After last week’s Candidate Forum, The Reporter was approached by a Brandon resident who showed us printouts of posts and memes from the Facebook account of Ray Marcoux, who is currently running for Brandon Selectboard. Many of the posts were clearly jokes and not to be taken seriously or literally. However, some of them were more difficult to shrug off.
We did not discover these posts ourselves. We had not visited any candidate’s social media. But once we were made aware of this material, most of which has since been deleted, we had to make a decision whether to ignore this information or make it public. We have decided to make it public and would like to explain our reasons.
First, we acknowledge that Mr. Marcoux, like everyone else, is entitled to his opinions and his beliefs. He is also entitled to express those opinions publicly. No one is suggesting that he has done or said anything that he did not have a right to do or say.
But the voters of Brandon also have a right to know who is making decisions and setting policy on their behalf. The material culled from Mr. Marcoux’s Facebook profile does provide information that some voters will find useful in evaluating Mr. Marcoux’s candidacy. This is why we have decided not to keep what was given to us from the community. The examples we’re printing here convey a sense of the larger group they were drawn from. We apologize for any discomfort or offense they may cause. We thought it was important for the community to evaluate the material for itself.
We understand that some of our neighbors may object to the publication of this material on the grounds that it was meant humorously or only to be seen by Mr. Marcoux’s friends. Some may argue that what matters is how a member behaves on the Board, regardless of personal beliefs. And there is truth to that. But once we were made aware of this material, we felt obligated to allow all voters to decide for themselves whether to give it any weight in their votes.
We did reach out twice to Mr. Marcoux, via an email address that we had used to communicate with him before, to let him know that we had received this material and that we planned to publish it this week. We offered him an opportunity to submit a statement if he so wished. We have not heard back. The offer still stands.
After receiving the printouts, we did visit the public social media profiles of the other candidates, just to be clear that Mr. Marcoux is not being singled out. If we’re going to publish this, we need to be sure we’ve applied the same scrutiny to the other candidates as well. We did not find any other material comparable to what was culled from Mr. Marcoux’s Facebook.
Brandon is a small community. It was not an easy decision to put a spotlight on a neighbor like this. Even though the material was publicly available when it was discovered, it can certainly feel invasive to have what was perhaps intended only for friends suddenly called into question in a public forum. But Mr. Marcoux is seeking a public position and with that comes some degree of public scrutiny.
As we explained above, we did not discover this material ourselves. It was presented to us, along with a dilemma about how to handle it. Not everyone will agree with our decision to publish it. But it was known by some that we were in possession of it and, ultimately, we did not want to be in a position where our readers felt that we had ignored or withheld information that they would’ve deemed useful in how they cast their votes.
