged that surveillance cameras were important for safety purposes, but that his being monitored was not about safety.
“It isn’t about safety. It feels targeted. It feels personal and it crosses a serious line,” Deedy said, adding that it’s never “appropriate” for any town employee to use surveillance to track or monitor other officials.
And he wanted to know why it was happening.
“Who else are you guys watching? Is this the kind of culture we’re going to tolerate in Southwick?”
He then had questions specific to Anderson, who was elected to the board in May.
Deedy said that he knows that Anderson was in Town Hall for several hours on Election Day when the polls were open despite election regulations that prohibit a candidate from being closer than 150 feet from a polling area.
“Was surveillance being used that day to observe who was coming in and out [of Town Hall]? Was there an effort to meet and greet specific voters?” he asked, adding it was a “fair question” given what he’d learned.
“This goes to the heart of integrity and trust in how we govern,” he said.
“I see you,” he said to the board. “And I believe the residents of Southwick deserve to know who’s watching and why,” he said.
He then asked for a public investigation into who had accessed the surveillance footage, why and for what reasons and with a formal response “on the record.”
Deedy also asked that the hub of the surveillance system be moved from Town Hall to the police station and policies be developed to keep the system from being abused.
When Deedy was asked after the meeting how he came to learn that he was being spied on, he said he was not ready to provide that information yet but that he had requested, through the Freedom of Information Act, that the town provide footage of the surveillance cameras for various times and days.
Parker couldn’t comment on the allegation because she didn’t attend the meeting and it had yet to be posted on the town’s YouTube channel before she left on July 29 for personal reasons.
When Gale was contacted, she said in a text message that she hadn’t read Deedy’s statement, which she requested when he was done.
“I can’t comment on that until he sends me what he read, as he said he would, to fully understand the full context of his remarks,” Gale said.
Anderson initially declined to comment in a text message.
After Deedy’s allegation that Anderson, was in Town Hall during the day of the May election, his challenger, John Cain who lost by 20 votes, suggested Anderson’s presence could have influenced the outcome.
“I had no idea he was in the building. It definitely gave him a real advantage,” Cain opined on July 31.
Cain raised the same issues Deedy raised earlier in the week after learning of the allegation.
“What about those last-minute people who came to vote and they saw Russ there and thought, ‘He must really want to be on the Select Board?’” he said.
He also questioned if Anderson broke election regulations.
“Generally being in Town Hall isn’t allowed,” Cain said, referring to state municipal election regulations, which prohibits campaigning within 150 feet of voting locations.
According to Secretary of State William Galvin, “Under state statute and regulations, a person may not do anything within 150 feet of a voting location designed to aid or defeat a candidate or question being voted on in that location.”
Cain said that when he voted, he was required to wear an oversize T-shirt over the shirt that had the name of his company, Cain Mechanical LLC, on it.
He also said that after hearing Deedy’s allegations, he wanted to verify they were true.
“I’ve learned that they are,” he said.
Cain also had questions about poll workers on Election Day.
“Election officials know the rules and they would know that he shouldn’t have been here and told him to get out of there,” he said.
He said he is planning on filing a complaint with the Galvin’s Elections Division.
However, Anderson said, when contacted on July 31 for a comment and if he was at Town Hall on Election Day, he had already contacted the division and deferred commenting because “…[that’s] all I can say with ongoing investigation.”
During the May municipal election, Anderson got 477 votes to Cain’s 457, a difference of 2.1%.
