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Resident challenges council rules on informational meetings and access to legal opinions
Summary
A resident and longtime attendee said council rules and corporation counsel responses limit public access to information and asked for clearer timelines and public distribution of responses; council staff said written follow-ups will be provided under the meeting chair's timeline.
Laurie Sandow, a longtime Poughkeepsie resident who attends charter review meetings, criticized the common council's procedures for informational meetings and said the council's new rule 23 narrows public access. Sandow said she asked for legal opinions and FOIL records and was told by the corporation counsel that legal opinions are exempt from disclosure under attorney-client privilege and "This office does not issue opinions to members of the general public." She called that response inconsistent with past practice and asked why written responses would be directed only to the chairperson rather than to the questioner.
"The language and conditions of the council's concocted rule 23 being applied tonight appear nowhere in the charter," Sandow said. She questioned why the council's chair, whom she identified as absent, would be the recipient of written responses and asked for a schedule for distribution and for those answers to be placed on the public record and webcast as before.
City staff on the dais said members are welcome to submit questions and that written responses will be provided under the timeline set by the chair. One staff member indicated most questions raised by Sandow were directed to absent Chair Wilson and likely will require consultation with corporation counsel. No corporation counsel opinion was produced at the meeting.
Sandow also raised related concerns including whether a council consent-agenda policy exists and alleged she had been escorted from a prior meeting; those claims were presented as citizen testimony and were not adjudicated during the session.
