“Mystery of the Grey Rectangle”  A True Story about Ashland by Bryan Holley

The Mystery of the Grey Rectangle

by Bryan Holley

This mystery is a true story that took place right here in the People’s Republic of Ashland. Like all good mysteries, it starts innocently enough, as they should, then a plot begins as characters are introduced, things happen and at the end there is a resolution of sorts. This one began on a day like any other in Our Fair City. Our protagonist in this local mystery is, spoiler alert, me, longtime community participant, citizen activist and tree advocate. Various city staff appear, but, sorry, there is no villain, it’s just another surreal, Monty Pythonesque chapter in Ashland’s weird history.

To begin, your protagonist is a person who is grateful for the digital internet of information that we now live with, whether we all approve or not. And as a citizen who was asked by a former city administrator to do beta-testing of new city website roll-outs, and asked to comment on what would be user-friendly when changes for the site were being proposed, I admit as evidence that I have for some time visited and do indeed still visit the City of Ashland website.

A mystery itself, our city website, where so much that used to be available to citizens (like staff email addresses, archives, etc.) has been wiped, but that story must wait for another day. At the city website, and because we have lived in town for 35 years and have always supported our first responders, I discovered some years back clicking through the Fire Department website some Ashland Forest Resiliency (AFR) pages.

We are proud of what our city has done to address, through AFR, cutting-edge ways of preparing for preventing destructive, unwanted fires; for removing trees that are doomed from invasive tree pests and other diseases; for new ideas of how to landscape around our homes and realistic proposals that deal with our changing climate. And to my delight we found at the AFR pages a new, online tool to help citizens (drum roll, please), the Watershed Camera.

I learned that this camera is positioned on city property on the north side of the valley, near where Eagle Mill Road goes under I-5. The site and camera look back at Mount Ashland and our entire watershed, it’s a fantastic view. True confession, I visit this page every day, especially in the morning and evening, to see our beautiful city and watershed all the way up to the mountain top as the light and clouds flow and ebb.

Apart from my personal joy at this technology that allows me from my home in town to see such a view, this camera was installed and paid for as an important resource to directly aid our city. During events like the Almeda fire, during times when the Ashland Fire Department is doing controlled burns, or for any other emergency reason, this camera can be remotely moved to wherever necessary so that both citizens and staff can see almost-live, camera views to monitor any situation. It really is amazing when you think about it.

Music Cue: dark-sounding, minor-key, moody organ. Then, something changed, and that is where our mystery begins. One day, doing my normal check-in of the Watershed Camera, I noticed something new. In the lower, front center of the image was a grey rectangle, blocking part of the view. It looked like someone had put a piece of electrical tape on the camera lens. I kept checking throughout that day, but the rectangle remained and the mystery percolated.

Music Cue: earnest, bright piano notes. This is the moment various city staff are introduced and begin to play their roles. Over the course of a few days, then weeks, as I began to email various members of Ashland’s city departments about the grey rectangle, I found myself being responded to, yes, but also re-buffed (just as it happens in mystery novels). As I tried to penetrate the fog surrounding this change, I learned from our computer/IT folks that no tape had been used, instead, the rectangle had been digitally produced. Our first clue! But as in any good mystery, this answer to one question led to others.

Trying to determine why the grey rectangle was placed on the image and who decided, I persevered with more emails. But then, (Music Cue: sharp trumpet notes) I got a terse reply from a senior AFR staffer that said I should just ‘Move on and let it go!’ (just like characters say in mysteries when they don’t want you nosing around). For this amateur detective, I admit the tone alone of this message did nothing but spark my curiosity.

Music Cue: slow, deep, bass notes, going lower and lower. Then, things took a darker turn when a new character came into the plot – Ashland’s acting city attorney. For any who wonder about this position, after my 35 years of observation, please do not be fooled by the title ‘city attorney’. These men (they’ve all been white men) have always only worked for seven people, the six councilors and the mayor, so ‘council attorney’ would be a more accurate job title. They do not work for or like to respond to the other 22,000 of us, but so it goes in Our Fair City, where thousands of stories happen every day, just few of interest to whoever acts as our city attorney.

But I digress. Like a good detective, it was time to go back to my office and put my feet on my desk to sit back and ponder the facts so far (just as in mystery novels). As I strung together the timeline of events, from when I first noticed the new grey rectangle, to the weeks of sending emails to city staff learning no information on who asked for this to be done or to who approved the digital mask, I realized that I was not going to be told the simple facts because the city would cite privacy concerns. With little hope, but pressing on to unravel the mystery, I took the only step this detective had left, I emailed the acting city attorney to see if I could get two answers: 1) on what date was the electronic rectangle used to mask the camera’s view, and 2) who was the property owner who decided his/her concerns outweighed the 22,000 of us who liked the camera view, just as it was.

