GUILDERLAND — The New York Coalition for Open Government on Thursday named the Guilderland School Board and Albany County legislator Mark Grimm, of Guilderland, to the “nice” side of its annual “Naughty & Nice” list.

The not-for-profit organization announces its list at the end of each year to highlight transparency issues across the state.

“Government exists to serve its citizens, so access to public information should be simple,” says the coalition’s mission statement. “Freedom of Information Laws and the NY Open Meetings Law make access to public records a right.”

This year’s “naughty list” started with New York City Mayor Erik Adams and Governor Kathy Hochul followed by eight others, ranging from the Buffalo Water Board to the Syracuse School Board.

Guilderland School Board

The Guilderland School Board was chosen for the “nice” list because it filled a board vacancy by conducting interviews in a public videotaped session.

 “This is unfortunately a rare event,” said Paul Wolf, the coalition’s president, in announcing the designation on Thursday, Dec. 19, in an online session. “All too often public bodies, when they have a vacancy on their board, they will interview candidates behind closed doors in an executive session,” which is not in compliance with the Open Meetings Law.

Often public bodies treat it as a job interview, “a personnel-type thing, so we can do it behind closed doors,” Wolf said, “but that doesn’t apply when it’s for a public elected position. Even when you’re filling a vacancy, there’s no legitimate reason for having that interview behind closed doors. So to their credit, they not only did the interview in public. They videotaped it and posted it online for people to see.”

After 16 years on the Guilderland School Board, Judy Slack resigned, at age 80, leading the board to schedule a Sept. 24 televised interview session. Two high school juniors posed a series of eight questions to four candidates while the school board members took notes before convening in a closed session, where they selected Meredith Brière, who was sworn in on Oct 1.

During the Dec. 19 coalition event, School Board President Blanca Gonzalez-Parker thanked Wolf for the recognition and credited Guilderland’s superintendent, Marie Wiles, for the district’s approach to transparency.

Gonzalez-Parker, who has been on the school board since 2020, said this is the third time she has been part of the public-interview process.

“I believe it starts with our superintendent, to be honest with you, who’s very concerned with transparency herself, and is committed to it,” said Gonzalez-Parker. “So we all sort of follow suit and have a great relationship with Marie Wiles in terms of this particular interview.

“We are proud of it, not only because we were able to select a really wonderful candidate who is now on the board, but additionally, we learned about some potential future candidates who have now come forward and said that they’re going to run. And I think that’s a benefit to the entire community, because it was a platform for everyone to give their stance on very important issues for the district.”

Gonzalez-Parker concluded, “And I’m super-duper proud because we exist for our community. We exist for our students and our students were the moderators, which is a tradition that I really hold dear.”

Gonzalez-Parker’s daughter, Sophia, was one of the two Guilderland High School students who moderated.

After the presentation, in a discussion session, Gonzalez-Parker said, “I can see — and I’m being transparent here — as board president, there are certainly circumstances where I could, or the board as a whole really could opt not to be transparent. And to me that means that there’s a problem with both policy and enforcement.

“Now we have our own Board of Education Handbook, which took, I think, 3 to 5 years to develop, which sets the standard inside our school district. But not every school district does that. And so that is concerning to me.”

Jackie Williams, who was named to the “nice” list for getting results when she spoke out about the Granville School Board not posting its meeting documents online as required by the Open Meetings Law, asked Gonzalez-Parker if the Guilderland schools “could share with me what they do for transparency.”

Williams went on, “I’ve been fighting with the Granville School District and asking for transparency, and it seems like more and more things keep getting hidden. So I’m just wondering if I can provide them with an example of an outstanding school district who is doing what they should be doing, and maybe model them as an example for what I would like to see for our school district.”

Gonzalez-Parker responded, “Yeah, I’d be happy to share our handbook in its entirety or answer any questions.”

Mark Grimm

Mark Grimm was lauded for his letter to the Albany Times Union headlined “Public deserves better government transparency.”

“It’s rare to see an elected official speaking out on these issues,” said Wolf, “so we wanted to recognize him for that.”

“I’ve made transparency part of my life’s work,” said Grimm. “I was a TV anchor and reporter for 12 years in six markets, including Denver and Portland … I’ve been on the county legislature for nine years, and it’s frustrating in both those roles,” he said of the lack of transparency.

He went on, “People need to realize government documents are not owned by the government. They’re owned by us, and we have every right to access every one of them. I envision the day when we really don’t need FOIL ….,” he said of New York’s Freedom of Information Law.

“We’re in the age of AI, for God’s sakes, we should be able to access immediately every piece of information they want, unless it’s specifically exempted. And sometimes that’s abuse, too. Some things they claim are exempt are really not.”

Grimm commented further about the Freedom of Information Law, “There needs to be penalties. The FOIL is not a suggestion. They are not guidelines, they are the law, and if you break the law you should be held accountable.”

He also said, “I would recommend people, when they see their candidates, ask them where they stand on transparency, because just about every entity of government, I could pick some instances where they can do better. And that’s really your important role is to identify people and governments and do better. We could start with New York state, which is pretty horrible.”

Grimm concluded, “Most people aren’t aware of just how authoritarian members of the elected public are in New York. And we collectively need to change that.”