Town government should promote an informed citizenry, not keep citizens in the dark

With a change in leadership I thought town government would become more open but I’m afraid little has changed. I offer two examples. 

As thoroughly discussed in a recent editorial, all we have these days by way of Town Board meeting minutes are terse, lopsided summaries of comments from some of the public.  Yes, there are video recordings but as pointed out in that editorial those are difficult to navigate and very time consuming to use. 

Surely responsible Town Board members who want to review and evaluate public comments made during public hearings on important town matters would agree. Minutes are much more accessible and time-saving than videos and they are very easily created with today’s technology.  

From personal experience, in 2015,  when United Riverhead Terminal applied to expand its non-conforming use in order to ship in, store, and distribute gasoline, my civic successfully challenged and was instrumental in defeating that proposal. Being able to read the minutes of Town Board meetings from the 50s regarding the establishment  of this terminal and deep water dock for oil tankers was invaluable in fighting that expansion.  Video recordings of those meetings–had they existed–would have been a nightmare to research.

The written words were so very important and so easy to access. Having learned from that experience, and for the benefit of the public, I urge the Town Board to return to the creation of minutes of its meetings. 

On another open government matter, I’ve written to the supervisor and his legislative aide following up on a request for video recordings of Presubmission Conferences. To date, I have received no replies. I did, however, just see the supervisor’s comments at the recent Jamesport Civic meeting where he said it might be unfair to those presenting at Presubmission Conferences to  have their proprietary ideas recorded. But this makes no sense whatsoever. Those meetings are open to the  public — anyone can come and listen so why shouldn’t they be recorded. And to say this may be the first time these ideas have been aired with the Planning Department is hard to believe. I’d be amazed if developers hadn’t  already dropped in to talk to the Planning Department before scheduling a Presubmission  Conference.

Too many projects in this town have been worked out with Board members and/or the Planning Department behind closed doors. The whole idea of Presubmission Conferences was to give the public a heads up so they know what’s in the works. Yet few members of the public can attend 9:30 am meetings. As a result, without video recordings, Presubmission Conferences do not further the goal of Open Government. They may as well be held behind closed doors. Obviously minutes would be optimal but at minimum there should be a video recording. 

Folks who want to be informed and participate in town government should be afforded every opportunity to know what their town government is doing. Minutes of Town Board meetings and videos of Presubmission Conferences are a very small ask with a very big payoff for the people for whom Town Government is supposed to be working.

Kathleen McGraw is a part-time resident of Northville.

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