Well, just as you’d hope for in a good mystery, my request for two answers struck a nerve and without knowing it, I had stepped into a hornet’s nest! Music Cue: low, buzzing cellos, agitated strings.

I had not realized I had asked for a lecture instead of a reply, but Mr. Acting Attorney wrote me back with a paragraph of responses which I will honestly paraphrase in the interests of courtesy. He told me these things: a) our city employees are currently very busy and I am, too (so don’t bother us?); b) you seem to be seeking records which can now only be accomplished by using the form on the city website (two questions and I have to fill out a legal form?); c) the city isn’t obligated to create reports it lacks (huh? this indecipherable line will surely go into the Python Absurd Comments Hall of Fame); d) it is improbable that city departments keep any timeline record of their actions (why should they? The state public records act already requires everything a city employee does or communicates to be recorded and subject to its provisions, but why should they keep track of what they do?); e) citizens only have a privilege, not a right, to the camera view, (this is debatable: we pay for the camera, city staff and everything else so that seems like a right to me); and f) my personal favorite because of its snarky flavor — if I have further questions I will have to do a formal records request and if I make such a request, the acting city attorney’s time will be added to my fee. To this old curmudgeon/detective, that last part sounds close to a threat — keep asking questions about this mystery, sir, and you will have to pay for the public information request and, don’tchaknow, you will also have to pay for the acting city attorney’s time. Oh, my.

It would seem usual at this point in a good mystery for your protagonist to collapse to the floor in angst, because of these admonitions from the acting city attorney, but instead, I carried on like I always do. My detective mind told me it was the right move to stop emailing everyone, thinking that maybe the way to solve this mystery was to lay low and wait (just like smart detectives do). Since last year, time has passed and yes, the rectangle is still there. But one day recently when the camera went down, I contacted the IT folks again, who did not know it was down but thanked me for letting them know and worked to get it back online. In the back and forth of those emails I was finally told that a person had asked for their home to be masked on the camera because of privacy concerns (where have we heard that before?). You can see our wonderful, watershed camera view, including the grey rectangle, at this link: https://www.ashland.or.us/Page.asp?NavID=17744

But our tale is not just a tiny mystery about an online camera. I have been watching recently how Our Fair City responds to simple information requests from citizens and folks. Music Cue: alarming, scary-sounding, dissonant chords. I’m not the only one who can testify that things have changed. Without telling you all my history from decades of interacting with city staff, I’ll just put it this way – what used to be open and democratic is now closed down and shut. The mayors and councilors from the last few years can say whatever they want about being open and transparent and responsive to citizens, but there is no transparency in our local government, there is increasing opacity and it is intentional. If you want to know something about Ashland from the city government, get ready to open your wallet and fill out a form.

Anyway, it’s amusing to this activist to hear local elected officials say they care about what we think, because they’ve ignored emails with our views from me and many citizens for years. It’s a show put on to make us think they care, but the historical record shows otherwise. Ignoring citizens is a pattern going back decades. There are many examples, but how about this one. A recent meeting at city council chambers was packed to standing-room-only with citizens concerned about a 5G tower on the SOU campus and its effect on citizens’ physical and mental health. What did the councilors do to show they listen to the people who elect them? They voted 5-1 to ignore the people in front of them and instead approved new telecommunications standards. That’s not the council listening to the citizens, in my book, that’s the council giving concerned citizens the universal, single-finger gesture of ‘respect’.

But I digress. During my attempts to solve this mystery, I asked why it was that a person who would choose to live in a such a public place as a home right next to I-5, where tens of thousands of vehicles can look directly at the front door of such home every week, would then somehow decide that their non-existent privacy was being violated by the watershed camera. What? You can go to Google Maps and use street view to get an even better view of this house than the city camera does — maybe this person doesn’t know that? Since the acting city attorney made no response to all this and it was clear he was not going to help me solve the mystery, it seemed as if this detective had finally hit a wall. I chalked it up to the reality that some folks walk through this life worrying about what might happen, and sometimes one person’s fear can change the view from a camera for an entire city’s population. I guess that’s the moral, if there is one, of this sad mystery — fear cripples humans and ripples out into society. (Music Cue: sad, jazzy blues trumpet)

The final resolution of the story, as promised, is that the mystery has been solved! (Music Cue: violins harmonizing) Investigation revealed that there is no electrical tape on the camera lens, it is a digital mask intentionally placed there because of one person’s request or perhaps demand, a submissive city response, and the approval of an acting city attorney whose wide definition of his non-elected position seems to include managing staff behavior and making city policy.

That’s a wrap for this true mystery. Thanks for reading and your long attention spans. Please send comments, questions, props or insults for me to this link www.bryanholley.org.

Next up: The Mystery of the Ashland Actings: Acting Mayor, Acting Councilors, Acting City Manager, Acting City Attorney — Why? Final Music Cue: folksy, acoustic ukulele strumming, slowly fading out.