Stop stalling, Mr. Simmons, and release report

Stonington officials received a report back in January recommending ways to improve efficiency. It still has not been released to the public. It should be made available, immediately.

When Stonington’s Board of Selectmen last year hired an expert on municipal government operations to study the town’s departments, it did so in an effort to embrace contemporary best practices. Such forward thinking should benefit the town’s residents in the long run.

Indeed, when First Selectman Rob Simmons received a 20-page draft report from former Newington town manager Keith Chapman in January, he wasted little time implementing some of the report’s 50 recommendations. Unfortunately, the public has not yet had the opportunity to read the report to get a firsthand understanding of its scope and depth.

That needs to change, now. Release the report. Something that has been paid for and is being implemented is in no way a “draft report” exempted from public view. In any event, the state’s Freedom of Information law allows withholding draft documents from the public only when “the public agency has determined that the public interest in withholding such documents clearly outweighs the public interest in disclosure.”

Yet Simmons will not release the report, saying it is still considered a draft. He recently told Day reporter Joe Wojtas the Board of Selectmen has been preoccupied with putting the proposed 2017-18 budget in order and, as such, has not yet had time to thoroughly review and approve the report.

It is hard to imagine that the need for town officials to review the report outweighs the public interest in knowing how an outside consultant concluded their town could run more efficiently. Even if the selectmen opt not to include some of the report’s recommendations in their future plans for the town, citizens have the right to know what those recommendations were. They paid for them.

The Day last week filed a state Freedom on Information request for the report. The town had four business days to respond. Simmons, who in winning election promised a government far more transparent than that of his predecessor, should not put the newspaper in a position of having to file a complaint.

We believe Stonington’s Board of Selectmen was right to commission the study and report. Too often in this Land of Steady Habits, governmental practices and procedures continue only because people are set in their ways, can’t recall a time when practices were different nor take the time to envision how practices could be improved.

Simmons, along with selectmen Mike Spellman and Kate Rotella did the right thing when they concluded that the way things always have been is not good enough for Stonington. Inefficiencies are not just frustrating for residents and those who must do business with town, they also can be costly and in frugal Stonington, that should be reason enough to recommend better ways of doing business.

Still, Stonington residents have a right to know what they paid for. The town spent $15,000 in taxpayer money to commission the report.

Simmons said he is initiating a process to review the report line by line and get it finalized, approved and released to the public as soon as possible. That smacks of trying to control the flow of information. Here’s a suggestion for getting the information to the public as soon as possible — release the report, then continue the review and let the townspeople know what you plan to do.