Town Of Oyster Bay Announces Partnership With Non-Profit To Increase Transparency

Town of Oyster Bay officials announced on Tuesday a partnership with a local non-profit, Reclaim NY to create a new initiative to increase online transparency.

The Town will be working with the organization as part of Reclaim's New York State Transparency Project.

“When Reclaim NY approached the Town about this transparency initiative, I saw it as the perfect opportunity to show how serious the Town is about creating the most ethically operating Town in the state of New York," Town Supervisor Joseph Saladino said.

In January, the former Town Supervisor John Venditto resigned, citing he looks to focus on clearing his name after he was indicted on federal corruption charges along with Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano last October.

Saladino was then appointed in February, stating he would work to "gain the faith and trust" of local residents by providing "transparency and improving efficiency, as well as looking to provide affordability and fiscal integrity.”

At Tuesday's press conference, the non-profit gave the Town a grade of nearly 80 percent overall, which is almost quadruple the score the Town received before Saladino took office.

"Upon hearing about the Transparency Project, I invited Reclaim NY in and radically changed the way the Town operates," he said. "As a result, the Town has become the standard bearer, as the Town was not only the first to submit to an evaluation by Reclaim NY, but also the first to make the changes necessary to earn the distinction of being a leader in transparency, to better help open the doors of Town government to our residents.”

As part of their online project, Reclaim NY plans to evaluate each local municipality in New York State on their online accessibility in different categories such as municipal transparency, fiscal transparency, access to information, and contracts, amongst others.

Since they began their project, the non-profit has filed over 700 Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) requests for basic expenditure information with every County, City, Town, Village, and School District government in the Hudson Valley, Southern Tier, and Long Island.

After meeting with Reclaim, the Town began implementing new practices to further increase online transparency and accessibility, including posting the rules for contract bidding, instructions for submitting a request for proposals along with a list of current requests, and changing the section of the website which details the Town’s newly restructured ethics guidelines, practices, and reporting, along with other measures.

Recently, Saladino hosted a work session which was open to the public and livestreamed through the Town’s website for all residents during which the Town heard over 18 hours of proposals from each organization who responded to the Town’s request for proposals for the operation of food and beverage concessions at Town parks and beaches.

The Town Board and Saladino then chose the winning bidders publicly so that everyone would know why they were chosen, in complete openness. The result of this process is that the Town will now receive five times the rent they received under the former vendor.

In addition, no taxpayer monies will be used to update the rented facilities. The vendors have committed millions of dollars to rebuild the facilities they are renting.

According to Reclaim NY Executive Director Brandon Muir, Oyster Bay is the first local government who has adopted the organization's new transparency standards.

“This is a huge step forward for the Town of Oyster Bay," Muir said. "Residents will now have access to more information, and be empowered to hold officials accountable."

However, not everyone agrees with the partnership. The Oyster Bay Democrats group said in a press release that they have denounced Saladino and the group for attempting to "fool the electorate on the true state of corrupt affairs in the Town."

“It’s laughable that the Town is just now realizing in an election year that we need transparency, even though they’ve had decades to fix the problem. That’s not true transparency,” Town Supervisor Candidate Marc Herman, a local dentist and lifelong Oyster Bay resident said in the release.