6) Public Access to Information

Recently I announced that the Finance Committee had completed the process of posting their meeting minutes on the town’s website. As indicated in that announcement, Kevin Smith, Chairman of the FinCom had followed through on a conversation he and I had several months ago regarding same, and along with the Town Administrator undertook the necessary steps to address the issue of electronic access to public meetings. Surely, this will provide a great opportunity for residents to gather additional information with which to make informed decisions. Kevin Smith moved the ball on this all the way and he should be commended for this.

Subsequent to that discussion, I reached out to the Board of Health (BoH) to inquire about the possibility of electronic public access to their meeting minutes and was informed that the BoH would review the matter and determine the feasibility of such, but that they completed supported the idea. With the distraction of an election cycle pending and anticipated personnel changes in the BoH, it was believed that this issue could be best addressed post election.

Recently, BoH interim-Chairman Linda Cocalis and I discussed this issue and agreed that we would undertake all necessary steps to ensure that BoH meeting minutes are publicly posted to the town website as expeditiously as possible. Linda shared with me some of the website challenges the BoH is confronted with and I offered to provide any assistance I could to address outstanding issues. It is our hope that this issue will be satisfactorily addressed within the next month.

As indicated in Point 6 of My 7-Point Plan for the First 12 Months as selectman, “I am committed to pursuing the online publication of all appropriate meeting minutes by boards and committees representing this community and to have such initiated and available for public review within the first 6 months of the election”. Rest assured that I will continue to pursue this until we have addressed all “appropriate...boards and committees representing this community”.

I am most grateful for the support and diligence that this issue has garnered from both the FinCom and the BoH and am certain that such shall be the same with other boards and committees.