Congrats Jack!!
Today's TU has a follow-up by Alysia Santo on what has been going on in East Greenbush government and the recently released OSC audit. Read it here:http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Town-facing-fiscal-crisis-4055391.php#ixzz2CrTeK5v0
Also, here's Jack Conway's letter of resignation from the Ethics Board which was referenced in the TU article:
October
26, 2012
Members
of the Town Board of the Town of East Greenbush:
This
letter is my resignation from the Town of East Greenbush’s Board of
Ethics. I appreciate the opportunity to
have served on this board but I can no longer continue in this capacity. It has been more than two years since I was
appointed and more than sixteen months since the Board of Ethics recommended a
new Code of Ethics but there is still no new Code in place and the Town Board
now seems uninterested in pushing the matter to a reasonable conclusion. I realize there is pressing town business but
there has been ample time to address the question of ethics which is clearly
not a priority for this board.
The Board of Ethics was empowered
and I was appointed in October 2010. By
January 2011 we had a full board that immediately set to the task of producing
a new Code of Ethics. The local law that established the original Code was
passed in 1974 but a Board of Ethics was not constituted until 2010. Meeting twice monthly in order to expedite
what we considered to be an urgent matter, the Board of Ethics submitted a
draft of a new Code to the Town Board in June 2011. This draft was the result of careful study of
other Codes and a series of rigorous deliberations by the five members of the
Board of Ethics in public meetings that included valuable and substantive input
from members of the public. We felt, and
I still feel, that the draft produced by the Board of Ethics offered a guide
for ethical conduct of which residents of the town could be proud. Critical aspects of this draft were rejected
by the Town Board.
The primary purpose of a Code of
Ethics is to ensure the public that
every decision made by its municipal officials is made in the public interest
and not for the benefit of an individual, family, private business, political
party or other faction. Above all else,
it is supposed to eliminate both the appearance and reality of conflicts of
interest. The requirement for annual
financial disclosure, strongly recommended by the Board of Ethics, was
eliminated by the majority on the Town Board, an act that seriously undermined
the Code’s ability to protect the public interest and monitor potential
conflicts of interest. More
distressingly, the elimination of financial disclosure was done for the
convenience of sitting members of the Town Board who chose to place their own
interest above that of town residents.
The Town Board also objected to provisions that would govern the ability
of employees to appear before the town after they leave municipal service, and
certain provisions in the Nepotism section that affected the hiring of
relatives of members of the Town Board.
Taken together, these changes transformed a draft Code that would
protect the public interest into a guide for the kind of insider politics that
a Code of Ethics is expected to prohibit.
In good conscience I cannot endorse or condone this approach.
There
is a fundamental conflict of interest in having the Town Board write the Code
of Ethics that is supposed to regulate the conduct of its own members. The Association of Towns has published a
series of suggestions for increasing the independence of municipal boards of
ethics and I would encourage the town to adopt these. They include passing a local law removing the
requirement that one member of the Board of Ethics must be a municipal
official, the establishment of a three-person independent panel that would
select the members of the Board of Ethics, and the acceptance by the Town Board
of the Code proposed by the Board of Ethics pending the opinion of the Town
Attorney that all of its provision are legal and do not contradict provisions
of State or local law. Such an approach
would assure the public that its interests are protected and will not be
subverted for partisan political advantage.
I would like to thank Ginny O’Brien
for appointing me to this board. It was
an honor and a privilege to serve with Jim Breig, Justine Spada, Joseph Slater
and Dave Youmans. Each of them has done
a rigorous, professional job and continues to serve with distinction. When you decide on my replacement, I will
work with that person in any way that might help get them up to speed. Every town needs a strong commitment to
ensure the ethical conduct of elected and appointed municipal officials and I
will continue to advocate for such a commitment here in East Greenbush.
Sincerely,
John
J. Conway, Ph.D
Good way for the Gadfly to get back at it! Comments folks??
The audit seems to answer my question to the Town Board. Why not have the best Ethics Code? Ray M., you did a terrific follow up post on the Ethic's issue. The Ethic's Board proposed an excellent Ethic's Draft which should have been adopted. It's a shame that we as a town have come to this place.
ReplyDeleteWe pay people good money to get it right, and they just take us down the road to fiscal crisis. The state ought to mandate that all elected officials of municipalities, do a full financial disclosure.
This OCS review is not at all surprising. Citizens have been complaining for a long time and have been crucified by town employees for doing so.
My thanks to all the Gadflies, it would seem that you are one also Jack, who cared enough about our town to publicly address it's problems.
Stay the course. Respectfully Bonnie L.
I attended most of the Ethics Board's meetings. If I am one of the people Jack referred to in his comment about the public I am deeply honored. The Ethics Board did outstanding work. They worked very hard. Their meetings were absolutely outstanding in terms of open communication and information sharing. A true model of good government practices.
ReplyDeleteWhat does it say about Ginny O'Brien, Sue Mangold and Phil Malone that they chucked all that hard work into the political garbage dump?
Audits, ethics, no financial disclosure, resistance to open communication, violated Consent Decrees, only nepotism in hiring practices. $500,000 wastly spent on a phony early retirement option, made up jobs, and on and on it goes.
Anyone who has dared to ask a question gets made fun of and called names. And yet, as it usually does, the truth wins out in the end.
Ray Mooney
It simply says they are not to be trusted.
