“Transparent” in its simple, literal sense means light shines through something so you can see what is on the other side.

In this sense, a pane of glass is transparent. A piece of wood or stone, for example, is opaque; you cannot see through it.

When “transparent” is applied to government, like an elected or appointed board, it means that the members of that board perform their duties in such a way that people can see what is going on; they can understand how decisions are reached and why.

Through openness and good communication, board members become accountable for their decisions.

These definitions came to mind as we considered a front-page story last week written by our reporter Sean Mulkerrin, who covers zoning and planning issues in Guilderland: “The Guilderland Comprehensive Plan Update Committee: Slow off the block.”

The growing suburban town is taking on the important work of mapping its future by updating its 2001 comprehensive plan. The welcome message on the town’s website spells out the topics to be wrestled with in plotting the town’s future, listing land use, economic development, infrastructure, transportation, neighborhoods, the environment, and housing.

A quarter of a century ago, we pushed for Guilderland to create its first comprehensive land-use plan. We got pushback from town officials, who claimed the patchwork of separate documents already served as a master plan. They did not.

In the wake of Pyramid’s proposal to double Crossgates Mall, to which many citizens objected, the town started a process, involving residents and stakeholders, with many surveys, public hearings, and roundtable discussions. The process took years and resulted in the town board adopting a plan in 2001 with separate areas of town being considered individually through 2016.

This time, the town admirably initiated the process and, after a pandemic-induced delay, appointed a committee of capable citizens to work with a hired consulting firm on coming up with a framework for the town’s vision of its future.

As we’ve written on this page before, we believe it would be wise for our elected town board members, representatives of the people, to provide guidance to the committee on what the board considers essential for the town’s future, whether it be affordable housing or preservation of open space.

We got pushback on that from the town’s grant writer, Donald Csaposs, who called it “the kind of nanny-state thinking that has sent government in this country into the sorry state that now exists on multiple levels.”

Nevertheless, nearly five months since the committee first met, one of its members, Richard Brustman, at its latest meeting, on April 17, sought clarification about the role of the committee. Brustman knows about planning; he is a civil engineer who was in charge of planning for the state’s Department of Transportation.

Told by the consultant that the committee members are to “help guide the process,” Brustman asked how active or passive committee members should be, given that consultants have largely run the show to date.

We prefer direction from an elected board to that coming from a hired consultant. Certainly scores of elected boards — from school boards mulling capital improvements to municipal boards drafting legislation — have successfully given citizens’ committees specific charges.

One of the citizens attending the April 17 meeting, Elizabeth Floyd Mair, a former Enterprise reporter who covered Guilderland, said the process that took place 20 years ago “was much bigger and much messier and much more townspeople led. It wasn’t led by a company; it was led by the people of the town who met in committees.”

She said with the current update process that’s in place, it feels like “we’re being led quite rapidly through [it], very much led by the company.”

Committee member Dominic Rigosu asked why public involvement appears to pale in comparison to 20 years ago. Rigosu is an architect who had chaired the Albany County Planning Board for 13 years.

 Rigosu said, when the 2001 committee was working on its plan, the town had received over 1,000 responses to a resident survey. He wondered how today, in the age of email, smart phones, and social media, Guilderland could only muster about 480 responses to its online survey — even though the population has grown.

We urge any Guilderland resident reading this to spend the few minutes it takes to fill out the online survey: https://www.research.net/r/guilderlandsurvey.

A quarter-century ago, it was citizen dissatisfaction with the growing specter of Crossgates that led to the creation of the first comprehensive plan. Csaposs at the time was a founder of FORCE, an acronym he thought of, which stood for Friends Organized to Reject Crossgates Expansion. FORCE gathered almost 5,700 signatures, about one quarter of the registered voters in town, to oppose the expansion.

Later, FORCE changed its name to Friends Organized for Responsible Community Expansion, and broadened its focus. “We changed the name when the town moved to start the master-planning process,” Csaposs said at the time. “The group was originally founded to speak on the Crossgates issue … but then we realized we needed to address broader-based issues that confronted the community.” 

FORCE petered out, and a relatively new grassroots citizens’ group, the Guilderland Coalition for Responsible Growth, has since formed. Robyn Gray, who chairs the coalition and frequently attends town meetings, spoke at the April 17 meeting, suggesting to committee members, if they felt that online surveys didn’t offer enough community input, and they really meant they wanted more public feedback, “perhaps the development of your neighborhood groups now is what you want to do.”

There is of course a very large difference between grassroots citizen groups like FORCE or the Guilderland Coalition for Responsible Growth and a committee appointed by the town board, like the one now working on the comprehensive-plan update.

And that brings us to Brustman’s all-important third question on April 17, which had to do with transparency. He asked the consultant if there were “any restrictions on our meeting.”

Brustman said that, at the committee’s first meeting, there were questions about whether members could meet by themselves virtually. “Was this legal or not,” he asked, “was it considered an executive session?”

The consultant said she would defer to the town as to whether the committee was subject to the Open Meetings Law. So Mulkerrin asked Guilderland Supervisor Peter Barber if the committee is subject to the state’s sunshine law. 

Barber, in an email, said Guilderland’s town attorney “is researching the issue,” but “in the interim, we are recommending that the Comprehensive Plan Update Committee, like all of the Town’s boards and committees, follow the Open Meetings Law.”

We believe this is the correct course: When in doubt, choose transparency over opaqueness.

The research Mulkerrin did and shared with our readers shows that Guilderland’s zoning code defines the town board’s adoption of the comprehensive plan as being “in accordance with NYS Town Law §272-a,” which the Committee on Open Government has interpreted as an act performed “pursuant to a statute.”

New York State courts have consistently found that advisory committees, task forces, and commissions are not subject to the Open Meetings Law “where it possesses no power and exists merely to provide advice and, therefore, is not a ‘public body’ serving a governmental function.”

“However,” the state’s Committee on Open Government, has “consistently advised, and judicial precedent has confirmed, that [the] entities that are creations of law are required to comply with the OML,” specifically New York State Town Law covering planning and land use. 

Under that part of the law, Section 272-a, entitled “town comprehensive plan,” advisory committees have been subjected to the Open Meetings Law if they’re found to be a “special board” created to oversee the process, according to an advisory opinion from the Committee on Open Government. 

The opinion from the Committee on Open Government states a “special board” consists of “one or more members of the planning board and such other members as are appointed by the town board to prepare a proposed comprehensive plan and/or an amendment thereto.” 

The current committee working on the comprehensive-plan update for Guilderland includes both the chairwoman of the town’s zoning board as well as a member of Guilderland’s Conservation Advisory Council, another public body.

So, to return where we started, we urge that committee meetings remain open. The process is meant to involve the public. How would closed meetings further that end?

If the updated plan is successful, its changes will be codified into law.

Guilderland’s recently adopted law to encourage use of native plants provides a perfect example of how an open process made a better law.

At the public hearing last September, several people involved in tree-related businesses noted the bill prohibited clear-cutting of 10,000 or more square feet unless that was part of an approved permit or site plan. The bill was changed to prohibit clear-cutting of one acre or more unless that was part of an approved permit or site plan — or sustainable forestry practice.

Guilderland now has a better law because the legislators, that is, the town board, listened to people, experts in their businesses.

In a sense, every resident of Guilderland is an expert on the town. Keeping the meetings open, keeping the process transparent is the best way to get a clear and sound vision for Guilderland’s future, one that people will embrace.