Saugerties revises records-denial motion
Move specifies a former councilman who has been seeking records from town
SAUGERTIES — The Town Board revised a motion to categorically deny all records requests involving active investigations after Supervisor Fred Costello admitted that the policy was drafted in response to a specific request from a former town councilman. But at Wednesday’s Town Board hearing, the revision was tabled pending further inquiry.
The original language of the motion would deny “any and all” requests and appeals under New York’s Freedom of Information Law for records related to ongoing investigations and documents protected by attorney-client privilege. That language contravenes a section of state records law that says access to records cannot be denied “based solely on the category or type of such record” but only when there is a specific justification for denial.
The Saugerties measure is “inconsistent with this statutory requirement,” said Kristin
O’neill, assistant director with the state Committee on Open Government, which oversees and advises governments, the public and news media on the state’s record-access laws.
But on Wednesday afternoon, Costello spoke with a Times Union reporter by phone.
“It’s pretty clear upon reading it again that it’s a little bit too broad,” Costello said of the motion. “It’s really in response to a specific FOIL request and the terms of that request.”
Costello went on to confirm that the “specific FOIL request” came from former Councilman Paul Andreassen, who has been seeking information about an investigation into Councilman Mike Ivino, who last month allegedly posted a video on social media of an unclothed woman in distress in the village. Costello earlier told the Kingstonbased Daily Freeman that the motion was written based on the advice of the town attorney, but he later told the Times Union that it was the town attorney who advised rewriting the same motion.
It was not immediately clear how many of Saugerties’ five council members supported the motion. But Councilman Zach Horton, who has clashed with Costello on previous issues, said that the “FOIL laws that are already in existence are quite clear and our board passing such a motion would be redundant in nature.” He added that the motion should be withdrawn.
A couple of hours after Costello spoke with the Times Union, his secretary shared the revised motion language. It now sought to specifically deny Andreassen’s latest request seeking records related to the Ivino incident, quoting directly from an appeal of a previous denial Andreassen emailed to the town on Feb. 7.
Asked to clarify that the motion was now simply to deny Andreassen’s appeal and not to categorically deny all records requests related to ongoing investigations, Costello’s secretary wrote back: “Fred’s response is yes.”
Andreassen told the Times Union that Costello’s efforts to limit his record requests were
being done “with malice or with the intent of covering something up or both. The supervisor should come down off his high horse and stop pretending to be in control of everything.”
At Wednesday’s Town Board meeting, the council members voted 4-1 to table the revised motion. Horton raised concerns about redundancy and the actual role the Town Board should be playing when it comes to
FOIL requests.
This is not the first time in recent months that Saugerties has considered a policy of categorically denying records requests: In September, the Town Board weighed a motion to deny all requests pertaining to resignations and retirements in the town and village. That motion was tabled after the Times Union reported on it, and has not been brought up since.