DeleteThey are double talkers and have climbed the ladder to council on a lie.
Well, I can't wait to see what the Talks Blog has to say about the OSC audit. I guess the Comptroller, the Times Union, Channel 13, YNN, the Troy Record and the Commission On Judicial Conduct are all involved in a conspiracy with a group of East Greenbush citizens who never gave up and unveiled the truth about this pathetic town government. And now Langley has appointed Rick McCabe as spokesperson for the Town. The very same Rick McCabe who was responsible for the fiscal crisis we now face, who is being referred to the NYS retirement and pension fund because he took stipends, longevity pay, sick leave incentive pay contrary to law.
ReplyDeleteI love his excuse. I just did what everybody else did. No criminal intent. Then he shouldn't feel bad about giving it back.
Ricky, you got a lot of 'splainin' to do.
As well written by Jack Conway as would be expected. For two people, (Sue Mangold and Phil Malone), who insisted that transparency would be a hallmark of their tenure, they have gone out of their way to ensure that there is no transparency whatsoever. It is almost offensive that the Town now has to hire an attorney to get repaid money that should have never been given out. The honorable thing to do would be to have Rick McCabe and Toni Murphy step up, pay the town back and be done with it, a public apology would be nice to, but since there is "no criminality" and the dems apparently do nothing wrong, we may have to wait on that one.
ReplyDeleteDon't forget about Keith Langley. He also needs to pay the town back the sick time attendance money he took.
DeleteI think the boys and girls are taking care of him on this issue. They're raising his 2012 salary by $1,000 so the $1,000 he took can be "reclassified" as salary instead of sick-leave. Just a sign that the sleaze has made it into the Langley administration - as if we already didn't know it. Questionable intellect and no moral compass.
DeleteI don't understand. Why would they want to take care of Langley on this and if this was an honest mistake on Langley's part why wouldn't he just do the right thing and pay the money back instead of taking a $1,000 raise? Are they trying to set Langley up for criticism as a money grubber? This is very confusing.
DeleteQuestionable intellect, no moral compass?
DeleteWell guys ,It is now in the open and it is up to the Town board. Lets see what they are going to do about this new evidence.
ReplyDeleteAS they say, "The ball is in their court."
I bet they do the silent treatment and nothing more comes of this.. hoping that you won't carry any farther..
Sure hope you do and take it to the fullest ..show them what they can't do with our money.. Langley time for you to step up to the plate or step down.
McCabe and town board.. i think you owe the town some explanation ,, were waiting..
Seems as if Mr. Langley has already stepped up to the plate and grabbed a second helping.
DeleteI think its about time we get a partition going of some sort to try to get the Town Board to recover our money from the stipends already paid.
ReplyDeleteI think you're right, Anonymous. This will be a real test of character for the Board, which is primarily made up of "party-mates" of the receivers of the ill-gotten gains. We've already heard noises from Ed Gilbert that he'd recommend a "forgive and forget, let's move on and put this behind us" approach.
ReplyDeleteI have a real problem with that, in that it lets the ill-gotten gains remain in the already fat wallets of the recipients. "Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin." In this case, without the return of the money, there is no balance to the public's ledger. It's only right that they "own up."
This might be problematic as Langley has already pocketed a $1,000 unauthorized 2012 sick leave incentive for himself and he doesn't want to pay it back. See Jim Brieg for the details
ReplyDeleteWow! What does the town require for attendance? Langley has a very poor attendance record. Who okay's his payment? If the Board wanted to slip him an extra $1,000, they should have thought up a better reason.
ReplyDeleteTo sum up, I think the audit is a good start but it looks like this unauthorized payment cancer is still evident EVEN AFTER THEY GOT CAUGHT! The investigation should extend beyond the period of the audit!
Maybe Rick McCabe's responsibilities at Town Hall include teaching Keith Langley how to "handle" the press and the Gadflys. Can you just hear it: "Now, Keith, repeat after me, 'I only continued what had been done before me' say it over and over again"
From what I read in the audit, there are no attendance requirements for elected officials, they can come and go as they please. That's why Langley is not legally entitled to the $1,000 sick leave incentive he took for himself in 2012. Don't fret for Langley though, he figured out a way to get around that for next year by putting a $1,000 raise for himself in the 2013 budget. See Jim Brieg for the details.
Deletedon nice to see you still with us
ReplyDeleteThanks Anony!! I had some major surgery (successful) and I'm in a recovery mode (frustratingly slow). It saddens me up to see that the boys and girls at Town Hall haven't changed much at all and there is still much to do. Dwight has done a marvelous job, and I hope he continues. I think that the Machine dodged a big bullet by succeeding in keeping the "taxpayer complaints" portion of the OSC audit OUTSIDE the main scope of the audit. This is consistent with the politicization of the Office of the State Comptroller. A recent example of this is the fact that DiNapoli signed off on the $103,000 Shelly Silver payment to the victims of Vito Lopez' harassment. Funny thing, two people I know (highly placed in State government) have suggested that JCOPE just might be interested in the performance of OSC in East Greenbush. Wouldn't that be something???
ReplyDeleteThe recouping of the "ill-gotten gains" will be a real test of character for the current Board - all of us need to be to watching to see what kind of fancy footwork they come up with to try to avoid doing what is right.
So much to write about.
If JCOPE were to get involved that would be a game changer. It's amazing what a few well timed subpoenas and depositions can do.
Delete