Steger's Board Breaks Law! Destroys Records!

Destroying public records to avoid revealing them under the Freedom of Information Law is illegal!

Here's the story. Last month three of Steger's Town Board members read from documents they had prepared. Under the New York State Open Meetings Law any documents read in this way are part of the pubic record and should have been turned over to the clerk after being read. You may recall that I twice asked for copies of these records at that meeting and was refused.

The next day I faxed a FOIL request (see below) to Jane asking for copies of those documents. Some days later I inquired about them and Jane told me that the three Town Board members said they were personal notes and I could not have them. I referred her to the Open Meeting Law and suggested the three Board members reconsider. On Monday August 27^th I met with Jane and she told me that all three Board members told her they had destroyed the documents the very night of the meeting. Thus destroying what they said at the time were personal notes. Odd timing.

The unfortunate part of this is that I have been transcribing the tape and there are many places where it is garbled and hard to discern what they are saying. I had hoped to use the written documents to clear up those areas. Now that they have all been destroyed we will have to depend on my best judgment about what they are saying on the tape. Well, I'll do my best and hope it turns out ok.

For example, at the end of Betty Ann Pitman's words if reference to this web site she says to me. "Keep telling the truth." The tape's a bit garbled but I'm pretty sure that is what she is saying. Well, like I said I'd do my best and hope it comes out ok. It's really too bad those documents were destroyed.