Thursday, July 10, 2014

Ethical Ed and the Board of “Ethics” -- By Jack Conway



In his continuing role as political hatchet man, Ed Gilbert launched an attack on me in his Times Union blog.  This is my response:

Ed -
I’ll try to be kind but your delusions about yourself and the Board of Ethics are starting to worry me.  I love it when you say you’re only following the law because one member of the Board of Ethics must be a town employee.  You only qualify because you’re being paid for the non-paying job of deputy supervisor.  I have repeatedly demanded that a written job description be promulgated to justify that salary and none has been forthcoming.  This leads to a reasonable perception that you’re being paid to sit on the Board of Ethics in direct violation of State law.  One member of the board must be a town employee but it doesn’t have to be you.  Rick McCabe appointed Jim Breig and not only was Jim non-political, he wasn’t even a member of McCabe’s party.  That’s how you do it if you understand that the first rule of a Board of Ethics is that its members must be impartial.
Instead Keith Langley selected his own personal political bodyguard to sit on the Board of Ethics.  You are a bitterly partisan political operator who has run for office twice, has served (still serve?) as Vice Chairman of the County Conservative Party, had your hands all over one of the most vile blogs ever to appear in this town, posted political editorials like this one on the TU blog, harassed minority town board members (remember demanding that Phil Malone apologize to Keith Langley?), shilled for the majority, shilled for Keith Langley and, best of all, now shill for Saratoga Casino & Raceway.  You also regularly insult residents at public hearings.  As Chair of the Board of Ethics you should never have taken a stand on whether this town should have a casino.  Go back and look at my record.  I didn’t take a stand on political issues, and only commented on blogs and at meetings on questions that were specifically asked about the Board of Ethics.  I also held meetings twice a month at which the public was invited to participate at every level.  You haven’t held a single meeting since you started shilling for the casino.  You can be a political operator OR you can be a member of the Board of Ethics but you can’t be both.  You’re a walking conflict of interest and the scariest part is that you don’t get it.  It’s terrifying that the person with responsibility for monitoring conflicts of interest doesn’t even recognize the conflict of interest that’s staring at him every morning in the mirror.
Your historical version of how those rules and regulations came into being is hallucinatory.  We drafted an excellent Code of Ethics but the democratic majority refused to include financial disclosure.  We decided to pass that rough first draft of the rules and regs in order to put pressure on the majority because with rules in place people could file complaints under the 1974 Ethics Law.  With the promise that they would reconsider financial disclosure, we suspended those rules in less than a month.  They only exist now because YOU passed them as a final version.  But they work for you because we both know you wouldn’t maintain the confidence of any town employee who filed a complaint against Langley, DiMartino or Matters.  How many complaints have you gotten?  None?  That’s because people know what you will do to them.  Langley’s message in appointing you is clear: whistleblowers will not be tolerated. 
I strived to set a fair, impartial tone for that Board and have watched my work go up in the flames of your political temper.  The Board of Ethics only exists now as a joke that everyone gets but you.  If you would like to restore a semblance of honor to this critical institution I recommend you immediately do the following:
Make a public pledge not to run for Town Board next year.
Remove yourself from the debate on the casino and every other political issue.
Cease writing partisan blogs.
End your political relationship with the Supervisor and the majority.
Insist that a written job description be published detailing exactly what you are getting paid for as deputy supervisor.
Hold Board of Ethics meetings instead of walking neighborhoods with candidate petitions (not a political operator you say?)
Treat people with respect if they hold views different from your own.
And last but not least, get a grip.  Keith Langley should have known enough not to appoint you to the Board of Ethics; you should have known not to accept the appointment.  That the two of you don’t get it proves how little you understand the concept of ethics and the function of a Board of Ethics.  You should do the honorable thing - stand up, apologize to the residents of East Greenbush, and resign your appointment.

22 comments:

  1. Thank you Jack. East Greenbush has become a laughing stock. You can't even make this sh*t up it's so ridiculous.

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  2. Ed's blog is a campaign advertisement. It's all about him which is completely irrelevant except for the fact that he is promoting himself as a candidate. I say let him g. The more he talks, the fewer votes he will receive in his eventual candidacy.

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  3. Disappointed voterJuly 10, 2014 at 9:14 AM

    Once again, has there been any public comment from Supervisor Keith "pockets of distress" Langley regarding the blog postings of his Deputy Supervisor,Ethics Chair, Ed Gilbert? Does "pockets of distress" Langley agree with Mr. Gilbert's comments? In the absence of any statements to the contrary, shouldn't we assume that everything Mr. Gilbert posts has been approved by "pockets of Distress" Langley?
    Not good Mr. "pockets" Langley, not good at all.

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  4. Hamilton AlexanderJuly 10, 2014 at 9:54 AM

    Mary Ann Matters has a letter in today's Advertiser asserting that: "The world would be a much nicer place in which to live if there was no such thing as anonymous blogging."

    And "Anonymous blogging enables people to sell you their thoughts without telling you their name."

    I wonder what her opinion is regarding The Federalist Papers?

    God bless America!!!!

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    1. I think more people would be inclined to identify themselves if they didn't think it would come back to haunt them from town hall.

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  5. I served on the Ethics Board with Jack and am proud of the work we put into the original draft. We met regularly, answered questions from the public, and did not let politics affect the way we drafted the code or conducted meetings. We not only knew the importance of impartiality, but also knew that the appearance of impartiality was important in how much confidence residents would have in the board moving forward.

    I served on the Ethics Board for over a year until I was appointed as the Planning Board Attorney. As I accepted what was essentially a partisan appointment, I resigned from the Ethics Board to avoid this appearance of impartiality.

