To the Editor:

Transparency. What is transparency?

According to the town of Guilderland website, transparency is defined as “providing residents with easy access to Town Budgets, FOIL request information, GIS property mapping, pending land use applications, employee contracts, police accident and incident reports, tax assessment forms and more.

Residents are also able to access live streamed meetings from the Town Board, Planning Board, ZBA and IDA meetings from any device as well as video on demand recordings and minutes of all Town Board, Planning Board and Zoning Board meetings by clicking here.” (contains link)

Listed below how the town defines transparency, there are links to all sorts of information that folks may want to know about the town, including everything from budgets, to transfer-station hours, to FOIL requests, to town board committees, etc.

All of this information is certainly helpful and may be transparent at first glance, but let’s look a little further into the process of how transparent the town government really is.

To start, finding the minutes of any town or board meeting is extremely difficult. For example, minutes are almost non-existent for any of the boards with the exception of the town board. 

I have seen a draft of minutes for the zoning board of appeals for one meeting in December but nothing since August 2020. It is the same for all of the other boards —no minutes beyond August 2020.

While I understand that meetings have been difficult, with the COVID-19 pandemic, there are still rules regarding the transcription of video meetings and providing minutes. This town has done neither.

I find it interesting that the town board has no difficulty in providing minutes, but the rest of the boards and committees do not see fit to have these summaries available to the general public. In fact, I foiled [filed a Freedom of Information Law request] the town for minutes for a particular committee because I found its agenda on a search on the website. The minutes were given to me, but not posted. This is not transparent on any level.

Another example was during the last town board meeting. Prior to the actual meeting, there was the list of appointments to various committees and boards for the town that needed to be voted on.

What I found very interesting was that we, as residents, had no clue as to who any of the appointees were ahead of time, or what they had applied for. Why were these appointments not posted beforehand?

I do understand that these positions are appointed; however, some of them garner quite a bit of power in terms of what direction the town may be headed on several fronts.

In particular, I was concerned about the appointment of chairman of the planning board. As I listened to the town board meeting, one board member raised some serious concerns that had been lurking in the back of my mind.

Specifically, it was the one of Mr. [Stephen] Feeney being reappointed to the position of planning board chair. I don't know Mr. Feeney; I understand that he is very well qualified for the position, but I do have grave concerns given the events of the past year.

As we are all acutely aware, the Pyramid Corporation and the town of Guilderland were sued by a group of residents for their lack of concern and not following SEQRA [State Environmental Quality Review Act] guidelines regarding the property owned by Pyramid.

In fact, in his Nov. 20, 2020 decision, Supreme Court Justice Peter Lynch stated that the Town of Guilderland Planning Board’s SEQRA process for the Rapp Road Residential/Western Avenue Mixed Use Redevelopment Projects “violated SEQRA procedure and the ‘hard look’ test, rendering the … approvals arbitrary and capricious, null and void.”

While we understand that the town and Pyramid are counter suing, it does not take away from the fact that the planning board was negligent in its review. Given that, is it in the best interest of the town to reappoint this person to this particular position?

Given the 20-plus years that Mr. Feeney has served, maybe it is time to step down and let someone else lead this board. I can’t help but feel as though this is a reward for those actions.

The other issue that I found odd and surprised me was that the town supervisor recused himself from voting for Mr. Feeney. Why would he do this? What is going on that the rest of us don't know?

I don't know how the appointments process happens, because this process hasn’t been shared with residents, but I am assuming that the town supervisor has some say or makes his choices known.

If all of the board is involved, I find it very telling that only one board member raised an issue with Mr. Feeney’s appointment. How do four out five members let someone continue in this position given the public outcome of a lawsuit?

I am sure the response will be something along the lines of “we appealed it, it is not yet decided,” which would be a typical response of a lawyer.

With Mr. Feeney’s latest appointment, he will have served over 25 years on this board. I also don’t think town-appointed positions should be considered “life” appointments, which this one certainly seems to be. This town desperately needs new blood on its boards, and this is not the way to do it.

The last issue of transparency is the actual town website itself. This is not a user-friendly site and it is often very difficult to find what one is looking for. For example, some projects that may be requesting a change in zoning will be found on the town board page, when you would assume you would look for it on the planning or zoning board pages.

Minutes of meetings are pretty non-existent when you look at the live stream page, although there is a section for the minutes to be posted. You may or may not find them on the committee/board page, but you can find them if you click a link on the home page.

It seems to me that it would make sense to have documents and minutes better organized and easily accessible to all. To me, transparency means accessible and without having to spend a day on a poorly designed website.

Robyn Gray

Guilderland

Editor’s note: Guilderland Supervisor Peter Barber responded, “The day after a meeting, the video is put online. That’s your best evidence of what happens.” He said, though, he would check into delays in posting meeting minutes, and praised his staff for getting out information in the midst of pandemic restrictions. Barber also noted that packets of detailed information are posted on the town’s website along with meeting agendas.

See related story on Stephen Feeney’s reappointment.