Letter To The Editor – Transparency In Grafton?

To the Editor:
Roadblocks are bountiful in Grafton! Except they are the type you can’t see with your eyes. For months possibly years, residents asked the Town Board to start a Town website. Finally under the direction of Supervisor Ray Darling in 2012 the Town had their website, managed by Councilman Rick Ungaro through a Board approved web designer. Start up cost for the first year to the Town was $500 and was now down to approximately $20 a month. Pertinent information as well as information required by law such as tax rolls, meeting minutes, legal notices, etc were posted.
Now step in appointed Supervisor Higgins who announces at the August Town Board meeting that the Town has a new website being managed by his secretary to save the Town money. This website wasn’t approved by the Board; the decision to do was made solely by the Supervisor without formal Board approval. No new Town Board minutes have been added to either site since Councilman Ungaro stopped managing the site in May. In fact, the original website has been closed and none of the minutes were moved to the new site! By New York State Town Law and by ruling of the Committee on Open Government, governing bodies are required to post minutes 2 weeks after meetings are held. Prior to our original website, our Town Clerk always did her job by posting the minutes on the board outside the Town Hall but since the creation of our website, they need to be placed on the web as well. This should be a priority of the Supervisor and all the Board members to see that all citizens of our Town are informed about what is going on with our Town government. If you are disabled and can’t get to a place to read the minutes where they are posted, you are being discriminated against by the Town of Grafton! This has been brought to their attention many times. The last response from the Town Supervisor on this subject was, “It will be looked at when we have the time!’ I didn’t realize we only have to follow the law when we have time! I didn’t realize we can discriminate against the disabled if we don’t have time to follow the law! I didn’t realize we can keep the public in the dark about what is going on in our Town because we don’t have the time to follow the law!
If the current Town Councilmembers were truly for “open government” and “transparency in our government” as their political signs around town state, then why wouldn’t they be doing something about getting the Town minutes on the Town website so the public could be informed?
Please demand that your Town officials keep us informed!
Catherine Goyer
Grafton