SARANAC LAKE — Village board trustees in Saranac Lake will now get copies of all Freedom of Information Law requests concerning the board of trustees or senior staff, as well as FOIL request denials, after a unanimous vote on Monday.

The resolution to make this change came from Trustee Rich Shapiro.

“The village wholeheartedly supports the public’s right to know and governmental transparency,” he wrote in the resolution. “The village board needs to be apprised of what issues are of concern to our constituents.”

The state’s FOIL allows members of the public to request documents from the government on a variety of topics, as long as the documents meet certain criteria.

The village fields a number of FOIL requests, cillage Clerk Amanda Hopf said. In the last 60 days she said she had received 20 requests.

Hopf requested an amendment to the original resolution, which stated that the trustees would get copies of all FOIL requests. She requested the amendment not say that she would have to submit all FOIL requests, because there are many requests that have sensitive information — such as Social Security numbers, names of children, addresses and other personal information — that she would have to redact before the board could see them, and this would take a lot of time.

As the village clerk, Hopf is in charge of handling and responding to FOIL requests, approving or denying them. She does so with consultation with the village’s attorney.

Hopf said she gets lots of FOIL requests for cases involving Child Protective Services.

“Social Services uses FOIL requests for Child Protective Services cases,” Mayor Jimmy Williams said. “There’s a lot of personal information. … To redact it all, I think, is going to be a lot more time for Amanda.”

“It would just be an extra step for me,” Hopf said. “I’ll do it, but, I just don’t see the need.”

Trustees agreed, they did not think that was all necessary.

The board agreed to limit the resolution to apply only to FOIL requests involving the village board or senior village staff, and FOIL denials. Sharing FOIL requests with board members is a fairly uncommon practice and unique for Saranac Lake to introduce.

This trustee notification of FOIL requests will be applied retroactively to Oct. 1, 2023.