Earlier this evening we reported on what we described as the “leak” of a special permit application for the construction of a 49 unit apartment complex at 425 South Riverside Avenue, a project which has already become controversial in the village.
We have now heard from the editor of the AI driven site that published the application, Matt Broudy, about the circumstances in which the documents—which Village Manager Bryan Healy told us were not the final versions—ended up being published. We are providing his entire statement below.
While we take note of Broudy’s comment that the documents were not “leaked” to his site but were picked up from a publicly available page, it appears likely that the village inadvertently leaked the documents itself by mistakenly making them accessible for at at least a period of time. Healy is investigating how this happened, and we look forward to hearing more from him in due course.
From Matt Broudy:
For the record, croton.news did not receive leaked documents from any person. Its automated system retrieved Planning Board materials that had been made publicly accessible through the Village’s agenda system.
When Village Manager Bryan Healy informed me that the materials were preliminary rather than final and requested their removal, I complied in less than one hour. That response time is typical for correction or removal requests received by croton.news. The page now displays a notice stating that the materials were removed at the Village’s request.
The materials were authentic earlier versions of the application, not information generated or hallucinated by AI. The issue was their preliminary status, not their authenticity.
Please update the headline and article to distinguish materials prematurely made public through the Village’s system from an unproven “leak” to croton.news, and tell readers that croton.news removed them promptly at the Village Manager’s request.
Matthew Broudy
Editor, croton.news
We would make one comment about this unfortunate situation, which is that it might have been avoided had village officials made the application available to residents as soon as the Engineering Department determined that it was complete. Earlier today, however, Healy disputed our contention that there was a lack of transparency, telling us:
“I believe that we are being very transparent with this application. I was under no obligation to announce it at the [Board of Trustees] meeting last night, but I did so to allow those interested to plan ahead.”
It appears that there are different conceptions of what transparency in government actually means, but the good news is that villagers will have access to the application much earlier than originally planned by village officials.
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In the experience of many of us, this administration cannot be characterized as transparent, whether by intention or inattention.