Residents Upset After Westchester Town Releases Personal Information To Political Campaign

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Residents in Westchester County are outraged after they said their town gave out their private information.

Yasmine Oehm, of Yorktown, said she gets all of the town alerts and official emails. But when she received a pitch for a candidate running for office, she wondered how they got her email.

"It's good I got the information, but no so happy they gave out my name," said Oehm.

So how did the name of the people who signed up for Yorktown's email lists wind up being given to a political campaign? It's easy, the town gave it to them, CBS2's Dick Brennan reported.

"Parents give their emergency phone contact numbers to the school district to contact them for official communications from the school district as far as their children are concerned," said Yorktown Town Supervisor Michael Grace. "They don't give that phone number to the school district to pass it out to people to communicate to them, to silicate anything."

Republicans claim Democrats got the lists from an improper use of a Freedom of Information request from the town. But Democrats said everything was legitimate.

"The email addresses were obtained legally. They were not nefariously obtained, they were not surreptitiously obtained, which is what I believe the Republicans used that term in their press release. They weren't hacked into," said Yorktown Councilwoman Susan Siegel. "Everything was done legally as confirmed by the town clerk."

Democrats said this is nothing new and the town has been doing it for years. In fact, the town of North Castle told CBS2 it grants the Freedom of Information requests to the lists because it's simply a matter of law, Brennan reported.

Yorktown said it will hold a town meeting on Friday to address the situation. Town Supervisor Grace said he wants a resolution banning the practice.