THE BERKLEY ACCOUNTABILITY PROJECT

We have wonderful news for the people who desperately want the Berkley Accountability Project to disappear: you can make it happen.

No lawyers are required. No petitions need to be signed. No emergency Facebook meetings. No secret Messenger threads. No trips to the Berkley Police Department to file frivolous complaints. No frantic screenshots launched into the group chat followed by seventeen exclamation points. And you definitely don’t need to assemble the gang from Scooby-Doo to pull off the mask and reveal who’s behind the Berkley Accountability Project.

There is one simple trick: stop giving us material.

That’s it. We realize this may disappoint anyone who has imagined us operating from some elaborate underground headquarters where we wake up every morning, spin a giant Wheel of Berkley Residents and ask, “Who are we ruining today?” We don’t. There is no headquarters. No secret handshake. Nobody is sitting behind a curtain like the Wizard of Oz operating the Berkley Accountability Machine. Frankly, we have better things to do.

But Berkley has developed its own remarkably efficient content-production assembly line. Someone posts a rumor. Someone else upgrades it to “I heard.” Three comments later it becomes “EVERYONE KNOWS.” Then somebody’s cousin confirms that her neighbor heard the same thing from a guy whose brother once plowed the Town Hall parking lot. By lunchtime, it’s The View without commercial breaks. By dinner, alliances have formed. By bedtime, somebody has been voted off the island. And the next morning everyone acts stunned that we took screenshots.

Welcome to the Berkley Accountability Project

The blog exists because too many people became comfortable saying things about their neighbors, Town employees, elected officials and community members that they apparently never expected anyone to examine later. But we examine them. Between the defamation, mistruths, disinformation, and bullying it’s not a great look for some of them. And here comes the plot twist: if the behavior stops, the stories stop.

Things are not what they seem:

On the left – a criminal citation for destruction of property to local social media personality and Berkley resident Noel Edgren.

On the right – a booking mugshot from the arrest of Berkley Planning Board Member Gregory Unger for domestic violence.

Somewhere along the way, a handful of adults seem to have forgotten the social-media rules we spend years teaching our children. Don’t bully people. Don’t gang up on someone. Don’t spread rumors. Don’t create fake accounts. Don’t humiliate people online. Don’t say something behind a screen that you wouldn’t say to someone’s face. Don’t join in just because everyone else is doing it.

That’s the bizarre part. These aren’t confused teenagers learning how to navigate social media. They’re grown adults. Parents. Grandparents. Community members. Elected and appointed Town officials. People who would presumably be furious if their own child came home from school and said a group of classmates had spread rumors about them, mocked them online and encouraged everyone else to pile on. We’d call that bullying. Put similar behavior in a Berkley Facebook group, add a property-tax argument and a bald eagle profile picture, and suddenly we’re supposed to call it “community engagement.”

Stop spreading misinformation you haven’t verified and we lose a story. Stop personally attacking people because you disagree with them and another one disappears. Stop turning ordinary Town business into a conspiracy and there goes Tuesday. Stop using fake or anonymous accounts to stir people up and Wednesday is suddenly wide open.

Think of yourselves as our unpaid writers’ room. You keep pitching. We keep getting renewed. At this rate, we’re headed for six seasons, a reunion special and one of those terrible spinoffs nobody asked for.

And yes, people send us things – lots of things. People talk. People screenshot. People forward messages. Before everyone starts looking over their shoulder like they’re competing on The Traitors, relax. Not every screenshot becomes an article. Evidence needs context. Claims need corroboration. Public records need to actually say what people claim they say. Sometimes there simply isn’t enough there to publish.

Very inconvenient for the narrative, we know.

Believe it or not we also aren’t interested in people simply because they disagree with us. We don’t see disagreement as misconduct and criticism isn’t misconduct. We can handle that. Voting differently also isn’t misconduct. You can dislike an elected official, criticize a Town decision or think someone’s idea is spectacularly stupid. That’s Democracy.

Deliberately spreading false information about someone is different. Harassing people is different. Coordinating personal attacks, publicly humiliating people or repeatedly presenting speculation as fact is different.

And there is some spectacular irony here. Some people who spent years publicly criticizing everybody else now appear horrified to discover that criticism has a return address. Apparently accountability was supposed to operate like Mean Girls: you can sit with us, you cannot sit with them, and absolutely nobody is allowed to ask who started the rumor. Suddenly, people who spent years holding the magnifying glass have discovered that the magnifying glass swivels. This has not been universally well received.

But this isn’t about revenge. It’s about changing a culture that has become exhausting. Berkley doesn’t need to operate like a permanent episode of Survivor. We don’t need tribes, alliances and somebody voted off the island every Tuesday. Every election doesn’t need to create enemies, and every Facebook thread doesn’t need a villain. We enthusiastically support boring.

Imagine someone posts incorrect information, another person responds, “Actually, here’s the document,” and the first person says, “Thanks. I was wrong.” That’s it. No 147-comment thread. No anonymous account appearing with a bald eagle profile picture and six friends. No sequel. Just two adults exchanging information and moving on. Now that would be revolutionary and absolutely terrible for this blog.

So if you want the Berkley Accountability Project to disappear, make us irrelevant. Tell the truth. Check something before sharing it. Correct yourself when you’re wrong. Stop turning rumors into facts. Stop the personal attacks. And when your friend starts pouring gasoline on the latest Facebook fire, maybe don’t show up carrying matches and a popcorn GIF.

If everyone did that, the Berkley Accountability Project could become Seinfeld: a show about nothing. Make our inbox so quiet we start checking the spam folder for material. Force us to publish pictures of foliage. Make us write “Top 10 Places in Berkley to See a Nice Hydrangea.”

Until then, when something deserves attention, we’re going to scrutinize it. When public records tell a story, we’re going to read them and share them with all of you – the public. When evidence contradicts a public narrative, we’re going to point it out.

Because beneath all the satire is something that matters. Berkley isn’t The Truman Show. These aren’t characters placed here for everyone else’s entertainment. They’re real people with families, jobs, reputations and lives that continue long after everyone gets bored with the Facebook thread and moves on to the next outrage.

The goal was never to keep this blog busy forever. The goal is to someday make it unnecessary.

And what a glorious final article that would be:

BREAKING: BERKLEY ACCOUNTABILITY PROJECT SHUTS DOWN AFTER RESIDENTS START ACTING NORMAL

In an unprecedented development, two residents disagreed Tuesday and neither called the other corrupt. No anonymous Facebook accounts were created. No one’s cousin heard anything. Nobody demanded a resignation. Absolutely no one typed “DRINK UP BERKLEY!!!” Authorities report that everyone simply went to bed.

So if you hate this blog, don’t hire an attorney. Don’t start another Messenger thread. Don’t assemble the Scooby-Doo gang. Don’t follow the yellow brick road looking for the person behind the curtain. You already have the power. As Dorothy eventually discovered, you had it all along.

Just click your heels together three times and say:

Stop. Giving. Them. Content.