Councilwoman Broke Rules, Manager Says

City Councilwoman Toni Gallagher has received a letter from City Manager Stephen B. Julian saying that she broke the rules when she and a handful of residents copied 1,500 pages of old documents after hours at City Hall last week.

“You have ignored the established rules regarding public access to records and have essentially directed members of the city staff to ignore these rules as well,” Julian wrote in a letter dated Jan. 19. “I cannot and will not allow this to continue.”

The documents were to be destroyed as part of routine clearing of storage space, Julian said Tuesday. City policy dictates that the staff must be in attendance when someone is going through city records, he said.

The conflict is one in a series of confrontations in a city divided over several issues, including a campaign to recall Mayor Karen Lloreda and Councilman Harold R. Kaufman.

Last month, over protests from Gallagher and Councilman William L. Ossenmacher, the City Council voted 3-2 to destroy “nonessential” city records, including a campaign file on Kaufman.

Gallagher said she found “irregularities” in the files but would not be specific. “I just wanted to be sure that our public was protected,” said Gallagher, a self-described council watchdog who said she spent nearly 23 hours last week copying documents.

Kaufman said the only document about him that was to be destroyed is a 1990 ballot statement and that all his campaign finance records have been microfilmed.

Kaufman requested that the council consider changing city policy to allow the public 60 days to review old files before they are recycled and to publish a list of those documents.

Meanwhile, the files in question have not yet been destroyed and are available to anyone interested in looking at them, City Clerk Sharon L. Waits said. “We’re not getting rid of any important files.”