It’s not an isolated incident. The town’s police department has routinely denied basic information not only to The Buffalo News but to two weeklies that cover the town: the West Seneca Bee and the new West Seneca Sun, a publication of The Buffalo News.

It’s not about the newspapers, but about the newspapers’ readers – residents who have a fundamental right to know what is going in their town. That’s democracy; the right is not the police department’s to obstruct simply because it prefers to keep its secrets.

Yet, that is precisely what West Seneca police are doing. The department has required the Sun’s staff to file formal requests under the Freedom of Information Law even for routine matters. In one case, the department said it would cost about $152 to get a week’s worth of reports. Other police departments covered by Sun newspapers provide regular access to reports. West Seneca is a law enforcement outlier.

The West Seneca Bee has its own problems with this mismanaged police department, which petulantly cut off the paper’s access to reports after it published an editorial informing readers of the police department’s impertinence. Police said the blotter was provided merely as a “courtesy,” according to then-Editor Jennifer Waters.