The vibrancy of our village, and our ability to preserve its unique, historical character in the future depend on the social fabric of our community. If we foster an environment of trust based on transparency we can have it all. So let’s talk about what we already have in place to build trust through transparency, what is in the process and how we should act as facilitators of the kind of environment of trust that will ensure the success of Pittsford Village in the future.

Image of a crisp and clear morning in the snow with kids at end of street

What Has Been Done?

Before I started to regularly attend Trustee meetings, I heard heard a few people bemoaning a “lack of transparency” in our village. While there is certainly room for improvement in communication and information availability, upon becoming more involved with village government, I found:

  • Minutes of meetings are provided in significant detail on the village web site, and they are posted consistently once they are approved after meetings. You can find the minutes for our various boards here.
  • Audio recordings are made for all Trustee meetings. While they are not currently posted online (more on this below), they are able to be consulted if there are questions about what was said.
  • On one occasion when I called to request a document that was not posted, I received an email with the document attached from the Village Clerk within 20 minutes of my initial call. This level of customer service from an understaffed local government office far surpassed my expectations.
  • You can receive emailed code updates by clicking the link to “Get Updates” on the web page for our village code.
  • Communication has improved with the addition of a Village Facebook page this year (you should give it a “like” if you haven’t already!)

Most importantly, when I sat down to talk with our elected officials, I found them to be deeply committed to our village, and eminently trustworthy. They were able to concisely articulate their knowledge of village issues in a way that quickly dispels concerns that would breed lack of trust. I had this experience in speaking with Trustee Frank Galusha a couple of days ago on some hot-button topics in the village. Unfortunately, most villagers haven’t had these personal conversations with each of the Trustees, and mistrust grows quickly in an era of social media, especially when there is a lack of other informed voices online regarding the issues that matter.

What Can We Do?

All of our Trustees agree that we need transparent communication. Sharing more information through live video streaming may help the public to become more informed and less divided.

Because the village is not ready to start live streaming all meetings right now, I recently mentioned the possibility of a community-based effort to make videos available online. So far, Tom Cummings (Comprehensive Plan Committee Steering Committee Chair) and I have put three videos online of recent meetings. To organize this material I created a web page at pittsford.villagevideos.com (I will move this to a village-operated web page when that is ready in the future). I hope that these videos help to personalize and contextualize the information that tends to become much more divisive when shared in soundbites.

The village is also looking to resume sending newsletters to residents so that they are better informed on the issues.

Finally, we need to have better summaries of issues from our government through social media channels. Our elected officials have made great strides in that area during the last year and they are committed to continuing that effort.

How Should We Act?

In an era of social media, we need to push our government to publish more to provide context on crucial issues. This involves an expense, a cost and potentially some risk for our government. However, I think that in general the benefits will outweigh the risk, as it will increase public trust. If elected as a Trustee, I will continue with the kinds of assessments that I have written online on village issues, so that we can move forward together as a community to preserve and improve our village.

I have recently heard statements that imply that there is a lack of transparency in our government. These statements have the effect of quickly eroding trust, even if they are unsubstantiated. This holds us back from achieving our common goals of preservation and progress, and divides our people. When these kinds of statements are made, as citizens we need to demand that they are clarified so that appropriate actions can be taken to resolve those issues for the benefit of our entire community.

Conclusions

Over the last few months I have written a few pieces on the Trustees’ appeal to the ZBA, as well as issues like vacancy of commercial space in our village. I plan to continue with this same kind of analysis to encourage engagement while we seek to make improvements in our village governance. With efforts to improve the use of social media by our government, an initiative to resume a regular newsletter to citizens, and a grassroots effort that we’re leading to make important public meetings available online that has already begun, we’re on the right path to ensure that we build trust with our community by ensuring clear and transparent communication.

What do you like about this plan, or what would you do to to make it stronger? Please let me know by starting or contributing to a thread on this topic on Nextdoor.