What’s going on with the University of New England and its plan to build a new pier on the Saco River?
Why is the university worried about a small time, mediocre reporter and the stories he writes about the proposed pier?
I don’t know how to answer those two questions.
But here’s what I do know: I’m not going away. I’m not giving up. In fact, I’m about to turn up the heat on this particular story.
On the day after last week’s election, I was feeling a bit glum and somewhat overwhelmed, so I decided to take a break and watch one of my favorite films, All the President’s Men.
For those of you who don’t know, the 1976 film was about two intrepid reporters from the Washington Post – Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward — who ultimately forced the resignation of President Richard Nixon at the height of the Watergate scandal.
Watching the film again, reminded me of just how hard and frustrating it is to be a reporter, whether you’re working for the Washington Post or the Biddeford Gazette.
Throughout history, governments, large corporations and powerful individuals have all sought to control the press; to push their own narrative and maintain secrecy. Sometimes stonewalling a reporter works.
Sometimes it doesn’t.
John Mitchell, President Nixon’s attorney general, threatened Katherine Graham, publisher of the Washington Post, during the Watergate scandal in 1972.
Mitchell warned the reporters, the editor and even the publisher of the Washington Post: “Katie Graham’s gonna get her tit caught in a big fat wringer if that’s published,” Mitchell said.
The Washington Post did not back down, even though many other newspapers were nervous or reluctant to dig deeper into the scandal at that point in time.
Let’s pause here for a moment.
I am not Carl Bernstein. Saco Bay News is not The Washington Post. And my stories are much, much less than microscopic when compared to historic stories such as Watergate or The Pentagon Papers.
I am just a semi-retired, overweight, underachieving, middle-aged, bald man with very few of his original teeth left and no college degree. (In fairness, Carl Bernstein also never earned a college degree).
So, if you stop and think about it, why should anyone at the University of New England give a rat’s ass about anything I write? What are they afraid of?
You better, you better, you bet
Earlier this year, I learned about the University of New England’s plan to construct a new pier on the Saco River.
Just a few weeks later, Biddeford City Manager James Bennett quashed both the city’s harbor master and the assistant harbor master from the regulatory review process.
When I contacted Bennett about his move, he told me it was done in order to prevent “bias.”
I got to work on my first story about the proposed pier, which was published by Saco Bay News on May 25th.
As the story continued to unfold, I wrote follow-up stories about the controversy. You can find all three of those stories by clicking on this link.
Just days after my third story was published, a representative from the university reportedly contacted the publisher of Saco Bay News and told her that “it would be best if Randy Seaver no longer wrote stories about the university.”
The University of New England (UNE) won. They got me bounced from the story . . . or did they?
Although you’re not going to see any more stories written by me in Saco Bay News about UNE’s pier, I am actually just beginning my effort to bring public awareness and transparency to this issue.
UNE’s attempt to silence the media has backfired. They can now expect an amplification of coverage on this issue.
You can’t handle the truth!
Reporters are trained to ignore rhetoric and focus on facts. If you read any of my prior reporting about UNE’s proposal, you will see that each article is balanced, fair and focused on facts.
That is the same approach I am taking here. I decided that once and for all, I wanted to see and explore some facts for myself.
A few weeks ago, I was invited to take a boat tour of the Saco River near the proposed location of the university’s pier.
I was not the only one invited to take this tour. Every member of the Biddeford City Council was given the very same opportunity. Every member of the media in southern Maine was also given the same invitation.
So far, I am the only journalist or Biddeford city official who has ventured onto the river to discover for myself what the hard data shows about adequate water depths.
It was an eye-opening experience, to put it mildly.
Below is a short video of what I learned during my tour near the base of the Saco River. I have also created a separate page on this blog site to gather and publicly share information about this topic.
My advice to the university and the city of Biddeford is this: Brace yourselves. I will not go gently into that good night. I want facts and transparency. This is not the end of my reporting.
It is just the beginning.
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