44°
To the editor:
I have to give credit where credit is due: Supervisor Grace certainly knows how to cleverly twist words in order to hide the truth. When Grace was criticized for violating the Open Meetings Law by discussing staffing issues in a closed session, he justified his actions saying. “No decisions were made.” That’s not the point—and he knows it.
The point is: the discussion was illegal. Whether a decision was or wasn’t made at the meeting was irrelevant. Totally irrelevant. The Supervisor should obey the law and the Court. And, when Councilman Patel blew the whistle on the illegal staffing discussion that took place on Jan. 28, the Supervisor tried to make it look like Councilman Patel was disclosing “confidential” information about a specific employee’s job performance. No such thing happened.
As for the Supervisor’s personal attack on me, all I can say is whether I’m on or off the Town Board, my overriding concern as a 45-year town resident is an open and transparent town government, something the Supervisor does not appear to be concerned about.
Supervisor Grace and the Republican councilmen need to heed the Court’s directive: “There needs to be more transparency [on the Town Board] so that the people can be heard by the town as to whether or not they agree with the road that the town is taking, or counsel are taking with respect to clearly hiring, clearly hiring and staffing.”
As a community, we’ve learned an important lesson: we have to keep fighting to protect our rights. After the negative press about the illegal Jan. 28 closed session, and at the very last minute, Supervisor Grace opened up a portion of the Feb. 3 work session to the public. But, since no one knew what was going to be discussed or that the meeting would be open, no one showed up — except me.
For a summary of the informative 90 minute discussion about the town’s Parks and Recreation activities and projects, visit ciyinfo.org/tb2-3-2016.htm.
Susan Siegel
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