Eastbayri.com

The following anonymous phone call came in to the editor’s voicemail on Thanksgiving:

“I’m looking at The Post from last week and this week. I was just wondering … is this Gregg Amore your new editor? His editorial columns here, and that’s what I consider them, are just the voice of the union’s operations. They should be labeled as such or removed from the paper or I’m going top stop looking at the paper or supporting any advertisers. His union point of view – raise taxes, support the teachers – it’s just disgusting under the circumstances East Providence is in now. Anyway, just wanted to voice my opinion.”

Before we address this complaint, here is some inside baseball about The Post’s Opinion pages that we at the paper wrongly assume most of our readers already know:

• What you’re reading right now is an editorial crafted by The Post’s editorial staff. It is the opinion of the newspaper, not of a specific editor or a reporter.

• Letters to the editor are just that, letters of opinion sent in by our readers. We publish every letter we receive unless they are libelous. If we have an issue with a letter we contact the writer and make every effort to resolve said issue. All letters – unless submitted by a group or organization – run with a full name and street address.

• Commentaries – also called columns – represent the opinion of the person writing the column. In addition to Mr. Amore (mentioned above) we have a few regular columnists who are not employed by the paper. Fran Brelsford, Jane Brindisi-Crevier and a few others write regularly. Avid readers will notice that Mr. Amore and Ms. Brelsford are typically on opposite sides of city issues. Ms. Brindisi-Crevier, blessedly, writes lighthearted human interest columns about life in our neighborhoods.

Now, back to that anonymous caller. The most important thing about these pages is that they belong to you, the reader. As mentioned above, anyone can writer a letter to the editor but what you might not know is that we are always looking for people to write regular columns. We don’t care what your point of view is – we just want you to have one and be able to explain it clearly. We’re not in the business of harvesting columns from people on one side of the issues. As evidence you may want to look back at former school committee chairman Anthony Carcieri’s columns that ran frequently when he was in office.

Got something to say? It’s as easy as contacting editor Victor Paul Alvarez at 424-9116 or at valvarez@eastbaynewspapers.com. If the anonymous caller who spurred this editorial is reading this, we look forward to hearing from you.