Of all the information that Tom Porell shared with me over the phone on Valentine’s Day 2023—and then later on April 13, 2023, in person—the most surprising was not about Matthew’s wife and suspicions she’d been paid not to open.

As disturbing as that notion was, what came as a far greater shock to me was to hear Tom Porell recount the conversation he had with you, Chuck, in early 2019, when he was thinking about applying for one of the two licenses to open a recreational-use cannabis store in town.

At the time, you were (and still are) a member of the Select Board and had been assigned to be on the Marijuana Working Group with fellow Select Board member Cindy Napoli and Planning Board members Anna Hueston and Ed Mullen.

Tom recalled that you told him, in early 2019, “Jenna and Christine are way ahead of you,” which, by that time, was undeniable. Tom also said that you, Chuck, told him, “And the other license has been promised to David Giannetta.”

You were probably taught in middle school to avoid passive voice whenever possible. The sentence “The other license has been promised to David Giannetta” uses passive voice.

For English speakers, passive voice is a great way to express an idea when the doer of the action is either unknown or inconsequential.

Say, for example: “My car was made in Germany.”

If you were to ask a Volkswagen owner “Who made your car?” the VW owner would be unable to name the specific person (or people) who did the actual manufacture and fabrication. The VW owner simply does not—and to be fair, cannot—know “who” made her car, and so, passive voice makes sense in this case.

But when you, Chuck, told Tom, “The other license has been promised to David Giannetta,” you opted to use the frowned-upon passive voice, leaving reasonable people to wonder, “Who promised David Giannetta the other license?”

Based on the timing of your conversation with Tom, the promise to David Giannetta that he’d be getting “the other license” was made long before Littleton—through its Marijuana Working Group, which you sat on—had even developed any clear procedure or formal policy relative to how our town was going to go about choosing the best two applicants to be awarded the HCAs, aka, those “licenses to print money.”

Since you were the one who said a promise had been made (passive voice), it leaves me to think that you, Chuck, were the one—both known and exceedingly consequential given your seat on both the Marijuana Working Group and the Select Board—who promised David Giannetta his license to print money here in Littleton.

Active voice, by and large preferred because of its clarity, would, instead, read:

“I, Chuck Decoste promised one of the two licenses to David Giannetta.”

Subject: “I, Chuck Decoste”

Verb: “promised”

Direct Object: “one of the two licenses”

Preposition: “to”

Indirect Object of the preposition to: “David Giannetta.”

Had you spoken to Tom in active voice, it would have been much, much clearer from the start—but perhaps clarity wasn’t what you were going for.

TTYS,

Jkb

P.S. I’d really love to get my copy of POVERTY, BY AMERICA back from you—you know, if you’re all done reading it.