“For democracy to work, people need to know what’s going on,” Freedom of Information Commission Public Education Officer Thomas Hennick said Tuesday at a meeting in Torrington City Hall.
Hennick held a workshop with city department heads, commission members and area citizens to educate them about meeting laws and open records.

Municipalities, boards and commissions should think of everything they do in terms of being open and accessible to the public, he said.

The key to any good FOI result is paying attention and staying patient... It also helps to have a leak.

When former Torrington police officer Hector Medina was arrested on Feb. 8, 2012 for misusing police databases, it opened a can of worms that none of us saw coming. Medina's arrest sparked the community to ask a question: Why was he making these alleged "phantom stops"?

Twenty-nine different victims said Medina had never pulled them over, but he reported these stops as part of his "one-stop quota," as the community began to call it. Come to find out, the police department -- much like any other department --
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