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Post by Dr.Ken Sokolowski on Jan 10, 2006 8:40:17 GMT -5
Bill,
Thanks!
Dr.Ken
TOWN COUNCIL MINUTES' FORMAT PROPOSALAnd Its Eventual Defeat Dec. 2005 - Jan. 2006 Wethersfield, CT ~ ~ THE LAMBS WERE NOT TO BE SILENCED ~ ~ ~ ~ A Collection of Important Elements of the Discussion, Events and Outcome by Kenneth E. Sokolowski and other Concerned Citizens www.wethersfield.net/minutes
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Post by Dr.Ken Sokolowski on Jan 21, 2006 20:41:50 GMT -5
The following is the entire email which the Town Clerk sent to me, as she had promised, on Jan. 18, 2006. I have completed a response to it, but am in the process of editing it before posting it here and elsewhere. For context, you might want to refer back to the original request made of the Clerk on Dec. 29, 2005. . . . . .
January 18, 2006
Dr. Sokolowski,
My office has been looking into all the Boards and Commissions in the Town of Wethersfield. I find that we are not missing any of the minutes for the Boards and Commissions which meet regularly as well as those meeting much more infrequently. We have received the minutes in a timely manner and file them as we receive them. Some minutes being voted on at the next meeting are posted under the agenda on the Town Clerks board prior to being voted.
As I said before, not all minutes are in my office. Some are filed in the departments which work most closely with a certain board or commission. They are readily available in Town Hall. The current year is frequently in a notebook for ease in viewing. Some have an agenda or index which makes them easier to review. There are lessons to be learned from doing such an involved review. People have developed a better way to track actions taken at the meetings.
Not all minutes are put online. They are filed and available in a hard copy. Most minutes are only put online after they are approved. The only minutes put on line unapproved are those of the Town Council. Any changes to these minutes are made in the following meeting where they are approved or amended and approved as amended. While Council minutes are done within the seven days they are not put online until they are sent out to the Town Council with their Thursday packet, prior to their Monday meeting. Councilors know I do have unapproved minutes available and, if requested, issue copies prior to the time they receive them.
I did discover a few boards and commissions which do not meet even on a yearly basis, just meeting as needed. I will be taking another look at these to be sure they are not required to meet at least once a year. If they are not required by Connecticut General Statutes or if they are no longer relevant, Council may want to disband them.
I can understand your concern in being sure that our boards and commissions are in compliance with FOI.The minute form I was looking into would have made it easier for the volunteers serving on these boards and commissions, including those taking the minutes. I did not mean to imply we were not meeting the requirements. I was just trying to streamline the form, making the minutes more uniform for more committees. I am sure you are aware that people do not jump up and volunteer to take minutes in the absence of a secretary. With the new form, it would be easier for someone to fill in the blanks. Most of our major boards do have a paid secretary, especially when there are public hearings. Besides being advertised, public hearings require more complete minutes of what is said at the hearing. The department representative also has a record of the votes taken and their notes available. We have and will continue to comply with FOI. We are always looking for better ways to help our volunteers in meeting legal requirements as well as keeping fellow residents informed.
As you know keeping a website up to date is difficult. It requires a tremendous amount of upkeep and constant attention. While posting on the web is not required, most, if not all of the major boards and commissions do post to the Town's official website, after the minutes are approved. As we modernize the systems in Town Hall we might be able to do web postings in a more effective as well as efficient manner.
If there is any other information you require, please do not hesitate in letting me know.
Sincerely,
Dolores G. Sassano
Town Clerk
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Post by Dr.Ken Sokolowski on Jan 23, 2006 8:53:58 GMT -5
Posted to the Town Clerk and others a short while ago; I have substituted underlines here instead of the bold font referenced in the letter:
2006.01.23
Monday
EST 08:30 (UT/GMT: -05:00)
Dolores Sassano, Clerk
Town of Wethersfield
505 Silas Deane Highway
Wethersfield, CT 06109
Application of FOIA in/by Town of Wethersfield
Dear Mrs. Sassano,
Thank you for providing me with some of the information which I had requested in an earlier email as a FOIA (Freedom Of Information Act) request dated Dec. 29, 2005.
I do appreciate the effort which apparently went into your review, research and response to my request. I believe that ultimately the Town and the Public will be well served by this process of dialog and its outcomes.
Though you have the original document, a link to that request is provided:
www.wethersfield.net/html/gov/tow/counc/mins/0506format/kes-foi(3)-clerk-05c29.html
In that request, among other things, I had specifically asked for: "the number of days that such missing minutes are now in non-compliance with State regulations." According to your email, to which I am responding here, the Town is "not missing any of he minutes for the Boards and Copmmissions." Whether this was the status on the date of my request may be another matter. I will have to believe you; I am happy to learn that NO B&C in Wethersfield is nominally in FOIA-violation as of the date of your response, January 18, 2006. I have to believe too that the minutes under your direct care were indeed date-stamped when they are received in the Clerk's office. Can you say the same for those in remote, departmental locations? If they are not, why not? Are they not technically under the aegis of the Clerk's office too? If not, why not?
That "we have received the minutes in a timely manner" is couched in sufficiently vague terms that beg the question: are you as the Clerk referring to the Clerk's office proper or to ALL repositories for minutes in and for the Town of Wethersfield? If it is the former, that is not an adequate answer; if it is latter, a Clerk should have some recorded proof to make such a sweeping statement but ,in this instance, you have chosen not to provide it. By NOT providing the itemized information as requested, your answer is incomplete. Please clarify this.
