To the editor:

On Dec. 4, I emailed Saranac Lake Mayor Williams and the Board of Trustees requesting clarification on information on the village’s website regarding the proposed public safety building. I was referring to a section of questions submitted by the public two years ago and the village’s posted responses. Not receiving any response to my email, I restated my concerns during the village’s Dec. 8 public meeting.

Ultimately, on Dec. 10, Mayor Jimmy Williams and I met and he agreed that the changes I suggested were appropriate. On Dec. 12, I wrote to the board summarizing the understanding that the mayor and I had reached.

Specifically, the village’s website answers to the public’s 103 questions appeared to be official board responses when in fact they are not. Instead, according to Mayor Williams, all 103 answers are the opinions of anonymous people, including some unnamed village trustees, Wendel Engineers, and members of the Public Safety Building Committee. The village board never approved the posted answers and for the sake of transparency, the website should make this clear.

In addition, the “village’s” answer to six questions about the availability of the Armory was: “The Armory is unavailable for long-term use.” No explanation or documentation was provided and it turns out that this description is largely the opinion of an anonymous author, based in part upon dated information. I suggested to Mayor Williams that for village answers #31, 32, 53, 54, 78 and 79, a more accurate response would be that the author felt that obtaining the Armory would be too complex and protracted.

On Dec. 15, Mayor Williams responded via email, “Keith, Appreciate the suggestion. We’ll get those changed.”

A month later, on Jan. 16, I followed up with an email to Mayor Williams noting that the changes had not yet been made.

Sadly, two months after originally being notified, no website corrections have been made and the site persists in providing residents with inaccurate information about the public safety project. Which begs the question: Is Mayor Williams content to continue misleading residents? Regardless, village residents should perhaps be wary of other statements or promises made by Mayor Williams about the public safety project, especially during this election season.

At the Democratic and Republican caucuses, Mayor Williams talked about his need to improve communication: Perhaps he should start by correcting misleading information about the public safety building project.

Keith John Murphy

Saranac Lake