'Transparency' touted with release of memo

PINE PLAINS — During the public comment portion of the March 18 Town Board meeting, resident Susan Crossley stood up to address an issue she had with accessing a municipal memo. The memo related to the Carvel Property Development NND (New Neighborhood Development) pre-application review.

“I’m at a loss,� she said, of why the memo could not be released to the public.

Attorney to the Town Warren Replansky explained why he had the memo withheld from being made public.

“I was concerned for the timing of the release for that memo,� he said. “One reason why it was held off, and we were not giving it even to Durst [the applicant behind the Carvel proposal], was because it was an intra-agency document that was not subject to FOIL [Freedom of Information Law]. Once it was given to the applicant it did not destroy its FOIL exemption. Once we gave it to both boards it was open to FOIL.�

“It seems to me our public has a right to materials that are going to the other public — the Dursts,� Councilwoman Rosemary Lyons-Chase said.

Replansky said that the memo, dated Feb. 10, which was from town consultants including himself, planners Nan Stolzenburg and Bonnie Franson and engineer Ray Jurkowski, was at that moment available to the public.

Meanwhile, Town Planning Board Chairman Rick Butler had written his own memo about the matter, which he submitted to the Town Board at its March 18 meeting. He explained that the line of thinking was to withhold the intra-agency memo from the applicant and general public so it wouldn’t “taint� the NND pre-application presentation at a joint town and planning boards meeting originally set for Jan. 21 and then later, for Feb. 10. Those meetings were ultimately postponed to March 16, when it was held at the community room at the library.

“In this instance, there was simply no compelling reason to further withhold the subject memorandum from the applicant for the better part of a month, essentially because of a snow storm,� Butler wrote. “The consultant’s memo is a benign document written with a single purpose, to be a publicly accessible critique. The applicant was aware of the memo’s existence, was going to receive it in exactly the form that it was in when initially distributed, and was especially eager to begin their analysis of what is the only professional critique of their pre-application.

“The fact of the matter is, keeping the memo shrouded in secrecy amounted to a disservice to our community because it is so helpful to the task we are involved in,� Butler added. “Releasing the memo was an exercise in transparency of process, making government open and accessible as early as practical, and was the right thing to do.