The mayor of Clifton and the town’s business manager are catching some heat after they opened a 50-year-old time capsules ahead of schedule.

Clifton will be celebrating its centennial in May, which is when one time capsule was supposed to be opened. But the mayor says that it was opened early for a good cause.

One of the items inside the time capsule was a letter from a previous Clifton mayor in 1967 to his wife and children. Current Clifton Mayor James Anzaldi says that he wanted to get in touch with the former mayor’s children so that he could invite them to read the letter at the celebration.

Anzaldi says that he also wanted to make sure that the time capsule wasn’t empty before it was opened at the celebration.