To the Editor:

This latest act to further limit transparency in Berne is another action based on false pretenses. I was very careful when I made that motion to record all meetings, including executive sessions, in 2020 and it was not easy for me to get anything passed in the politically polarized situation I was in on that board in 2020.  

Isn’t this a little over the top? Berne stonewalled me for weeks on my Freedom of Information Law request for the recording of the Aug. 13 executive session meeting called immediately before firing Shawn Duncan [“Berne Town Board terminates transfer-station worker,” The Altamont Enterprise, Sept. 3, 2025]. They claimed they needed the extra time to evaluate the record.

I assumed they would redact it under the advice of a lawyer. But after all that extra time they informed me there was no recording! Extra time was necessary to evaluate an audio recording they knew did not exist? Or did they decide to destroy it?

There is a technical term for that either way: Stonewalling. The illegal obstructing of information in a FOIL request.

However, somehow Berne could immediately send me documentation of rescinding my 2020 motion requiring the recording of such meetings in just days? The justifications for rescinding this motion are falsehoods. My 2020 motion did not conflict with any law or retention schedule.

The town board went into that subject executive session on Aug. 13 under the illegitimate pretense of discussing “personnel matters.”  They falsely claimed in the FOIL response that the board exited the executive session and discussed the vote in the public meeting before voting to fire an employee (in an apparent act of political retribution as The Enterprise covered).  

There are multiple falsehoods and inaccuracies in that FOIL response that coincidentally make any understanding of the meeting’s actual purpose impossible to document. Did they go back there and tell jokes? Did they strategize about ways to further damage my credibility and reputation?

The open meeting tape of Aug. 13 proves that the board did not discuss the vote in public at all and just closed the session and immediately, without hesitation, voted to fire. The FOIL response claims there was public discussion.

That falsehood was intended to make it appear this was a transparent, legitimate action. It was not … I think they are covering up the details of what certainly appears to be an illegal act of political retribution.  I think an employee was intimidated and attacked in the workplace because he exercised his First Amendment right.  

Berne has potentially violated multiple laws, including Penal Law, in trying to intimidate me from seeking the truth and there is almost nothing true or accurate in their FOIL response (analysis attached).

Please consider the fact that Mr. [Joseph] Giebelhaus, appointed town board member, asked my nephew, Chris Smith, Albany County legislator, to deliver a message to me. The message: The FOIL requests need to stop. 

Why not talk to me about that personally? Say email or text me directly? Because what he did is illegal. 

I think a town board member tried to twist my nephew in his illegal attempt to intimidate me from accessing information through FOIL and he thought I would back off instead of pursuing information in fear of implicating a family member.

Well Joe, I didn’t buy it. My nephew was your messenger — he did not direct me to not to file any FOIL requests; you did.  

Why was my 2020 motion to record executive sessions necessary? I have audio of Dennis Palow admitting to threatening me in executive sessions: “It’s time for you to move away.” And “it’s time for you to step down from the board.” I have shared these audio clips  and a video clip with The Enterprise before.  

Executive sessions in Berne were used then as an unrecorded opportunity outside the public eye to harass and threaten me and I have proven that. The Committee on Open Government advised me that my recording policy of 2020 was the right thing to do under the circumstances and it was completely lawful then and now as The Enterprise recently reported [“Palow skewers critic at November meeting,” The Altamont Enterprise, Nov. 14, 2025]. The information can be redacted as necessary as any other record.

Berne’s long campaign to discredit and malign me continued at the Nov. 12 budget hearing. The board is allegedly there to hear residents, not attack them, and intimidate them from commenting.

Unprovoked, I was very deliberately and very publicly defamed and labeled as a liar by the town supervisor in a public hearing! My motivation to even discuss a serious budgetary matter was openly questioned in an unprovoked angry tirade by board member Melanie la Cour who declared I was just there to verbally attack board members!

I lied about nothing and I verbally attacked no one at that hearing — it’s all on audio. Don’t try to publicly intimidate and discredit me again, Melanie; I would rather work with you than against you.

I was legitimately commenting on a position that had been created without any prior town board discussion. No need was ever identified. There is no description of duties or responsibilities, and a check is just handed to the superintendent biweekly. Solid-waste Manager is not an official duty of the highway superintendent. A documented agreement is necessary …

I also have serious concerns about fire vulnerability at the transfer station that nobody would address. Who is responsible for fire safety at the transfer station? What is all that “manager” money in the budget for? 

In the regular meeting that followed the “hearing,” the supervisor indicated that the board had decided to publicly attack me and further discredit me in a tirade the board actually put on the agenda! I was clearly subjected to slander and defamation at both meetings.

I think Berne is worse off than it has ever been at this point. There is a lot of criminal activity, defamation, and intimidation going on here in my estimation and my opinion is clearly not partisan.

Joel Willsey

Berne

Editor’s note: Documents referenced in this letter are posted on the Enterprise website along with the letter.

Chris Smith, who owns and runs Maple on the Lake restaurant, told The Enterprise that he had a “general conversation” with Joseph Giebelhaus in which Giebelhaus said “he wished that Joel [Willsey] would stop making requests so they could get business done …. Then Joel happened to come in that night for dinner so I asked Joel directly …. I did ask him but I wasn’t instructed to ask him.”