“Please be respectful!”

That advice, which appears on the forum page of the town of Rumford’s Web site, is virtually ignored. Accusations and insinuation are rampant on the forum. The disrespect, blatant. The targets? Town Manager Steve Eldridge and Selectmen Jolene Lovejoy and Jim Rinaldo.

We can hardly blame the accusers for the nasty attitude.

Eldridge hired an auditor from RHR Smith and Co. for an informal review of the town’s internal financial controls and to look for anything “that might look unusual to her.” After two days of work, the auditor asked to speak to Eldridge and the board.

That meeting was held in June.

Eldridge, Rinaldo and Lovejoy met with the auditor to discuss initial concerns about lax financial controls and, at the close of that meeting, Lovejoy and Rinaldo authorized the auditor to pursue a secret audit of the town’s books.

There was no quorum of the board of selectmen to make this decision, something Eldridge said was arranged purposefully, and no process by which to put the audit out to bid.

The decision to pursue an audit was good. The process by which the decision was made was utterly improper.

Eldridge said he felt forced to invite a minority of the board to make this decision behind closed doors because, unlike Lovejoy and Rinaldo, the remaining selectmen do not have a solid track record of keeping executive-session discussions secret, as they should be.

Eldridge, who has been the town manager in Rumford for about 18 months, pursued hiring an outside auditor because he had some concerns about what he called negative growth in excise tax revenue in recent years. “When you have concerns like this, it has to be kept quiet. The minute you let people know what you’re doing, you’re letting people know the wolf’s in the henhouse,” he explained.

Of course, in Rumford, there was no wolf. The hens and their eggs are all safe.

The audit showed no wrongdoing of any town employee, just some poor internal cash-handling controls.

In assuming there was a bad wolf in their midst, Eldridge, Lovejoy and Rinaldo have blackened the trust between government and its constituents.

Eldridge eagerly justifies the action because he works without “the confidentiality of the (full) board.”

“My job is to protect the finances of this community,” he said, which is what he was hired to do. Rumford will be, once internal financial controls are aligned, in a better financial position than it is now. That’s what townspeople want.

True.

But, they also want full disclosure.

They want government operating in the open and trust in the people it represents. They want selectmen who will hold secret executive-session discussions secret. They want to be included in decision-making and informed about how their money is spent.

Not only are these reasonable expectations, that’s the law.