By NEAL WAGNER / City Editor

Thousands of Pelham public records ranging from City Council minutes to city financial statements and ordinances stretching back to the 1960s are available on the city’s website.

Pelham officials finished uploading the records to the “document archives” section of Pelhamonline.com several months ago, and regularly update the site as new records are approved, said City Clerk Tom Seale.

“We started uploading everything in 2010, and we got most of it up about 18 months ago,” Seale said. “Before that, we had everything on paper. If City Hall would have burned down, we would have lost all that history.”

A few years ago, the city began using the City SAFE online document management system to archive its thousands of public records. Today, the Pelham document center contains thousands of items, such as Beautification Board minutes, detailed city budgets and ordinances passed by the City Council.

Pelham Mayor Don Murphy touted the document archives during an April 2 City Council meeting.

“We’ve made the city about as transparent as we can get,” Murphy said. “I don’t know anything else we can do to be more transparent.”

Seale said the document center contains records from July 1964 – the month the city was incorporated – to the present. All records can be downloaded as “.pdf” files from the document archives.

“This is something that I think is very important,” Seale said. “We want people to know about it, and we want them to use it.”

To access the document center, visit Pelhamonline.com and click the “Document Archives” link on the lower left corner of the page. Type “pelham” as the username and password when prompted.