There won’t be winners and losers when it comes to the new Fire Station — everyone will win or everyone will lose.
The Open Meeting Law must not be taken lightly… When tough decisions have to be made by the board, it is certain that at least some residents are going to be unhappy with the outcome. That outcome will be far easier for even the most disappointed citizens to accept, however, if they see that the process that led to it was fair and legal. — “The Massachusetts Select Board Handbook”
The Bedford Flag is preserved behind glass in the Town Library, but the courage it once heralded is badly needed in its hometown today. Even though dozens of FOIA requests have documented some very disturbing facts, the Select Board has avoided any discussion of findings that prove a $40 million project was schemed and lied into existence — forestalling any hope of a superior solution. Did the Board avoid discussing the information on the advice of Town Counsel? After citizens who have been kept in the dark funded the project?
Ironically, there is nothing in the Open Meeting Law that can remedy the ongoing lack of transparency. While it dictates how information must be shared, it does not control information that never gets put on the agenda in the first place. As long as transparency is treated like a buzzword and the Select Board feels it must sweep massive wrongdoing under a rug, The Bedford Citizen has nothing to report, and the people have no trusted source to give them the sordid and insulting facts.
Have the people of Bedford been sold a bill of goods while the outstanding possibility described below is slipping away? Whether the inconvenient truth would change anything, or not, can’t be known. That can only be determined by fully informed citizens at a Special Town Meeting. But as long as they are deprived of information they should have, one of the most revered relics of the American Revolution is on display in the town where democracy got mugged while the people were too busy and misinformed to notice.
The facts are now documented and cannot be denied: 139 The Great Road was not “the sole suitable site” for the new station. Therefore: The townspeople were defrauded; the Historic District was vandalized; Town Meeting was subverted; the state procurement law was twisted; a Superior Court judge was manipulated; the town’s first responders were cheated; the community was poisoned — and none of that happened by accident.
What matters most is not that Sarah Stanton pay for what she did to Bedford but that the people don’t pay for what she did to Bedford. Since it can be shown that residents were, in fact, tricked by her devious and reckless promotion of the property, and that there was a frontal assault on the town’s self-government, they have an absolute right to know that. The Select Board is duty-bound to air the findings that have been brought to their attention and to let the people decide what they want to do about it.
Those who see Bedford as just another pretty town, with top-tier schools and a thriving community, are naturally annoyed by these efforts to challenge the accepted wisdom on the new fire station and to set the record straight. What matters to them is that a facility that is urgently needed and richly deserved by the town’s long-suffering first responders gets built.
This summation is not addressed as much to them as to those who certainly care as much, but don’t think of Bedford as just another town — those who claim a connection to the ancient flag that was once to April’s breeze unfurled, and to its mantle of moral and political courage. This review is the best I can do to summarize the extensive information I have sifted through. It is intended for those who are not afraid to raise their voices to challenge blatant abuse of power when it is revealed — believing that everyone will benefit from their courage in the end.
Transparency is not optional. It can’t be important sometimes and not others. The voters of Bedford were deceived and manipulated by Sarah Stanton, but now it is the Select Board that is keeping that knowledge from the people. Why? Bedford’s residents deserve to know the full details of the project for which they are paying so dearly. It is time for the Board’s members to discuss the facts in a public meeting and get it all out in the open, where it has always belonged. Let informed citizens decide where the project should go from here.
Letters to Bedford’s Select Board Members:
“What no doubt looks like progress to you looks like a thin veneer over a tragic error to me. Because I know what it is hidden beneath the surface, and – by every ethical standard – Bedford’s residents should, too. Ten years from now, no one will care how long it took to get the new station built – all that will matter is how well it serves the needs of the community. It is a sad irony that the rallying cry to “Listen to the Firefighters” is ignored whenever the subject of a substation comes up. Why be satisfied with only maintaining existing response times when so many of them can be improved by turning the current project into a strategic overall solution? Isn’t it quite likely that spending $40 million at the Bacon property will actually push a substation even further into the future? Don’t you think there will be consequences?”
“The Select Board Handbook states that ‘to resolve problems that have been brought to any Board member’s attention by a Town resident or by any other means, the member should work in coordination with the Town Manager and, if appropriate, also bring the matter to the attention of the full Board.’ Please explain how that directive is being observed when it comes to this matter. Until last month, I was so focused on the toxic administration of Sarah Stanton that I failed to consider how damaging the Select Board’s apparent groupthink has been in seeking to advance a terribly flawed project at all costs without the fully informed oversight of the town’s people. “
“But what is most at stake, above and beyond the new fire station and the Historic District, is the sanctity of direct Town Meeting and the blessing of self-government. At a time when revitalizing attendance at Town Meeting is a top concern, addressing head-on the ways that it was undermined in 2022 and then identifying how what happened could have been prevented would have an invaluable, empowering, and healing effect. The opposite will be true if you fail to engage the public directly in the reckoning.”
