The Essex County Board of Supervisors says it's too hard to make all pertinent information on issues to be discussed at its meeting available to the public. It has sent the State Legislature notification of that determination. The legislature might be interested to know that other bodies are finding the requirement to be no problem.
The legislature is considering a law that says public bodies must provide all documents relating to matters to be discussed at public meetings so citizens will know what's going on during those discussions. It's an effort to extend to Freedom of Information Laws in New York state so government truly belongs to the public. Those laws began in 1974 with the Open Meetings Law and Access to Records Law. Enforcement of those laws is in the province of Robert J. Freeman, the executive director of the state's Committee on Open Government.
In the past 35 years, Freeman has written thousands of letters directing governments on all levels to abide by the spirit of the laws. He has lectured on the matter in foreign countries so those governments can taste what freedom means in New York state.
Freeman would no doubt be chagrined to learn that the Board of Supervisors in Essex County deems this part of the legislation too difficult to comply with.
Supervisors who spoke against the legislation at last week's meeting emphasized that they are not against sharing the information with the public. It's that providing all the documents, including late changes, would be too confusing. County Manager Daniel Palmer opined that, "If you do something that changes a resolution, now you've got two sets of information out there. The public is going to wonder which one is correct."
We have supreme confidence that the public will in fact be up to coping with this predicament. If people are interested enough to attend meetings, we believe, they will be acute enough to be able to figure out which of the two documents is the correct one.
Moriah Supervisor Thomas Scozzafava disagreed with several of his colleagues who said compliance would be impossible. And Westport Supervisor Daniel Connell may have offered the wisest opinion of the day: "It doesn't look good to the public if we're doing this sort of resolution." It certainly doesn't.
Connell unfortunately went on to say, "To have to publicly put out so much information, it's going to be difficult."
Apparently not.
For example, the Peru Central School District included this statement in its routine news release on its next meeting: "As is customary practice at Peru Central, an information packet will be available to district residents who attend the School Board's meeting. The intent of the information packet is to encourage district residents to follow along as the school Board attends to key matters and topics that evening."
Essex County supervisors should have unerring confidence its residents are every bit as smart as Peru's. Make the information available.
Opinion
June 20, 2010
EDITORIAL: Put information out for public
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In My Opinion: Behind the city lockbox program
