To the Editor:

I am responding to Joel Willsey’s letter dated March 5, 2026 [“Public would be better served if executive sessions were recorded,” The Altamont Enterprise].

I was the sitting town clerk when the motion was made to record executive sessions and keep recordings for 10 years.

First, that motion should never have been made and after that meeting I told Supervisor [Sean] Lyons then that I would refuse to do that as it was illegal.

However, Mr. Willsey seems to say whatever he wants and stated that it isn’t illegal ….

Also, the town clerk’s minutes are the official record of the meeting. Only action taken should be recorded and public comments are only referenced when it is a public hearing.

Mr. Willsey should know this from his time on the town board; but during that time he refused to come to the town hall to sign and review papers and abstained over 200 times at meetings.

Now he is attacking Town Clerk [Kristin] De Oliveira, who, by the way, does an incredible job as town clerk. She is always researching the laws and keeping current on not only Town Law but the law as it applies to town clerks.

Now he is trying to tell the town clerk how to do her job. I didn’t know Mr. Willsey was versed in town clerk law. He wants an apology from her; however, he owes many people an apology ….

Just to name one, let’s talk about how he accused Mr. [Dennis] Palow, a decorated veteran, who served three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan to keep all of us safe. He accused him of hiding weapons in the town hall and violated Mr. Palow’s privacy by discussing his medical history in an email.

When a meeting was held that evening, Mr. Willsey and two other board members did not have the courage to show up, the room was full of veterans and Blue Star mothers [“Veterans rally for Berne councilman after Dems skip meeting over safety,” The Altamont Enterprise, Aug. 29, 2019].

What a disgrace to our community and the American people and all the veterans who served and died keeping our country safe; and there was no apology! I am sure Mr. Willsey will find a way to make this about him.

I wish there could be a show of hands as to how many people are sick and tired of hearing Mr. Willsey whine. Grow up and take responsibility for your own actions. You bring this on yourself.

Anita Clayton

Berne

Editor’s note: Kristin O’Neil, assistant director of the state’s Committee on Open Government, said of a town board recording its executive sessions, “There’s nothing in the law that either prohibits it or permits it.”

Once a board records an executive session, she said, “It becomes a record subject to rights of access under FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] and then they need to deal with what happens if someone makes a FOIA request for a copy of that  recording …. Any record that’s maintained by a government agency is subject to rights of access under FOIL [Freedom of Information Law] .… The FOIL officer would then have to go through and redact whatever was considered private and release [the rest].”

Joel Willsey’s response: I didn’t go to the town hall for anything after a couple years of well-documented bogus “investigations” of my alleged “wrongdoing” at taxpayer expense ($15,000 in one year). Also, from my well-documented experience, I was routinely threatened, intimidated, and harassed in any encounter with these people that was not recorded ….

Three Republicans walked away from their town board positions completely in response to Mr. [Dennis] Palow’s incredibly inappropriate behavior. Anita [Clayton] and her friends are wrong; the recording of executive sessions is not illegal. Everyone should demand that the 2020 policy be reaffirmed; it worked very well. 

It should be noted here that I was in no position to know the nature of Mr. Palow’s psychological or medical history or his current condition …. I didn’t make the emails public, and only addressed them publicly to defend myself after they were made public …. I suggested that it was possible that weapons could be stashed anywhere in the building and it should be swept for weapons prior to setting up the metal detectors that should have been set up for that building’s function as a courthouse in the first place ….

When the supervisor falsely claimed to have created a pandemic reserve fund of over $100,000 and refused to document where the money was, I started to abstain ….

I abstained from most spending-related votes except Anita’s town-clerk spending and revenues, because her numbers were reasonably documented and explained. By law, all the other information a board member needs should be available at the meeting for review and that was never the case.