It’s none of your business. You know that, right?

You think you are entitled to be informed of what is going on with your local government? They are your tax dollars after all, right?

Blah blah blah. Oh, please.

Take a look around at recent different controversies in 2012 and 2013 in Maine and elsewhere:

–a guard at the Maine State Prison in Windham uses pepper spray in the eyes of a shackled inmate;

–kids at Cape Elizabeth High School bake cookies and brownies with marijuana in them, and an adult allegedly knows about it;

–the Old Orchard Beach town manager gets fired for alleged bad job performance;

–the Rutgers College basketball coach is forced to resign due to bad conduct with players;

–other towns go thru public employee resignations—with the employee leaving immediately perhaps to foreclose public discussion about his reasons for leaving;

In each case, you have these things in common:

a person doing bad things in public, and often seen by video cameras;

a claim by the employee or his/her supervisor that the conduct is “confidential” or a “personnel matter” and cannot be discussed in public, or any other way.

The public department head parrots this line, and refuses to tell the public what is happening;

As my late mother would say, “Jesus, Mary and Joseph!”

We need to go back to the drawing board as a state. This is not the way to handle these controversies. And certainly not the way to handle them if you want to build confidence in government that things are being handled well.

First, the whole issue of whether there will be a discussion about the incident(s) at all depends on the employee’s rights. Does the employee have a “right” to have his or her boss clam up about facts involved? Depends.

Meanwhile, do the supervisors involved have a duty to taxpayers and voters to let people know what is going on with their government? You bet. (Ever heard of the Tea Party Movement, both l700s, and now?!).

Inexperienced administrators engage in a knee-jerk reaction that “It’s confidential we can’t talk about it!” Or, “it’s a personnel matter; we can’t answer any questions.” And inexperienced, non-savvy lawyers for public entities either just go along with their clients and say it is all confidential so they will continue to rack up large fees, or perhaps just don’t know better.

A change is needed. Harry Macomber, where are you when we need you?

The former South Portland mayor and state representative, who invented Straight Talk long before the other guy, used to look you in the eye and say: “If you make a mistake, admit it. If you didn’t, say so, and discuss it.”

Administrators today didn’t get that memo.

At best, voters are being denied basic information about which they have a right to know. At worst, a climate of distrust and fear permeates local Town Halls, and systems suffer because taxpayers no longer want to pay for programs.

Here is a primer on how things ought to be handled. This advice is based on 30 years dealing with local government, Maine Legislature, and U.S. Congress.

Let’s take a hypothetical case.

A public employee goes out onto U.S. Route 1 into traffic. He has with him a large vat of Cool Whip. He begins weaving in among the vehicles, dousing windshields. People are upset. Cars crash into one another. There are medical bills. Ambulances are involved. Drivers are angry.

The next day, the local public administrator is bombed with phone calls. Parents call about kids whose cars got hit. Adults are upset about repair bills. The head of the ambulance department wants The Mad Cool Whipper to pay for the ambulance runs.

You are the administrator. Can you talk about the employee’s conduct?

Of course you can!

A reporter asks, “How do you feel about what happened?’

And adds: “What did you say to the employee when you met with him behind closed doors last night?”

Here is what you can say, and what you cannot say.

“We here in Small Town, USA feel strongly that citizens are entitled to a peaceful town with no disruptions in vehicle traffic. The actions by the employee were shocking and against the law. We will be reviewing the situation immediately and taking action to make sure it doesn’t happen again. As for my meeting with the employee, whatever we said behind closed doors is confidential.” You promise you will announce your findings soon.

This approach would go a long way to restoring confidence in government.

Whether it is a guard who pepper sprays a strait-jacketed inmate; or an adult who acts poorly with high school pot brownie bakers, or the Cool Whip Bandit, you tell the employee what you did was public. Own it.

And if you are the boss here? Smarten up!

Turn yourself back into a mere mortal human being, and not a magician. When you are asked to wave your magic wand and “make private” what was clearly public, you look silly. And the rest of us are made to feel like small house pets.

Dan Warren lives in Scarborough. He can be reached at jonesandwarren@gmail.com.