Local News from Marbletown, Rochester, & Rosendale
The town has been negotiating with Richard Miller, who managed the town’s email server as a volunteer for the past 15 years, to release the town’s archival email data owned by the town.
The Town of Rochester moved its email to Microsoft Outlook in December via a third-party IT vendor. When they moved the IP address, they lost access to the town’s archival email data.
Miller insists that he is completely available to the town and has provided three proposals to cover the 500 hours of work it would take to hand off the data to the town. He says, “we [he and his lawyer] never thought the negotiation ended, it’s like someone told them to use a lawsuit to coerce me, or have the court system decide on a price that they think will be lower.”
The town commenced legal action against Miller in Ulster County Supreme Court on May 5. “The litigation seeks immediate access and return of vital town records, including official email correspondence, which are currently being withheld on a private server,” the town said in a May 13 press release provided by Erin Enouen, the town supervisor.
Miller explained that even though he handled the email server for over a decade as a volunteer, doing an enterprise-level migration for the 217 email boxes used over the last 15 years is “entirely another job requiring about 500 hours of work” for which he wants compensation.
Miller’s take is that the town’s IT vendor thought the email system would be compatible with Outlook, and in fact it isn’t, making the migration more work-intensive than the town anticipated.
Miller said he hasn’t heard back from the town since February when they asked him to re-paginate his proposal for compensation.
In the lawsuit, the town states that Miller was “presented with a draft contract for recompense in assistance with the migration process, though no such compensation was required.”
The town argues that “Miller abruptly terminated all town access to the server on Dec. 4, 2025.” While Miller says that losing archived email access was a direct result of the IT vendor rerouting the IP address.
The town says this problem is “obstructing the town’s ability to comply with New York State law.”
Kathleen A. Gundberg, the town clerk, said the situation was affecting the town. “As records management officer, it is crucial to gain possession of our government records to maintain transparency and serve the citizens of Rochester effectively. Official town records are the foundation of governmental operations. Lacking access to these records has affected the town’s ability to effectively serve its residents,” she said.
The town states that the situation is affecting its ability to fulfill pending Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) requests, meeting court-mandated discovery deadlines for ongoing litigation, and having full possession and custody of town records, “some of which are sensitive and confidential,” the town said.
“Lacking access to these records has affected the town’s ability to effectively serve its residents,” said Gundberg.
Miller confirmed that they don’t currently have access to the data. However, he said that in February he proposed three different solutions: a temporary solution, a complete migration and something in the middle. He says they confirmed receipt of the email on Feb. 12, but haven’t heard anything back from them since.
Enouen said, “Since taking office, my focus has been on modernization, efficiency and ensuring our operations meet current legal standards. We identified the risks inherent in this legacy arrangement and moved to fix it. Informal setups simply do not meet today's requirements for government transparency and accountability. Our efforts attempting to resolve this through conversation and professional coordination proved fruitless. This is a necessary legal step to bring public property home.”
Miller started handling the town’s email back when Carl Chipman was town supervisor. He described that the town was in a pickle one weekend when they changed providers and were not going to have email in the offices on Monday morning. Chipman called Miller and asked if he could help out. Miller said he put together the local server and things were up and running on Monday morning. He said he’s kept up the server voluntarily because he always felt it was the community minded thing to do. It’s a skill he had and was happy to help the town. He said that in all this time, the server has never been hacked and that he keeps a really good eye on it. He also says he has “a hundred percent” always met all New York State requirements for the server.”
Regarding the current situation, he said the town administration has “specifically excluded me from the process. I’m the expert [on the system] and they decided not to talk to me … I’ve worked all these years, no good deed goes unpunished.”
Enouen explained in an email on May 14, “This action is about one thing: bringing town records back into the care, custody and control of the town where they legally belong. I cannot speak to the decisions or arrangements made by previous boards; my responsibility is to manage the town responsibly today and ensure our records are secure.”
Richard Miller is also a part-time Constable in the Town of Rochester, though he says that the two positions are completely different and unrelated.
