Freedom of Information

One of the most important issues for the coming election is government transparency. It is probably one of the most important issues in the entire US of A. After the Civil War and African-Americans were freed, white southerners, through the intimidation of the KKK were able to disenfranchise all Black citizens by a series of what were called “Jim Crow Laws”. To be eligible to vote, you had to do one of a number of things. You had to own property, although the only people who could own property were white men, read a passage from the Bible, when over 90% of Americans couldn’t read, or pay what was called a “poll tax”, when most Black Americans could barely subsist on their incomes. Today we have the Freedom of Information Act, which allows us to obtain any and all public information from the Town Hall by requesting it. The Town has a process which requires that we submit a request for the information, wait as long as week to receive a letter from the Town stating the information can be picked up at Town Hall and advising us that it will cost us $.50c per page to obtain this information.

My problem with this is why Stratford Taxpayers have to pay for the copy paper when it has already been included in the Town budget for “office supplies” for all the Town Departments. I went to Walmarts and found copy paper for $3.37 for a pack of 500. I did the math; $3.37 divided by 500 comes to $0.007 per sheet. Why are we paying 0.50 a sheet for this information which comes under the Freedom of Information Act which requires that this information be available to us? Is there no “Free” in Freedom?

This may seem like a small issue but there should be no small issues when it comes to transparency in our governments. If you have questions for this administration, it is not only your right but your duty to ask those questions and to expect an answer at no cost.