The allegations involving my friend Bill Keohan and a teenage Plymouth lifeguard are serious. But they should not be treated as established fact and certainly should not be allowed to erase decades of extraordinary public service to Plymouth.
For decades Bill has been one of Plymouth’s most engaged citizens. He helped bring the Community Preservation Act to Plymouth and was the longtime chair of the Community Preservation Committee. During his tenure, CPA funding helped create or preserve hundreds of affordable housing units, protect thousands of acres of open space, improve recreational areas, and restore some of Plymouth’s most important public and historic buildings.
Among the projects associated with that work are the preservation and rehabilitation of the 1820 Courthouse, the Spire Center for Performing Arts, Plymouth’s Center for the Arts, and the acquisition of Hedge’s Pond Recreational Area.
Plymouth voters subsequently rendered their own judgment on Keohan’s record. In 2025, Bill ran for Select Board, swept all 18 precincts, and finished first in a five-candidate race.
None of this is to suggest that a person with a distinguished record is incapable of losing his temper or acting inappropriately. Public officials should be held to the same standards of civility as everyone else—perhaps higher ones. Nor should the young lifeguard be criticized for reporting what he believes occurred.
But character and history matter when an accusation is disputed.
A single unproven encounter, based upon an identification that Keohan directly contests, should not suddenly redefine a man whose public conduct can be examined across a lifetime.
The appropriate response, therefore, is neither to attack the lifeguard nor to presume Keohan guilty.
Investigate the incident. Examine the records. Determine whether the identification can be corroborated. Give the young man a fair hearing. Give Keohan the same.
– Frank Mand