Columnist Al Norman: The city’s capacity for opacity

Greenfield City Hall STAFF PHOTO/PAUL FRANZ

Published: 04-15-2025 12:09 PM

Citizens in a democracy should expect full transparency from government. “It is our goal to provide as much information to our citizens,” the city of Greenfield says on its website, “to promote a transparent government for our citizens.” The opposite of transparency is opacity.

Last January, I wrote to the Greenfield city clerk requesting a copy of a legal memo sent by the city’s attorney to the chair of a City Council committee regarding a zoning amendment. The city solicitor marked his memo “confidential.” I asked the city clerk: “For purposes of government transparency, I am requesting that you ask our attorney if he believes his correspondence with the chair should still be classified as ‘confidential,’ given the fact that the chair has referred to his letter in an open meeting,” and used his memo to argue why committee members should vote against a citizen’s zoning petition. The chair told me to file a public records request, which was denied. “Your public records request,” the clerk wrote, “seeks the disclosure of a confidential communication … that was prepared for the purpose of providing requested legal advice. As such, the communication is protected from disclosure by the attorney-client privilege.”

The City Council voted against the citizen’s petition, based in part on the “classified” legal opinion, but the opinion itself was released only to councilors. You can’t talk about a memo’s confidential contents openly, and still claim it’s “privileged” information. Hiding this document defeated the public purpose of government transparency.

I asked the council president “to tear down this veil of privacy and expedite the declassification of this document, and be open with citizens about what it says. It’s too late to change the outcome of the opaque debate … It has tainted a debate that should have been transparent and honest, and not hidden behind confidentiality.”

On Feb. 20, I received an email from the clerk: “I have uploaded the attached document to your public records request submitted on 1-14-2025. This document was voted to be released by the City Council at their 2-19-2025 Council meeting.” The Council voted 11-0 to release the document. A month earlier I wrote to the Council president: “This incident is emblematic of the illegitimate lack of transparency by deliberative bodies in our city.”

On March 7 I suggested to the president that she require all committee chairs to publicly post on the city’s website a link to public correspondence received by mail or email regarding all public hearings conducted by public bodies. Such correspondence currently is not made available to the public without a public records request. Committee and board chairs do not reveal how many testimony statements have been received from residents, what position they took on any given issue, and that such testimony on public issues is not available on the city’s website anywhere. The minutes of boards and commissions don’t list the citizens who testified by email at a hearing — only those citizens who were able to show up in person and speak for three minutes during public comment.

On April 1, the council’s Chairs Committee discussed for three minutes my request for publication of email testimony, and then killed it. One councilor noted that posting testimony meant “more work for us that we don’t need to be doing.” Another councilor suggested: “If they send us a testimony and they feel so strongly that it should be public, they should come to the meeting and present it in public comment.” Not all citizens are physically able to attend in person, some can’t attend because the computer technology is difficult to use, and some have no computer. Ironically state lawmakers on Beacon Hill recently recommended that all testimony presented at committee hearings should be made publicly available. In Greenfield you have to file a public records request, and sometimes pay a fee. Not so long ago, I could go to City Hall, ask for a committee’s meeting folder, and read the entire folder taking photos of any document I wanted with my cell phone. No public staff time was needed, no cost incurred.

In city government, we have committee meeting minutes that are not published anywhere, or which take months to publish; boards that meet with no full documents posted online; meetings held without quorums; citizen testimony treated as if was “private” correspondence that needs to be redacted. There is opacity everywhere. Citizens should submit their emails as “testimony,” and all testimony should be publicly available. Our elected officials work hard, but transparency should not require a paper chase.

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