“Even though you have all in some sense inherited the current project, you have an ongoing responsibility to evaluate the findings of my efforts to establish what took place – and the people of Bedford have a right to know the project’s back story. When what I share with the Board is never mentioned – let alone discussed – at your meetings, and therefore is never reported in The Bedford Citizen, people are justified in believing there is nothing to it… So much focus was placed on the Historic District, and the pressing public interest in having a first-rate fire station, that the highest public good was overshadowed. If citizens don’t have the benefit of the whole truth, the notion of self-government is meaningless.”
“There is nothing outlined above that isn’t possible with unity and goodwill. The massive Empire State Building was built in the Great Depression in just fourteen months! Please take this to heart. The goal of a new fire station is to give Bedford’s firefighters and the town’s residents what they need and deserve. Therefore, if the outlined plan meets the department’s and people’s present and long-term needs better than the current plan, it deserves a town-wide referendum at a Special Town Meeting. I doubt that anyone can find a single real downside to this proposal – or minimize a single one of the advantages. It makes sense in every way. Please give the citizens of Bedford the chance to reconsider the project – before it really is too late.”
“On this July Fourth, I am writing to implore you to demonstrate that Bedford’s exercise in self-government is not a charade. That shading the truth is not something you will stand for. That the ends do not justify the means. I am very sad to see the carriage house demolished when it could have been transformed into something that would have enhanced the Historic District, rather than something that will undermine and scar it. But in my mind, this has always been about saving the block above all. It is still possible to protect a property that is uniquely lovely and defend the integrity of the town’s authentic character.”
This was sent to the Attorney General’s Office in early June to provide the details behind the Request for Review that I filed on April 7, 2025. It had a dual purpose: To create a record that would hopefully result in finally making news The Bedford Citizen could report. Save Our Block was in no position to widely reach the people with what I had learned. The other was to give the Governor’s Office a factual account of the damage Sarah Stanton had done in Bedford. I knew that an investigation was a long shot, given the thousands of complaints the Attorney General’s Office receives annually, and was not surprised to learn that they would not be taking further action. And then, any state concerns were no longer an issue when Stanton left the Executive Office for the private sector in May.
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WHAT THE TOWN IS DOING TO 139 THE GREAT ROAD
IS AS WRONG AS WRONG COULD BE
Town officials were notified on May 12th that a complaint questioning the project’s
legitimacy is pending with the Attorney General’s Office.
An investigation may well determine that the Town has started tearing up
a property it does not have the legal authority to touch.
This letter was sent to Town officials to alert them to the pending “Request for Review” and to point out that if the
allegations of fraud can be substantiated, then the project is not only aesthetically and morally wrong, but illegal.
This site was launched [in July of 2022] to support the community, not to further divide it. We hoped then and still do that sharing important information that is lacking and presenting a fresh perspective would and will lead visitors to test their assumptions before deciding if the current fire station plan really is the only thing we can or should do.
That is why we adopted the symbolism of the fieldstone wall at 139 The Great Road. It is a retaining wall. It doesn’t divide — it supports. And it connects the future to the past. Generations of townspeople have walked past it on their way to school or work or the market. Men who went off to fight in the two World Wars might have climbed on it as children. It is a fixture of the town itself.
But focusing on only the house and wall misses what is most at stake. We think the fire station would ruin the visual integrity of one of Bedford Center’s key blocks because architects may design a suitable building, but they will never be able to integrate it — and a concrete front yard — into that gracious block.
If this location actually is the right thing for Bedford, it will hold up under more scrutiny than has been brought to bear on it so far. We know that 268 residents out of thousands of eligible voters think it’s the right thing. But if it’s not, it could become the worst mistake in town history.
It is cavalier to suggest that the current plan “meets Bedford’s needs” — because a solution that pleases some of the people and deeply saddens many others is not a solution. It is a breach — that can only be healed by shining more light on the issues that have not been addressed.
At the March 2022 Town Meeting, a member of the Historic District Commission read that body’s official statement during the public comments. It is too bad the Commission wasn’t given a platform before the vote to educate voters as to the limits on the discretionary powers granted to them under the legislative Act of 1964.
This is a perfect example of why people worked hard during a time of rapid expansion to establish a Historic District. They realized that only a body vested with the power to protect the town’s intrinsic value could withstand urgent, short-term pressures and require solutions that honor both the present and the past.
The location of the new fire station is one of the most consequential decisions Bedford’s townspeople will ever make. If everyone will examine and consider the information that is offered here, while there is still time to correct course, we are much more likely to find a solution all can embrace.
A “stakeholder” is anyone with something at risk when a policy is being discussed.
In this case, that is everyone whose heart is invested in this unique and precious town.
We’re all rooting for the same team. No one wants to see a mistake made that cannot be undone.
That would be much too high a price to pay.