www.berlincitizen.com
Volume 22, Number 5
Thursday, March 21, 2019
Area towns score well on FOI compliance test By Jesse Buchanan Record-Journal staff
Area municipalities scored well during a Freedom of Information compliance test last month.
From left, Craig, Nancy and Peter Hansen stand in front of Erickson-Hansen Funeral Home of Berlin/Porters on Tuesday, March 12. The family purchased the business from Christopher and Peggy Porter after 150 years of family ownership. Devin Leith-Yessian, The Citizen
Iconic business changes hands As Christopher Porter looked for a new owner for Porter’s Funeral Service, he wanted to ensure the fifthgeneration family business he inherited retained its personal, local touch. “When you have a family in your neighborhood serving your family … there’s more of a personal touch,” said Porter, who will now retire. The new owners are Peter Hansen and his family, who operate Erickson-Hansen
Funeral Home in New Britain and helped Porter run his business, at 111 Chamberlain Highway, for the last five years. “I feel very confident in the type of work they’ve been doing for a number of years,” said Porter, who ran his business for 37 years and turns 69 in July. To keep the Porter family legacy, the business will be renamed Erickson-Hansen Funeral Home of Berlin/ Porter’s. "We're well-known for a high
level of care," Peter Hansen said. "It's very rewarding. We feel it's our life calling to be able to help a family through their time of grief and need and loss.” This year marks the 150th year since Bryan Churchill Porter purchased the funeral home’s original location in downtown New Britain, a three-story building. It featured a furniture store on the first floor, the funeral home on the second and the Porter household on the See Porter, A17
Meriden area towns mostly responded promptly to the requests. The project was timed with Sunshine Week, a media focus on transparency. Of the 11 municipalities asked to provide a list of the top 10 municipal taxpayers, only North Haven denied the request. State FOI law doesn’t require towns to create documents in response to a request and North Haven officials cited that exemption to disclosure laws. In response to a request for a list of school staffing and enrollment, many districts referred the RecordJournal to the information published online.
Berlin Town Manager Jack Healy said the town’s policy is not to release letters of discipline for town employees. Freedom of Information Commission Public Education Officer Tom Hennick said there are exemptions to disclosure laws for medical information and privacy, but that letters of discipline are public documents. “There’s no blanket exemption for letters of discipline,” he said. The Plainville school district provided superintendent Maureen Brummett’s contract as requested but blacked out her name from the document. Upon request, the district furnished an unredacted copy and officials said they weren’t sure how or why a redacted version was sent. See FOI, A17
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R210746
By Devin Leith-Yessian The Citizen
News outlets sent requests under state disclosure laws to towns and cities early last month. The requests included school district information, top employees’ pay and letters of discipline.
Some towns denied portions of the request. Berlin didn’t provide letters of discipline for public works employees, citing a state FOI exemption for the invasion of privacy. Other towns did provide letters if they existed.
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