On the citizens' watchdog site

A separate thread that ran through the campaign was a series of posts and council-meeting comments pressuring the residents behind Citizens for a Better Rivergrove to identify themselves publicly. The site has existed for several years. It publishes documents and analyses about Rivergrove governance—the kind of material that, in a small city without much local press, residents have to do for themselves.

A recurring pattern

The pressure didn't come once. It came across multiple venues over several weeks—on Nextdoor in early May, again on June 8, the day of a council meeting, and then unprompted at the meeting itself that evening. The June 8 post has since been deleted, but the same characterization of the site appeared verbatim in the meeting record. Several other posts from this period have also been deleted; this isn't the only one.

Screenshot via Nextdoor

Bill Tuttle, June 8, 2025 Council Meeting

During discussion of a budget line item—after a resident raised concerns about the City Manager's compensation—Tuttle pivoted unprompted to characterize the watchdog site as 'a soapbox thing.' Edited for readability.

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Show transcript

First: residents have raised on the record at council meetings that they're worried about retaliation for speaking up—at meetings in November 2025^[1] and April 2026^[2], among others. The concern isn't hypothetical, and it isn't paranoid; it's documented in the meeting record.

Second: anonymous political speech is a long-standing First Amendment tradition. The Federalist Papers themselves were published under pseudonyms. People who use that right to discuss their city government are doing exactly what citizens are entitled to do.

Third: the substantive question isn't who's saying things—it's whether what's being said is accurate. I'd rather engage with the substance of what's being raised than with the question of who's raising it.

My View

I want to live in a Rivergrove where residents aren't afraid of retaliation for speaking up, and where the city government is held accountable. An organized effort like this tells me that this just isn't the case right now, and hasn't been for some time.

I've said it over and over but it merits putting in writing: whether or not councilors agree that retaliation concerns are founded, they exist, and that means the Council has work to do on re-establishing trust between residents and the city government.

When a government feels threatened by anonymity, the best thing it can do is make constituents feel safe enough to speak up—safe, heard, and respected, and able to trust that the city will take their concerns seriously. I think Rivergrove is a pretty far way from that right now, and I hope we can get back onto a better path soon.