Government of, by and for the people — not politicians

Much to the chagrin of my staff and the local press, I don’t spend a great deal of time writing to the press or writing letters to the editor. It may amaze some people that I am not on Facebook (is that one word or two?) and I don’t have a Twitter account. The truth is I have a hard time responding to all the emails I get in a week. I prefer good old-fashioned phone calls. My belief is that if you are doing a good job the people will notice and that will get you re-elected. To be really honest with the residents, I believe God’s hand is at work in our lives and God put me in office and at some point he will remove me. In the meantime I need to work to do his will in my life and for this town.

That being said, I cannot let Denise Civiletti stand alone on the issue of open government. Ms. Civiletti broke the story last month about Riverhead Republican party holding caucuses every two weeks. I know because I told her in an effort to solve a problem. What originally started out as a good idea to resolve differences between the board members, heal wounds from a primary and introduce the Republican board members to our new Republican leader, it quickly devolved into discussions about town business. Again, I know because I was there. I stopped going early on because something did not feel right about these meetings. We had no formal agendas and the public’s business was being discussed in private.

I read Ms. Civiletti’s opinion piece “Open government? Says who?” and I realized I need to stand in the breach with Denise. It is not fair that I placed the entire burden of solving the caucus issue on the press. I was elected to lead this town as your supervisor and I shall do so. You see, the thing is, this is your government. President Lincoln once said “… a government of the people by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth.” I may be a little melodramatic here to prove a point, but the Town of Riverhead is your government created by the people for you. But you have to ask yourself at what point does it stop being your government when decisions are being made in secret that affect your lives.

I may be a purist here but everything in my office and in Town Hall is yours. Open for you to look at and review. Now of course from time to time when negotiating things like contracts and in litigation strategy things may not be as freely available for that particular moment in time but eventually it is yours—the people’s. As supervisor, I have tried to be as open with everything in Town Hall and believe me sometimes that openness came back to me in bitter ways especially during a campaign. My friend Angela made me eat my words on more than once occasion. But again, I and the town board are here to serve the public in an open and courteous fashion. The public should demand nothing less. I demand nothing less from myself.

With technology it is far easier to make decisions without public input and not even realize you did so. It can be as simple as a decision made in an email chain. As an elected official I have to be ever-vigilant not to do this. However, when your town is served by a board all of one political party there is even a greater burden to keep your government open.

In one of the only cases on the subject, Buffalo News, Division of Berkshire Hathaway, Inc. v. Buffalo Common Council, the court stated “[w]hen dealing with a Legislature comprised of only one political party, it must be left to the sound discretion of honorable and honest legislators to clearly announce the intent and the purpose of future meetings and open the same accordingly consistent with the over-all intent of Public Officers Law.”

At this time I wish to ask the Riverhead Republican party Leader to “clearly announce the intent and the purpose of future caucuses” so that the public knows that their business is not being discussed behind closed doors.

If you take anything away from my comments here remember this, Riverhead Town is your government created by you and for you. When decisions are made in secret it is no longer run as a government for you but a government for the politicians.

Sean Walter is supervisor of the Town of Riverhead. He lives in Wading River.

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