To the Editor:

If not Guilderland Supervisor Peter Barber, then who?

How many residents need to leave their homes to attend a town board meeting to question the conduct of Peter Barber and how this town is run under Peter Barber’s leadership?

At this recent town board meeting, a resident spoke out on perceived violations by Peter Barber and the board on secret meetings and gave them information on the New York State Open Meeting Laws.

If not Peter Barber, then who will become our next town supervisor?

Christine Duffy

Guilderland

Editor’s note: A year ago, we wrote an editorial, “Democracy withers out of public view,” describing how the Guilderland Town Board had violated the state’s Open Meetings Law by meeting in unadvertised closed online sessions and voting on the new year’s appointments.

We got several letters in response, including one from the town board members at the time, acknowledging, “In retrospect, because three current members are a legal quorum of the board, we should have issued public notice of these virtual interviews, and then entered into executive session.”

This year, the town board members followed the law, meeting in open session, passing a motion to go into executive session to discuss appointments, which they are allowed by law to do, and then they voted in public on those appointments.