by Rachel Hunter

The Village of Gouverneur at the Village of Gouverneur Board of Trustees meeting on Tuesday, March 15 was urged by Village Trustee Troy Besaw to increase its transparency in local government.

The topic was raised six months after NYS Gov. Kathy Hochul, in late October 2021, signed two pieces of legislation boosting transparence in state and local government. The first piece of legislation required documents that are going to be discussed at open meetings to be made available on request or posted on the government's website at least 24 hours prior to the meeting. The second piece of legislation requires the MTA to publish its data in formats that are easily accessible and can be easily downloaded and used by the public.

"There's no excuse for keeping New Yorkers in the dark on the actions governments take to help their constituents, and we've been committed to greater transparency since Day One," Governor Hochul said. "These pieces of legislation will require important local government documents and MTA data to be properly available for constituents to read and utilize. New Yorkers should be informed about the work government does for them every day, but we have to make it easier for them to get that information."

The first legislation is “Making Documents Available Prior to Open Meetings (S.1150-A/A.1228-A).” This legislation makes documents to be discussed at open meetings available to the public at least 24 hours in advance of the meeting. The Open Meetings Law is intended to empower the public through the accessibility of meetings of public bodies. The law requires them to make available to the public relevant documents, such as any proposed rule, regulation, or resolution. However, the current law only requires documents to be made available prior to meetings "as determined by the agency or department." This standard has resulted in some government bodies failing to make materials available in advance of meetings, reducing transparency. This legislation requires any proposed resolution, law, rule, regulation, policy, or amendment to be made available upon request and to be posted to the body's website at least 24 hours in advance of their discussion at an open meeting, giving the public access to these important documents in advance.

At the Village of Gouverneur Board of Trustees meeting on March 15, 2022, Village Trustee Troy Besaw said the following: “Mayor, I came across that the governor put out a mandate that we had to post our agenda 24 hours prior to a meeting, and the meeting minutes had to be posted by 15 days following the meeting date. We are not doing that.”

“Is that an actual law now or is that a proposal?” Village of Gouverneur Mayor Ron McDougall asked.

“That’s an actual law,” Trustee Besaw said.

The Gouverneur Tribune Press raised the question in late 2021 to local municipalities, asking how they were going to adhere to the new regulations. While comments were made regarding the difficulty of the mandate, no further comments were made in public session. The Town of Gouverneur has made changes to its website that would potentially allow for the prompt posting of monthly agendas and related documents. But there has been no changes made to the Village of Gouverneur website. The latest meeting minutes published and posted for the public’s viewing online by the Village of Gouverneur was in September 2018.

The Open Meeting Law, revised in February 2022, states the following: “If the agency in which a public body function maintains a regularly and routinely updated website and utilizes a high-speed internet connection, such minutes shall be posted on the website within two weeks from the date of such meeting…” In the same subsection, the law states that unabridged video recordings or unabridged audio recordings or unabridged written transcripts may be deemed to be meeting minutes. The law also states: “Nothing in this section shall require the creation of minutes if the public body would not otherwise take them.” The full Open Meeting Law document is available for viewing at opengovernment.ny.gov.

After some discussion, Village of Gouverneur Trustee Troy Besaw once again encouraged the Village of Gouverneur to follow the new regulations for the prompt posting of agendas, meeting documents, and meeting minutes.

There was no further discussion on the matter.

The next regular meeting of the Village of Gouverneur Board of Trustees will be held on Tuesday, April 19, 6 p.m., in the municipal courtroom.