Branford and other towns and cities across Connecticut are grappling with a recent Connecticut Supreme Court decision that would ban the use of addresses in open public records, specifically a town or city’s grand list and other tax records.
The high court’s decision has thrown the offices of town clerks, assessors and town managements into potential chaos. According to an article in the Connecticut Law Tribune published yesterday, Connecticut General Statute 1 – 217 creates an exemption to the Freedom of Information Act that bars the disclosure of the home address of certain state employees, including state and local police, prison guards and many others.
The high court’s recent decision held “that the address-exempting statute trumped a conflicting statute providing for an open and public grand list,” the Tribune reported.
First Selectman Unk DaRos said in an interview today that the Connecticut Supreme Court decision put towns and cities in an “impossible situation. Towns will be forced between making a decision on which law to break. We are studying this very carefully. I hope the legislature or the court will do something about this. Every single profession as well as the needs of towns would be affected by this decision.”
If the decision stands, towns and cities could be barred from making public records public until the town went through thousands of records to determine who belonged in a protected class. Branford’s lists, like those of other towns, are now on-line.
Click here to read the full story by the Tribune’s Thomas B. Scheffey.
How can these people vote if they don't have an address.
They must be listed in the voter files--so there goes their privacy.
The Supreme Court better look at this again, before all the towns go thru a lot of $$$$.