For Immediate Release
Sullivan County, New York
Dated: March 26, 2004

Whither the website, or...

Where on the World Wide Web is Monticello, New York?

Why I deleted the Village of Monticello website...

By Tom Rue

As a protest against election fraud, in support of voting rights of the disabled and of all people, on March 17, 2004 I resigned as the village's webmaster and took my intellectual property with me. Remember back in 1997 when an estimated 5,000 websites voluntarily "went dark" over a 48-hour period in protest of a now-overturned federal Internet censorship law? Well, maybe you don't. Anyway, that's what gave me the idea to delete the website in protest against election fraud in Monticello, New York. Did deleting the site get your attention? Evidently so, if you're reading this.

Print news outlets in this area have thus far wittingly or unwittingly helped to conceal the fraud by ignoring or missing important parts of the story and by reporting blatant and unsubstantiated falsehoods. Hopefully this has already begun to change.

Meanwhile, let's try something else, I decided, to help draw attention to the unlawful acts that corrupt democratic elections. It's not much, but a person must do something when evil appears in his back yard or, as history proves, it will grow like a cancer until the social contract has been irretrievably broken.

I was legally able to delete the village website because I created (i.e. wrote and/or compiled) it and, as a matter of law, I retain copyright. This was clearly stated by me from the time that I began maintaining the site in February 2000, asserted continuously at the bottom of the base page of the former website itself, and confirmed recently by the Mayor and Acting Village Manager who was in office when the service agreement to maintain the site was put into place as his understanding on behalf of the Village from the outset. The village contracted me to provide computer consulting and website maintenance, not writing or photography. The content remains my property.

“I've already reposted selected articles and photos related to local history… at tomrue.tripod.com.”

Details behind the reason that I chose to delete my files, and to do so rather suddenly (in the absence of any contractual or other agreed upon requirement for advance notice), are contained in correspondence posted in their entirety on the web so anyone interested read them. The tone of the Manager's letter, written after he discovered that the village's domain had been restored to his historic (2000) condition, suggests he may have been frothing at the mouth when he wrote it -- threatening to "take legal action" because I exercised my First Amendment right to remove my files as a form of political protest against corruption. If you surfed to Monticello's current website searching for a particular file that you know was once there, let me know and I'll be happy to help out. I still have the full 25MB of files that made up the former site on my hard drive and CD.

I've already reposted selected articles and photos related to local history -- which I wrote, compiled, or collected at tomrue.tripod.com, and will continue to post more there.

Naturally, I don't claim ownership of official documents like Village Board minutes; that would be silly. The Village Clerk has custody of the official minutes. The ones that were on the website, which I formatted in html and compiled into a form of cumulative database, were merely digital copies. It will be interesting to see if the incoming administration at Village Hall is as free and forthcoming with public information as the outgoing Mayor has been. Will minutes continue to be archived on the web, for anyone to view, or will they be hidden away in a filing cabinet like the old days, only released after a formal Freedom of Information request has been submitted to Village Hall and reviewed by the Village Attorney?

If, as a current or former resident of Monticello, you've grown used to a free flow of information from the local government via the Internet, and you want to see your Village again have a presence on the World Wide Web which includes minutes of meetings, agendas, history, government phone and e-mail directories, and other useful content, call Village Hall and tell the Manager or the Mayor-Elect to get on the stick and hire someone now -- and without adding any additional money to the budget -- for the same quality or a better website than you've grown used to.

Reach out and touch someone at Village Hall at (845) 794-6130. Ask for Village Manager Richard Sush (though he may refuse to take your call, and he might not call you back. He's widely known for both.) If he won't come to the phone, leave a message. Or you can just or e-mail him. Tell him you want a new website, and among other things it should include an archive of minutes of all Village Board meetings. The public has a right to know what its government is up to, and there's no excuse in this day and age for a municipality not to have an up-to-date, meaningful website.