New Brunswick Today won’t cave to Housing Authority Board’s pressure to stop reporting on wrongdoings

A friend referred to New Brunswick Today editor Charlie Kratovil as “a pain” in respect to his recent report on the actions of the New Brunswick Housing Authority and its members. This is my response to the comment:

If by being “a pain” you mean that Charlie Kratovil is doing the job the people of New Brunswick pay him to do through supporting his bilingual English-Spanish newspaper: in other words, investigate fraud, nepotism and unjust practices aimed at citizens, yeah I guess he would qualify.

Kratovil’s kickass journalism has uncovered fraud which led to the dismissal of 2 fake Housing Authority Board Members.

Charlie’s ignoring the remaining board members’ attacks on him for repeatedly requesting information they refuse to give him – which happens to be public information. Eventually, Charlie will just sue them and let a judge order them to cough up information they have no right to suppress.

Charlie refuses to be subjected to questioning as if he were a sitting member on a publicly appointed board belonging to city government. Because he’s not: he’s a reporter whose job it is to monitor politicians, appointees and city employees – and make sure they’re doing right by the citizens they are pledge and/or hired to serve.

And, he refuses to be cowed into not reporting truths that the Housing Authority Board members obviously want him to not report. Truths that might go unknown were it not for Kratovil, as he’s often the only member of the public at NBHA meetings – aside from a videographer who recently attended a meeting. The board does not record their open public meetings and emphatically challenged the right of the videographer to do so.