Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston, Volume 23

Therefore I cannot answer you.» «But isn't it true that many of your employees have transferred to Friends of the Rivers?» Inose asked. «Job transfers are a matter for each individual employee» was the reply. «If someone transfers in order to make use of his superb ability and expertise acquired while at the Corporation, it is his individual decision. The Corporation can say nothing about these individuals' choices.» The Corporation «cannot answer you,» «can say nothing.» There is no recourse against this. In 1996, newspapers reported that auditors at government agencies turned down 90 percent of the public requests for audits during the decade from 1985 to 1994. And if a citizens' group presses too hard, documents simply vanish: this is what happened when citizens of Nagano demanded to see the records of the money (between $18 and $60 million) the city spent courting the International Olympic Committee in 1992. City officials put ninety volumes of records in ten big boxes, carried them outside town, and torched them ...»