Town of Alma officials refused to provide copies of resignation letters dated May 14, 2023
By Andrew Harris
For more than five years, the Town of Alma government has been in a state of chaos. Several elected officials have resigned from the government in recent years and the last election resulted in some big changes on the town board.
Now, two of the five board members have officially quit after being elected. Until these resignations, Alma town officials openly supplied all prior formal resignation letters to the Wellsville Sun.
This time was different. Town officials refused to provide the documents or return calls for comment. The two former board members who resigned were contacted and refused to comment or provide their resignation letters.
Obviously this was unusual and requires any news source to question the attempt to withhold the public records. The bottom line is that if this publication doesn’t pursue withheld public information, who will ?
After additional requests, a Freedom of Information Law request was filed through the Wellsville Sun’s legal counsel. The town of Alma complied with that request and both resignation letters are published below.
The content of the letters are extremely general, even tame compared to some of the past town of Alma resignation letters. Both former officials cite that certain “procedures” are not being followed. One letter suggests that the town is not adhering to municipal law and the other states, “I do not want to be held accountable.”
Both former town board members maintain a “no comment,” response when asked to make a statement for this article.
