CLIFTON PARK — On the verge of a storm that dumped about 12 inches of the town, the town’s supervisor blocked its elected highway superintendent from posting road updates on the town’s website and social media platforms.
Surprised by the move, Superintendent Dahn Bull wrote a March 14 letter to Supervisor Phil Barrett asking why his department was singled out for website suspension.
“It appears this newly imposed restriction on posting on both the town’s website and social media platforms is limited to the highway department and that other elected officials and departments still have the ability to post, making such restrictions on the highway department arbitrary and inappropriate,” Bull wrote in the letter that was put in Barrett’s mailbox on Tuesday. “The highway department’s ability to communicate with the public is paramount, especially during significant weather events like the current winter storm.”
Bull said he got no response but told Barrett “communication is paramount, especially during a significant weather event.”
Barrett told the Times Union he had never gotten the letter and offered no direct response to Bull’s assertion Bull lost his ability to communicate with the public during a serious snowstorm.
When asked for a comment, Barrett pointed to an unreleased 2022 report on town hall’s alleged toxic work culture by Bond Schoeneck & King. Barret has declined to release the report or discuss its content other than to insist it criticized Bull.
The two men are Republicans and were once political allies.
Earlier in March, Bull posted a notice on the town’s website about a giveaway of salt and sand to residents before another snowstorm. Bull said they typically do this for residents. However, Barrett posted a letter on the town’s Facebook page saying that the giveaway was “a misuse of publicly…
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