A testament to the mighty power of blog: Greene County chronicler Dick May appears to have scored a point for open government with a post he wrote a couple of weeks ago.
Last month, May wrote in his Seeing Greene blog that Catskill village police were refusing public access to police reports. He quoted Catskill police chief Dave Darling:
“I have no way of giving you free access to our ‘blotter’. Our incident and action reports are now done on-line; no more ring binders full of paper. Internet access to the on-line reports is restricted to authorized personnel. And I’m not going to let just anybody come into a secured area at police headquarters, and sit down for an hour or more in front of one of our computer screens reading a day’s or a week’s reports.”
No word on whether Darling has changed his policy (which runs afoul of New York freedom of information law). But since May's revelation, the Daily Mail has begun quietly printing Catskill items in their Greene County police blotter.
Apparently the technical barriers against public access to CPD’s public records have been surmounted.
Earlier: Meaning of "public document" lost on Catskill village police
