WHITE LAKE, NY — A petition calling for improved public access to government in the Town of Bethel gathered close to 1,200 signatures by March 8. 

A coalition of community advocates representing the groups that had circulated the petition presented it to the Bethel Town Board at its meeting that night, after a private meeting with town supervisor Daniel Sturm and town board member Victoria Simpson the previous day. The coalition included Jonathan Hyman, representing the Smallwood Civic Association and the Smallwood Aware Residents Team; Denise Frangipane, former member of the Bethel Town Board; and Dee Bee Kula, representing White Lake Homes. 

What was the petition about?

The petition as circulated called for improved access at several levels of town government. It requested that the planning board (PB) and zoning board of appeals (ZBA) broadcast their meetings online, and that the public have more easy access to the files for proposed development projects. 

The COVID pandemic, for all its downsides, showed communities some of the good things they could accomplish with technology as meetings of all kinds moved online, said Frangipane. “It’s something that we have that we can still take advantage of, even though we’re out of the necessity.”

In addition to online access to PB and ZBA meetings, the petition called for increased resources for Bethel’s building department, and an easier access to the public documents the department holds. 

“We believe that the building department in a town our size really ought to have a full-time leader, full-time leadership,” said Hyman; at present, building inspector BJ Gettel works for the Town of Bethel part time. Online access to the building department’s files—including building plans, inspections and environmental reviews—would be “a win for everybody,” said Hyman: members of the community could access them without going in person to town hall, and building department staff could avoid spending time answering individual requests for documents.  

“It’s been reported in the press and people have talked about it, and people have been saying that the town is showing a lack of transparency. And I don’t believe that’s the right word. I think the lack of transparency is actually a symptom of the larger problem that we’re trying to address. No one’s making any accusations that the town is not being transparent because you’re hiding something, that’s not the issue; the issue is access to government,” said Hyman. 

What did the town board think?

Members of the town board appeared in alignment with the aims of the petition. 

“I want to thank all of those people who signed the petition for taking the time and making suggestions to improve how we do business and how we operate… as I always do, I try to come up with a consensus, a plan based on these requests,” said Sturm. 

Sturm told the public he’d talked with the building department and the town clerk about ways to improve, and he asked for patience as the town tried to upgrade its processes and technology. 

On Monday, March 13, Sturm announced that the town had put all documents related to the White Lake Mansion project online on the town’s website, and that in the near future, all PB and ZBA projects would be available online.

Where does the town board’s authority end?

The standout point of contention between advocates and the town board involved the extent of the town board’s authority over the PB and the ZBA. 

The petition asks for “a mandate that all planning and zoning board meetings and public hearings be accessible to all Bethel residents through Zoom.” The town board has maintained that it does not have the authority to tell either board how to run their meetings. 

Chairperson of the Sullivan County Legislature Rob Doherty emphasized that point in a public comment. The legislature had decided to broadcast its meetings, but that was the group’s choice, said Doherty: it hadn’t been imposed from the outside.  

“You have the right for the people to know, and then you have the board’s autonomy, and that’s the whole purpose of how our zoning boards are set and our planning boards are set up, it’s so that they are autonomous, so that they cannot be infringed upon and make decisions that a group of people want,” said Doherty. 

The board’s legal authority is a separate question from a discussion on the right thing to do, said Hyman. He called upon the town board to discuss it with the PB and the ZBA; “We’re hoping that you convince them to do it, based on something we’re referring to essentially as the will of the people.”

What do the boards think?

The members of the town board who liaise with the PA and the ZBA said they were having, and would continue to have, discussions with their respective boards about broadcasting their meetings. 

Wendy Brown, a member of the ZBA, said during the meeting that she would take the public’s comments back to the board. 

During the meeting, Doherty said that he had talked about the matter with planning board chair Jim Crowley, and that Crowley would be willing to let members of the public broadcast the meeting, if they so wished. In conversations following the meeting, Crowley indicated that he would discuss the matter with his board in conversations, with the idea floated of a three-month trial period for the board to broadcast its meetings.