I was dismayed by Richard Serkey’s recent letter (“Vecchi’s accusations lack credibility”), which seems to me to illustrate the overheated rhetoric that has made political discourse in the United States so unpleasant to engage in over the past decade.
Mr. Serkey is correct that [Scott] Vecchi was the subject of multiple civilian and internal complaints when he was a police officer. Serkey fails to mention that the majority of complaints against Vecchi were either not sustained or were dismissed after an investigation exonerated him of wrongdoing (“A career marked by many complaints ends with a hefty payday”, Plymouth Independent, Jan. 1, 2024). Eleven complaints were sustained, and these ranged from frankly minor behaviors to more serious ones, such as apparently ordering a subordinate to change a police report (Vecchi was reprimanded for this, according to the Plymouth Independent). Nonetheless, I do not believe Mr. Serkey has any more information about these cases than anyone else who was not directly involved, and he probably should not presume that everything said about Mr. Vecchi is true. He is assailing Vecchi’s character with essentially nothing more than reports about his behavior, and an attorney ought to know better than to impugn another man’s character based only on such reports. Vecchi is entitled to run for public office, and of course people are entitled to criticize him. But it is unprofessional, and unbecoming, to do so through little more than vague insinuations and the presumption of guilt.
Mr. Serkey should know better. He implies that Vecchi’s previous conduct makes him unfit for office without giving Vecchi the benefit of the doubt or the opportunity to defend himself. Serkey also ends his letter with a bizarre comparison of Vecchi to Donald Trump. Why? He calls Vecchi “[Trump’s] municipal equivalent,” which is ridiculous.
I do not know Vecchi personally, but I know that he is a disabled Iraq War veteran and a person who has served the town in various ways, either as a police officer or as a member of town committees like the Charter Commission. I am quite sure Mr. Vecchi is not a perfect person. But the comparison to Trump serves only to polarize further a community in desperate need of common ground. The fractious and petty nature of our national politics is being recreated in our own town, and it is simply depressing to watch.
– Jeffrey Millman
Editor’s note: Vecchi is a candidate for Select Board in the May 17 town election.