To the Editor:
This letter is in reply to Anita Clayton’s letter to The Enterprise from Feb. 22, 2024 [“Hatred is being fueled by Mr. Crosier”].

In her letter, Ms. Clayton publicly admits that on her watch as town clerk, Berne’s accounts have not been secured for the seven years since Kevin Crosier left office in 2017.

As town clerk, it was Ms. Clayton’s personal responsibility to remove all people from all town accounts who no longer had legal standing to represent the town at the end of each of their terms. Town officials who are no longer in office, like Mr. Crosier, did not have legal standing to make changes to official town accounts when their terms ended.

Ms. Clayton goes on to say, “Tyler Technologies was emailing this email address for years, unbeknown to the town ….” Here she publicly admits that Berne’s official town accounts have not even been minimally secured.

They did not know who was on their own accounts because, if they did, they would have removed Mr. Crosier years ago. If she had known who was on the account and alerted Tyler, those emails would have stopped immediately.

The problem here isn’t that Mr. Crosier was receiving these emails; the problem here is why was Mr. Crosier receiving these emails.

If unauthorized people were not taken off of critical, official town accounts by Ms. Clayton — when she was the only person who was authorized to make account changes after Mr. Crosier was no longer town supervisor — what other accounts have not been secured for seven years like this one?

Lastly, there is a critical question for the town board that needs to be a concern of every citizen of Berne. Ms. Clayton is no longer a member of the Berne town government. Why does she still have access to this confidential information? The board needs to answer this question publicly at the soonest town board meeting.

If these account holders’ names are not confidential and Ms. Clayton came across this information honestly, you must show us all where these names were previously posted. If they were not posted on the town’s website in town board meeting minutes that we can see in our printed-out records of every meeting, this information is clearly being leaked by the board to Ms. Clayton to be used for political purposes.

The current town board needs to show us all where this information was made public and tell us why our critical and sensitive town accounts are not secure — as they obviously have not been for many, many years as admitted here by Ms. Clayton in her own words.

Peggy Christman

Berne Democratic Committee

Editor’s note: Reached for a response, Anita Clayton told The Enterprise, “After Crosier refused to give up his email at the end of his term in 2017, all vendors were notified in the beginning of 2018 of the new email address for newly elected Supervisor, Sean Lyons. In 2019 when the Town obtained secure email addresses, all vendors were notified again. The Town did due diligence, but again the fault lies with Crosier for not doing the right thing.”