By John Barrella

In eight days, The G.O.A.T. Podcast sat down with Republicans, Democrats, the state auditor, the town’s school leader and a former selectboard chairman. That range isn’t an accident. It’s the job.

EDITORIAL – Between one Thursday and the next, a small studio at 1 South Main Street hosted more of the people who shape life in Middleborough than most residents will meet in a year.

It started Sept. 10 with state Representative John Gaskey, Republican of the 2nd Plymouth District, on his second visit to the show and days after his Sept. 1 primary win. With the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks a day away, the conversation turned to his 23 years in the Coast Guard. On the anniversary itself, Representative Norman Orrall, Republican of the 12th Bristol District, taped his first episode with us. He marked the day and talked about bringing an engineer’s eye to Beacon Hill.

On Monday, Middleborough attorney Adam Bond, a former chairman of the Board of Selectmen, took on the town charter: what the word “shall” requires, how boards should conduct themselves, and why public comment matters. On Tuesday, Interim Superintendent Dr. David Thomson talked through school buildings, enrollment, the budget, and how residents can follow school spending for themselves. The same day, Bob Nunes gave The GOAT an exclusive interview on his first day back as interim town manager, and he agreed to sit down with us regularly.

On Wednesday, State Auditor Diana DiZoglio joined us to discuss her fight to audit the Legislature, which voters backed by a wide margin in 2024, and the unfunded state mandates that land on local budgets. On Thursday, Representative Kathy LaNatra, the Kingston Democrat whose 12th Plymouth District includes two Middleborough precincts, talked about earmarks and whether Middleborough gets its share, her committee’s work on federal funding and accountability, and school transportation. She’ll be back in October.

That’s two Republicans and two Democrats, plus a statewide officer, the school district’s leader, a charter expert and the town’s top manager. We did that on purpose.

G.O.A.T. stands for Government Oversight, Accountability & Transparency. None of those words works with a one-sided guest list.

Oversight means following the money wherever it goes.

Middleborough’s budget isn’t written only at Town Hall. The state sets the mandates and sends the aid. Before the town can spend its free cash, the state’s Division of Local Services has to certify it. You can’t oversee a town’s finances by talking only to the town. You have to follow the dollars up to the State House, the Department of Revenue and the auditor’s office, then back down to Town Hall.

Once you’re back at Town Hall, you have to be able to see the books.

For about a year and a half, two Finance Committee members have been asking in writing for access to MUNIS, the town’s financial system. Recently, the committee voted unanimously to make the same request. Access still hasn’t been granted. It’s the same fight State Auditor Diana DiZoglio brought to our studio this week. Voters gave her the authority to audit the Legislature in 2024, yet she has had to take legislative leaders all the way to the Supreme Judicial Court to press for the records. The principle is the same on Beacon Hill and at Town Hall: the people charged with checking the books shouldn’t have to fight to see them.

That may be about to change. Joseph Perkins, who served as interim town manager until this month, spent his time in the job managing the fallout from the town’s budget crisis. The request now sits with his successor, Bob Nunes, who has said he will review it with the town’s information technology department.

A town with clean books has every reason to show them.

If there’s a legitimate reason the request sat for a year and a half, residents deserve to hear it. If there isn’t, that leaves two possibilities:

either the records aren’t in any shape to be seen, or someone doesn’t want them seen. Neither is acceptable. Full access to the town’s financial records isn’t a favor to the committee. It’s how residents find out where their money went.

This is work we know well. Long before Middleborough’s finances were front-page news, the questions were being asked here. This outlet’s founder began publicly warning and dutifully questioning former paid and elected leadership about the town’s spending and financial practices in 2024, before The GOAT published its first story, and The GOAT has pursued the truth about the town’s financial picture ever since. Along the way, we have faced many false accusations. Those will be dealt with legally.

In the meantime, the truth is coming to light more each day.

The town’s recent leadership has said as much. Perkins, Nunes and Select Board Chair Teresa Farley have all acknowledged that the budget left behind by the previous administration was not accurate. This outlet’s founder challenged that same budget book this spring, at a joint meeting of the Select Board, Finance Committee and School Committee.

It was after that challenge that Perkins took a deeper look at the numbers and found a $3.3 million deficit. More recently, Perkins went a step further. He tipped his cap to the founder and thanked him, said he appreciated the working relationships he had built, and said the founder probably deserves an apology from certain people. Many of those people were in the room at the Sept. 14 Select Board meeting. Several were not.

The fiscal 2025 audit has stalled. The treasurer/collector has resigned – two of them in as many years; along with key personnel from the previous administration’s office. A forensic audit is now part of the public and government conversation. On Monday, Sept. 21, Nunes will give the Select Board and the Finance Committee his first fiscal year update. We’ll be there, and we’ll keep reporting what we find.

Accountability means respectfully asking hard questions.

Both to the people who hold power and to the people who want it. Who sits at our table is always an editorial call, and in the races we’ve covered this election season, the invitations have gone to both sides. In the 2nd Plymouth District, Mark Townsend, who challenged Representative Gaskey in the primary, had his turn at the microphone, and Sarah Hewins, who faces Gaskey in November, has been invited too. Mike Walsh, the Republican running for attorney general, sat with us for an hour, and we have also invited Attorney General Andrea Campbell and Eric Meschino, Representative LaNatra’s November opponent.

The questions are ours. The answers are theirs. The judgment is yours.

Transparency means letting you decide.

When a Republican and a Democrat take the same kinds of questions a week apart, listeners don’t need us to tell them what to think. They can hear the answers, compare them and make up their own minds. A varied lineup also brings a varied audience. The person who tunes in for their state rep ends up hearing from the auditor. The parent who comes for the superintendent learns what the charter promises. A transparency mission that reaches only people who already agree isn’t doing its job.

There’s one more measure worth noting: people come back. Representative Gaskey returned. Representative LaNatra is returning. The state’s auditor, Diana DiZoglio, returning. Representative Orrall will return. Mike Walsh, the Attorney General candidate is returning. The Interim Superintendent of Schools, also returning.

The interim town manager has committed to regular conversations. Officials don’t come back to a room where they get ambushed, and they shouldn’t want to come back to one where they get flattered. They come back because the questions are direct and the treatment is fair. Accountability journalism runs on that trust, and we intend to keep earning it.

We’re just getting started. Later this year, The G.O.A.T. Podcast will welcome Cabinet-level guests.

We aren’t naming names yet, but the conversations are coming, and they’ll be held to the same standard as every episode before them. There are other big plans in the works too, and we’ll share them when they’re ready.

What was true when we started is still true: the best way to keep government honest is to question it in public, from every direction, and let residents hear the answers. Every episode is available on Spotify, YouTube, Instagram and at thegoatnewsinmiddleborough.com.

Send us the questions you want asked. There’s room at the table.

Disclosure: The G.O.A.T. Podcast’s hosts, John Barrella and Matt Phillips, both serve on Middleborough’s elected Finance Committee. Barrella also serves on the Town Manager Search Committee.

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