Open meetings law

Riverhead Town Clerk James Wooten says the town is looking to bring back verbatim transcripts of meeting proceedings, including comments by members of the public made during public hearings and other public portions of the meetings, using artificial intelligence for transcription.

RiverheadLOCAL was one of eight news organizations statewide recognized with the Open Government Champion Award by the New York Coalition for Open Government. 

Learn the ins and outs of open meetings and records access in New York in these two virtual sessions being offered by the New York State Committee on Open Government M

With no penalties for violations and no enforcement except by lawsuits in State Supreme Court brought by private citizens, it's no wonder officials often act like complying with these laws are optional. There is a better way, if N.Y. state lawmakers were serious about transparency.

The Riverhead Town Board will move to grant board members the ability to participate virtually during public meetings if they aren’t physically available to attend in person. 

Opinion: There's an old saying: "Laws are like sausages. It's best not to see them being made.” We disagree. That's precisely when you need to pay attention.

This week's town board work session violated the State Open Meetings Law, because the town didn't give 72 hours notice of the meeting to the public and the news media.

An advocacy group is calling for reforms to state public information laws after their report found that several county boards of elections in New York, including Suffolk’s, displayed a lack of transparency in answering their requests for meeting information.

The situation our district finds itself in right now — failed budgets, failed bond votes, upset and angry parents, dejected children — isn’t somebody else’s fault. It’s a direct result of the persistent lack of candor on display at every carefully scripted board meeting — of the board and a series of superintendents being consistently unwilling to give people straight answers to straight questions about subjects that are, in fact, the people’s business.

Local governments have come a long way in achieving transparency in public meetings, in large measure thanks to technological advances and the internet, but they've still got a long way to go.