To the Editor:

What criteria is used by your paper to investigate a press release?

Example, your June 2 press release announcement from the Albany County Legislature [“Applications open for grants to upgrade municipal parks”] allowing towns to submit grant requests for park enhancements when nearly every park in Albany County municipalities lack any playground equipment for children with disabilities particularly in Altamont and Guilderland.

Are you planning to ask Peter Barber's cousin, Dennis Feeney, who sits on the legislature for Guilderland, if he specified a request to include children with disabilities left out at the majority of town parks in Albany County?

How much of a free pass are you giving to the Barber / Feeney family that run this town like it is theirs, in my own opinion. Your previous article telling the town that, if children with disabilities want to use a swing, they can go to a school was Jim Crow-like and you did not hold Peter Barber, Jacob Crawford, or Christine Napierski accountable.

When it comes to watching our town leaders in matters of people with disabilities, the only thing they lack is a white bedsheet over their heads, in my opinion. But the worst is how many people enable this town board through silence and retaliation. I wish The Altamont Enterprise would be an advocate for the disabled of which 1 in 4 Americans will experience in their lifetime.

Christine Duffy

Guilderland

Editor’s note: We publish information from press releases when we think the information — in this case, how municipalities can apply for county funds for their parks — is of value to our readers. We have written news stories on the need for accessible parks in Guilderland, including your views, and editorialized on the need for not just accessible but inclusive playgrounds: “Editorial: An inclusive playground lets kids of all abilities play together,” Jan. 9, 2025.