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In a recent letter I brought attention to comments Select Board Chair Vanessa Alvarado made about me personally in an open televised session of the Select Board held on 2/11/2020.
During that meeting I was remarking about the urgency to discuss and vote to ratify our Town Manager’s appointment, Deputy Chief David Clark. I was pointed
in my remarks, noting that this had been unnecessarily delayed by Chair Alvarado. You may review the video of my comments from the 2/11/2020 meeting here (I’ve cued this link to the start of my comments): https://tinyurl.com/tzy23dc
Fortunately, David Clark has now been confirmed and sworn in as Reading’s Police Chief. Frankly, this has been my number one goal over the last few months as my current term on the Board expires on March 3rd. The brave men and women of our Police Department needed an official and permanently-appointed leader. Our Town needed the security and safety of its Police Department properly staffed and led.During the February 11th meeting Ms. Alvarado accused me of “grandstanding” with “numerous inaccuracies” and “blatant lies.” I am not accustomed to being called a blatant liar for the simple reason I do not lie. I always base my comments both public and private on the truth as I know and understand it.
Frankly I won’t stand for such an accusation and I will be defending my integrity that Ms. Alvarado chose to impugn in a very public way.
I will be starting today with the attached high-level graphic summary regarding the delays to the selection process for which Ms. Alvarado is directly accountable.
This will be the first of several postings over the coming days. It is my experience over many years as a leader and trainer that people learn and understand in very different ways. Some learn visually, others must read and analyze, still others need to learn through hearing a set of facts directly. It will be my goal to offer each of these to the reader as best I can, given the constraints of this format.
This first graphic is for those who would like to see an overview visually, which is attached to this letter.
Lastly, despite all the political chaos that has erupted in Reading with the unfortunate happenings of the February 11, 2020 Select Board meeting, my series of notes on this topic is meant solely to defend my integrity against irresponsible and inflammatory personal remarks directed at me by Vanessa Alvarado.
Sincerely,
John R Halsey
