Utica misses deadline for access to codes records

[rrogers40]

Seeing as my comment will probably not stay up longer than a few articles:

Why is this under the news section?- It sounds like the OD was told that what they were looking for did not exist in the form they wanted and since they can't cry to anyone meaningful they are crying to their readers.

''“Your request is for a list; no such list exists,” said Angelo Roefaro, who is the mayor’s cousin.''
So no such list exists- so go through the records manually. (And who cares who's cousin is who- welcome to the Mohawk Valley where everyone is related to each other- another case of poor journalism)

''When a reporter cited other aspects of the request, Angelo Roefaro then said a reporter could come look at documents sometime this week. It remains unclear whether all the documents sought would be made available by the Roefaro administration.''
Sounds like they are making the records available- So what did your reporter see?- O yea they probably haven't gotten down there yet (sure shows how important this is to the OD)

''A secretary in the Codes Department, who would not give her name, said the O-D’s request asked for too much.''
Lets see how long it takes the OD every copy of there news paper since 2005.


Honestly what this sounds like to me is that the OD did not follow up on it- they just submitted the request and assumed that the magic leprechaun would give them what they wanted. And the fact that this article doesn't seem to even flow properly shows how the OD is fishing for news.

[Swimmy]

My question is why the disgrace does not publish aricles about how new hartford town officials routinely failed to comply with FOIL requests. Instead, in spite of some of the dirt uncovered by concerned citizens that is mailed to the disgrace, the reporter is chummy chummy with earl reed. go figure.

[frankcor]

From the article: ''“Your request is for a list; no such list exists,” said Angelo Roefaro, who is the mayor’s cousin.''

The Freedom of Information law guarantees access to DOCUMENTS. It places no burden on government bodies to compile or produce reports that summarize other documents. I have to believe the editors know that. I wonder why they would print something to make it look like they are ignorant.

[Swimmy]

Because the paper refuses to do anything that is right. Otherwise, it would be helping to expose the mass corruption in new hartford.

[frankcor]

But wouldn't that risk loss of revenue from all the legal notice advertising the town does in the OD?

[Swimmy]

Not really, being that it's the only majorly circulated newspaper in the area, the town would not have much of an option unless it decided to start its own mass-circulated newspaper.

[dgriffin]

I seem to remember that years ago a local town in this part of the state became incensed with the local daily and changed their "official newspaper" (in which their notices were published) to a local weekly. Swimmy, could they have done that? My memory says they did, but my memory says a lot of things. Actually, what I think they did was to reduce their official paperS, the local town's paper and the nearby city's daily, to the local weekly only.

[Swimmy]

They could in theory, but a lot of it depends on court orders and state laws. If they did switch to a lesser read paper like the "Life and Times" they would open themselves up to many lawsuits for improper notice.

I would imagine -- i don't have access to my law books right now -- that as long as the paper's circulation was sufficiently large enough the town could easily switch to a weekly local paper instead as long as it is a similar audience.

[frankcor]

I suspect they could switch to the Rome Sentinel, another daily within the same county.

[Swimmy]

They could, but would they really be so inclined? Aside from the Romans, I rarely hear about that paper. I doubt I could get affordable delivery to my door here in New Hartford.

[Clipper]

The Sentinel is a very nice "little" paper, and covers the Rome news fairly well. I have to admit that it is better in most of it's reporting than the OD. Unfortunately, it doesn't have the ability or the desire to cover other areas of the news as well as papers with bigger circulation. When I was transportation manager at the Observer Dispatch, we had a large cube van dedicated to delivering the Rome Edition of the OD, as well as a contractor with a pickup truck load, that delivered to all the stores and filled all the vending machines. There was a cube van full of papers that simply went to home delivery carriers that service Rome, and surrounding areas such as Camden, Taberg, and Westernville.

I would seriously doubt that any municipality other than Rome itself, would put their "legals" in the Sentinel. Just a little inside look at the numbers and circulation abilities.

Swimmy, isn't there a stipulation that some legal notices be posted for a designated number of "consecutive" days? A weekly could not satisfy that requirement. The Sentinel, and the Herkimer Telegram don't publish a Sunday edition, so there would be a break in "consecutive" issues if the requirement was for 7.

[Swimmy]

According to the Civil Procedure Law and Rules, service by publication ↓ CPLR 316. The process is to make an ex parte motion and obtain a court order for service of publication and must be commenced within 30 days of the court's order in at least 2 papers once a week for 4 successive weeks and service is complete (∆'s 30 days to appear begins to run) 28 days after 1st publication.

That only pertains to commencing a lawsuit. I am not sure about the other legal notices pertaining to corporation formations, foreclosure sales, etc. I would imagine similar rules apply, but I don't know exactly.

[Clipper]

Glad you are able to clarify that swimmy. I think it may be different for bankruptcy proceedings and possibly other procedures. I was a victim of a bankruptcy once when I had my business, and I think it was published for a week straight. That is not to say that it necessarily had to be. I was really screwed in that case. I was owed about $3000 and I received 3 cents on the dollar of debt. Just about bought the gas attend the hearings. haha.

[Swimmy]

No problem. :-)