Backroom Deals in Our Backyards: How Government Secrecy Harms Our Communities and the Local Heroes Fighting Back

Journalist Spivack debuts with a stunning survey of “accidental activists” who faced down harm to their communities arising from malfeasance and deception in local government. Spivack argues that lack of transparency is the main avenue by which fraud and incompetence are able to flourish at the local level, and that the problem is growing, contributing to the erosion of the American public’s trust in “democratic governance.” Her examples are deeply upsetting, each one more indicative of a society whose priorities have gone dangerously out of whack than the last. She profiles Massachusetts resident Diane Cotter, who discovered that her husband Paul’s prostate cancer was likely linked to toxic chemicals in his firefighting uniform, but was met with extreme hostility by the firefighters’ union because the flame retardant suit’s manufacturer paid to advertise in union publications, and Maryland resident Richard Boltuck, who wanted to get a left-turn signal installed at a high-crash-incident intersection near his home, but was opposed for nearly a decade by a shadowy cabal of government contractors with ties to local politicians. Indeed, it’s the fad for privatization and outsourcing to contractors, Spivack persuasively demonstrates, that is generating a “nexus [of] growing secrecy” in local government, as kickbacks and preferential treatment become commonplace. The result is an enraging exposé of a nationwide culture of corruption. (May)