Hidden in Town Hall: Maybe Not Always

First Selectman Jayme Stevenson has asked the Board of Selectmen what they think about making documents available to the public on the Internet.

"I've actually sent an email to my board to solicit their opinions" on making the same documents that the board considers before meetings available to the public on the town website.

Currently, the town neither posts the documents on the town website, where anybody could see them, nor regularly emails them to reporters or others. Instead, documents created on computers are printed out for reporters and members of the Board of Selectmen, who get them hand-delivered to their homes days before the board's Monday night meetings.

"Any changes I would want to see uniformly made across all the boards and commissions [in town government]," Stevenson said last Monday, after the Board of Selectmen meeting.

"If the town counsel [Wayne Fox] and the town clerk [Donna E. Rajczewski] signed off and advocated for a change of policy, we could implement that," Stevenson said.

Selectman David Campbell, a former first selectman, was approached in the hallway outside Room 206 where the Board of Selectmen had just ended it's meeting and asked what he thought about allowing the documents to be posted on the town website before meetings.

"No, I don't want to comment," Campbell said, smiling. "I don't want to.

"You've got plenty of comments from everybody else," said one of the five elected members of the Board of Selectmen who would decide whether or not to change the policy, according to Stevenson. "You don't need me."

Campbell then walked away, but said over his shoulder, "I think it will be done at some point."