Town clerks maintain our open government

Is it important to know what’s happening in one’s town government? Ask any town clerk and you’re bound to get a positive answer, along with some powerful reasons explaining why. Town clerks across the state have the responsibility to provide information to inform the public of the workings of government in their municipalities as well as keeping track of the documentation of our lives which is kept at their town halls.

It’s nice to see any of them receive recognition for the hard and often thankless work they do. At the annual meeting of the Connecticut Council on Freedom of Information last week in Waterbury, the town clerk for Southington, Leslie Cotton, was presented with the Bice Clemow award recognizing her for promoting open and accountable government.

Cotton has been the town clerk for Southington, which has a population of about 40,000, since she was elected in 1993, and to her credit from the beginning of her tenure has taken steps at every turn to keep the workings of her town’s government transparent to its citizens. The model she has created for open government is one that towns throughout the state can hold as their inspiration to do the same.

The council was making a strong point in encouraging Cotton and other town clerks in the state to be ever mindful of their duties in keeping information open and accessible. About eight other town clerks from towns such as Westport, Manchester and Rocky Hill attended last week’s luncheon meeting and award ceremony to support their colleague as she was honored.

They all take the same approach to openness that Cotton does: do whatever it takes to get the information out to their constituents. Whether providing documentation in print, through TV and video or online, her goal is to provide information to those who need it as quickly and easily as possible.

Cotton’s example is one of special importance now that the state Legislature at the end of its last session chose to pass a bill, HB 5255, which removes the mandate from the towns to post board and commission minutes on their websites. Despite this change in mandatory posting, however, most town clerks will still be posting minutes and other information on their towns’ websites. After all, if they kept their websites up, and most towns did, by now they have established a system by which information finds its way online.

The town clerks in the Northwest Corner generally have the same attitude as Cotton and those who attended the meeting last week to honor her. Town Clerk Darlene Brady of Kent, for instance, has said that she will continue to go forward and post her town’s minutes in spite of the repeal of the mandate, particularly because there has been a positive response from the public to having the minutes available on the town website. Brady argued to keep the website up and running, though other towns in the state took theirs down rather than risk noncompliance with the law, after the mandate to post minutes first came through in 2008.

At first, the Kent website had just five commissions’ minutes up. Now, Brady and her assistant have worked together to create a system whereby all the town’s boards and commissions have their minutes posted. Not many realize how much time goes into it, she says, but it saves time, too, in photocopies and labor time to produce documentation. It’s a way of building a history as well, an archive for the public to have as a resource for information. Brady sees it as one more way of meeting her responsibilities as town clerk.

Kudos to Cotton and to Brady and to all the town clerks who work so hard to keep information available and open to the public. Their willingness to take on new challenges, such as understanding the best ways to post minutes to the Internet and keep their town websites up and up-to-date, results in greater benefits for all the citizens of their communities. Those citizens are thereby given more opportunity to see just in what direction their leaders are taking them, even when they’re not able to attend the many meetings where decisions are made.