News and Views About East Hartford Finance Director Mike Walsh expressed his frustration recently under the caption in the East Hartford Gazette, "FORMER MAYOR KNIEP NEEDLESSLY HARASSING TOWN GOVERMENT" "Anyone who has lived in East Hartford for more than a few years knows all too well that former mayor and current Federation of Taxpayer Organization President Susan Kniep grinds her ax with stunning regularity on those who may have a differing opinion from hers on how government should be run. I too have often been the focus of her angst starting with my resume (Susan wondered out loud in front of the cameras on channel 5 why my stint as a Eucharistic minister was redacted from my resume, accusing me of "hiding something) continuing on to my salary as Finance Director for the town. How I apply Connecticut General Statutes with respect to Freedom of Information requests that Mrs. Kniep has served on the town. Recognizing that writing to the Gazette to sort out Mrs. Kniep's fictions, I understand that I too, like many before me, will have the sharpened Kniep ax chop down on some future article. That's OK, I'm used to it. That leads me to another queston for Editor Bill Doak. I read almost weekly assorted Kniep writings published in the Gazette. In as much as I would like to be published weekly, what is the Gazette's publishing standard for letters to the editor? One a week? One a month? One a quarter? Seems to me we've been very generous with print space for Mrs. Kniep. Back to the issue. What Mrs. Kniep failed to inform the readers in her letter to the Gazette was that I indicated to her in a Feb. 27 2004 letter that a trained analyst using our data base must create the information she sought. As Mrs. Kniep knows, under CT Gen'l Statutes, the Town can charge 54 cents a page, and when the amount of data requested exceeds $10 ($176 pages were compiled for Kniep at a cost of $176.44 but Kniep was only charged 50 cents a page, or $88 in total)payment in advance can be requested. Because this request was one of over 50 requests I have personally answered for Mrs.Kniep, and because Mrs.Kniep sometimes doesn't come back to retrieve her requests, I requested that $50 be prepaid from her before work on her request began. While she made this request to Finance, she had a similar request into Personnel that resulted in two employees working on the same request. Instead of a $50 check to start the process I received the following response from Kniep. 'I will come to your office and sit down at your computer to peruse the information requested. Following my review of the information within your database, I will then determine the copies needed, if any. while a public record, Unfortunately, I was unable to comply with Mrs. Kniep's directive. The financial data of the Town, while a public record, has among other things, the social security numbers of all the employees as well as medical and personal information not available for Mrs. Kniep to 'peruse.' Oh yeah, the most important thing she failed to pass along to the readers was that her 'Task Group' suggests maybe the tax group could review some of the budget book and send e-mail after e-mail to Mr.Walsh.' My reply to Mrs. Kniep on that issue is as follows: 'I believe it would be a sad day for the Town of East Hartford when the former mayor through her tax organization seeks to hinder, frustrate, or through her actions, fails to allow the government of the Town to operate efficiently and effectively for the good of the residents' Last but not least, Susan implies that 'employees appear to pay nothing toward their health insurance. Taxpayers paid it all! Not true. As of this writing. each and every employee of the town of East Hartford and the Board of Education pays at least 5% and upwards of 15% (Paraprofessionals pay even more) of the cost of the town supplied health benefits. Here's the real question. If the health insurance co-pay from employees now in effect help reduce the tax burden on residents, then why didn't Mrs. Kniep negotiate them into any contracts when she was mayor?"