The following letter was published in this week’s issue of the Gazette.
To the editor:
In the old Soviet Union, the official government records were skimpy and inaccurate. The real archives were kept secret, with only the top party members having access. History was what the party said it was.
Recently I filed a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request to see the records pertaining to the failed attempt to sell the village-owned Hollis Lane property. What I received in response was obviously missing documents, so I sent a follow-up. At the end, the totality of production showed the details posted by Secretary to the Village Manager Bryan Healy on BidNet, a one-sentence memo from Janine King to Dan O’Connor, and a list of six local developers. There was nothing showing who decided to put the property up for sale, nothing about any discussions by anyone, and nothing to explain whether the six developers were contacted and what discussion was held with the developers.
This lack of transparency is a feature of Croton government, and it has ramifications beyond the immediate effort to hide government operations from the public. It is important to note that my FOIL was after the failed bid, so there was no reason to withhold any documents. The village did not respond with any notification of documents being withheld pursuant to a FOIL exemption.
“Neither our Croton politicians nor our Croton village management are big fans of transparency. They believe the village residents only get in the way of their plans. But there is a collateral consequence which is often overlooked, and that is the erasure of Croton history. Much like the old Soviet government, our village government’s failure to leave a permanent public record means that our village history is lost to future generations.”
Does anyone really believe this is the full extent of the documents? No other emails, memos, meeting minutes, agendas, etc? Of course not. That leaves two possibilities. One is that the village lied and is withholding documents. The other (and more likely) possibility is that the conduct of municipal business was done in secret, much as we have seen more recently with the Katz property development and Riverside Avenue re-zoning plan.
Neither our Croton politicians nor our Croton village management are big fans of transparency. They believe the village residents only get in the way of their plans. But there is a collateral consequence which is often overlooked, and that is the erasure of Croton history.
Much like the old Soviet government, our village government’s failure to leave a permanent public record means that our village history is lost to future generations. While the true history of Croton is known to a few key people, that is a history that properly (and legally) belongs to all of us—not just the powerful few who decide what happens in Croton.
History is about where we have come from; it is what links the past to our present. It is also about the future, and our village officials have an obligation to those who will come after us and seek to discover what has shaped the Croton in which those future generations will live. Preservation of history is a debt we owe not simply to current residents, but also to future generations. History should not be sacrificed because the Village Board of Trustees and the Village Manager choose to conduct the people’s business in secret.
Paul Steinberg