A formal complaint to the Freedom of Information Commission (FOIC), with subsequent hearings and demands for production of such proof, might be required. An audit of the date-stamped, received minutes for ALL of the B&C's for the Town, for one or more years, might be needed to ascertain the extent of purported compliance or actual non-compliance. If the reposited minutes lacked proof of date of actual receipt, sanctions might be imposed; these might include periodic (? annual) check-ups by the FOIC to assure future compliance.
More importantly, improved administrative oversight of such details regarding our publicly available municipal documents might be needed. Are written rules, regulations, or directives from the Town Clerk or Manager sent (and periodically re-issued) to ALL B&C's (and their officers) that outline for them the production and delivery requirements of minutes? I would like receive a copy of these. If such directives do not exist or have not been issued or re-issued periodically, why not? Also, If not, when will such be produced and distributed to all departments and Boards and Commissions?
In the Clerk's email of 12/30/2005, you reported:"The minutes from Planning & Zoning, Zoning Board of Appeals, Inland Wetlands, Building Committee, Board of Building Appeals, Design Review Advisory Committee, Economic Development and Improvement Commission, Capital Improvements Advisory Committee [Jan, Feb & Mar only][sic], Conservation Commission, Flood and Erosion Control Board, Historic District Commission are not maintained in the office of the Town Clerk. They are maintained upstairs in Engineering/Building/Planning....Housing Authority [minutes] is [sic] maintained at 55 Lancaster Road....Library [minutes are] is [sic] filed here as well as in the Library."
Though such a practice (of keeping minutes of B&C's meetings in multiple Town departments' offices) may be convenient for them, this does not absolve the Town Clerk of the overall responsibility for the preservation of those minutes. Does this arrangement comply with Connecticut General Statutes' (C.G.S.) requirements for such preservation and accountability? It would seem prudent for the Clerk to take posession of and responsibility for the originals of those minutes. The specific Town departments would merely keep a copy of them for their convenience. Having many people nominally responsible for the preservation of B&C's minutes drastically increases the likelihood of the minutes going AWOL.
In this day and age, there is absolutely no good reason for the Town Clerk to accept only a hardcopy of minutes. The Clerk should insist upon receiving, additionally, the minutes in electronic, digital form (CD's DVD's, floppy disks, flash memory cards/sticks, etc.), in a specified format (e.g. MsWord DOC format for unapproved minutes and Acrobat(R) PDF format for approved minutes). By submitting both a hardcopy and digital form to the Clerk's office, time will be saved, the website could be updated faster and also the 48-hour and 7-day requirements for public availability easily achievable. Accountability would be improved. With centralized collecting, collating, digitalizing (if need be), cataloguing and archiving of all of the minutes, they would have a better chance of being preserved and of being made available to the public more easily. Digitalized, this information could be easily shared with all of the departments and would be easily accessible to Library patrons via a dedicated computer terminal.
It should be of equal concern to the Town and to the Clerk that the FOIA details be followed, both to the letter and in the spirit of the law. The FOIA is clear that there are two stages in compliance: first the production of the "votes" (48 hours) and then the "minutes" (7 calendar days for regular meetings). Town's Attorney's (and Rocky Hill's) interpretation of the C.G.S FOIA statutes is seriously flawed. I had previously quoted the statute which, in part, read as follows:" Sec. 1-225. (Formerly Sec. 1-21). Meetings of government agencies to be public. Recording of votes. Schedule and agenda of meetings to be filed. Notice of special meetings. Executive sessions. (a) The meetings of all public agencies, except executive sessions as defined in subdivision (6) of section 1-200, shall be open to the public. The votes of each member of any such public agency upon any issue before such public agency shall be reduced to writing and made available for public inspection within forty-eight hours and shall also be recorded in the minutes of the session at which taken, which minutes shall be available for public inspection within seven days of the session to which they refer." I have NO problem whatsoever in the production of bare-bones motions and "votes" to meet the 48 hour requirement. But, please, don't be misled into believing nor be misleading by saying (as the Town of Rocky Hill has) that these two events and documents are one in the same and that "working notes" or other illegitimate creations are equivalent to true, traditional, appropriately detailed minutes.
No, "keeping a website up to date" is NOT difficult. It does however require commitment and time.
It is my hope to that the Town Council and the other Boards and Commissions will see the responsibility of complying with the FOIA as a civic responsibility and an opportunity to educate the public. It requires a vision and commitment to achieve it through the appropriation and application of financial and human resources. If the Town Council, the Town Administration, Board of Education and the other Boards and Commissions lack that vision and commitment, then our Republic will suffer as the public's educational and informational needs are neglected if not actually thwarted.
I certainly will continue this dialog and other efforts until this important public issue is resolved. Please respond to those items which I have highlighted by using bold font above. I am asking that this message be shared with the Town Manager, all members of the Town Council and the Town Attorney.
Respectfully,
Kenneth E. SokolowskiWethersfield, CT 06109 cc: Bonnie L. Therrien Wethersfield Town Council John W. Bradley, Jr, Esq. Pat Proctor FOIC, State of Connecticut Added indentation of blockquotes. |
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