    As Jack stated, Jim Brieg was the town employee on the Board of Ethics when he and I both served. Jim was a great asset to the board, often being the first to volunteer his free time in preparing for upcoming meetings. At no point did Jim advocate partisan positions either at the meetings or in public.

    Right now I have no confidence that the Ethics Board can be viewed as impartial or that the current membership is not hindering legitimate ethical complaints. For example, how can someone have confidence in submitting a complaint regarding a possible ethical violation regarding the proposed casino, when the Chairman of the Board is openly advocating for it?

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  6. Jack, great points and I would just like to add one thing in the near perfect rebuttal that you wrote to Ed's post, Ed you are losing votes and your majority may very well become the minority soon and put you out of a job. Yes I have talked to people and they have stated that they will no longer support you. I have said it time and time again I will never waste a vote on any of you currently in or around the town board.

    The worst part is you cannot see the error in your ways.

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  7. Voting is as anonymous as anonymous blogging. Nobody knows who voted for whom. If we vote anonymously we can blog anonymously.
    Rather than spending time fretting over who is blogging anonymously, maybe some of the comments should be regarded as very real fears and concerns residents/taxpayers have and rather than pontificate from the dais about knowing what is best for residents and writing emails that state most residents would not understand the Town's finances, and writing letters to the Advertiser complaining about anonymous blogging maybe all of that precious time should be spent creating a successful Financial Recovery Plan (FRP) which can be achieved without a casino. A FRP might be the best way to spend one's time on the dais, you know, just in case East Greenbush is not granted one of Willy Wonka's golden tickets for a casino.

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  8. In today's Advertiser (for those who don't receive it):

    "Editor:

    It’s clear from materials which have come to light via FOIL that the Town of East Greenbush and the casino developers worked together to limit public knowledge and input on the issue, and also to “sell” the idea rather than pursue due diligence in examining the potential impacts of a casino establishment on Thompson Hill. The first documented contact by the Town with casino officials was April 23rd. This raises the obvious question – where did that late starting Resolution passed on April 16th come from? Mr. Langley and Mr. Gilbert refused to respond to the FOIL request about contacts with casino people, and the first Resolution appears a week before the first documented contact with others. What are they hiding? We know from other sources that contacts were in place as early as February with the police and the Planning Board.

    So we’ve got some duplicity on the record from Town officials. But the real elephant in the room is the question of the choice of Thompson Hill as a potential casino site. Why would someone choose land next to two schools, a Girl Scout Camp, a nursing home, with an aquifer under it, with significant federal wetlands, zoned R-B, with obvious traffic problems and the home of a wildlife population? It’s the most illogical and inappropriate potential casino site in the region. Could that be the reason for all the secrecy and the “sales” agenda?

    There’s another scenario at work here. It looks like an opportunity for a real estate deal. And it would be potentially possible if there was an ability to “fix” environmental and zoning “problems.” That couldn’t happen in East Greenbush, could it? But then there’s that final Plat approval for the Village at Thompson Hill signed in January by the Planning Board Chairman without a meeting of the Planning Board and without an authorizing Resolution. This is of greater interest in that the FOILed notes reveal a concern that “Matt P. and Jim C.” be on board so the ducks line up. And we know who they are.

    Don Johnson
    East Greenbush"

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  9. Sorry, Don, I do not know who Matt P. and Jim C. are.



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    1. Maybe this will help. It's from Dwight's commentary on the FOIL notes published on the No East Greenbush Casino FaceBook page:

      "There was some concern at the May 12 meeting about getting Lead Agency status assigned and on the Town Board's agenda so that a Resolution could be drafted. How to grease those skids? "Need Matt P. and Jim C. to get on board so we can make the ducks are lining up (sic)." It's safe to presume that Matt P. is Matt Polsinello, Chairman of the Planning Board, and that Jim C. is the aforementioned Jim Connors, undocumented planning gatekeeper from unselected Chazen Engineering. (No documents requested establish Chazen as the selected firm, or Jim Connors as the selected representative of that firm. We have no idea who the Town bequeathed with this responsibility.) But did these two individuals "get on board?" Did they line up like good little ducklings? Well, the application got submitted on June 30th... "

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  10. I heard on Fox News today that 2 more casinos are closing in Atlantic City.

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  11. This community has an average Home Equity loan of approximately $150,000. If this were an impoverished community or had "pockets of distress" that would not be the average Home Equity loan in this community. The reason is because of the formula, which is very simple, used to derive the figure. The formula is the home's market value times 80%. That is market value, not appraised or assessed. None of those figures can be falsified and those values are what they are. It doesn't matter if you know the person that does the appraisal or determines the market value--they cannot falsify that figure. From that 80%, the outstanding mortgage balance is deducted and the remaining figure is the max a home equity can be granted as far as the home's value. Why am I sharing this very boring, dry information? Because that means, the average home equity loan customer in this community still has equity of $150k even after their outstanding mortgage balance is deducted and 20% of the home's market value is deducted. That is NOT an impoverished community or a community with "pockets of distress". That is a community with a healthy household income and healthy home values.

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    1. Ann,

      Thanks for the info, but the average HE Loan of $150,000 is a nice round number but how large is the population ... how many HE Loans are there?

      An HE Loan doesn't presuppose a 'first' mortgage as they generally have much lower origination fees.

      Also isn't a home's market value an estimate based on 'comparable' sales?

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  12. Get Me Those Tall Boots, Shillbert's Got Me Wading In ItJuly 10, 2014 at 7:09 PM

    Bravo Mr. Conway. I am a conservative minded individual. I am disgusted with the Democrats in this town (people who have run the town completely into the ground while feeding at our tax dollar trough) but I am also thoroughly embarrassed by these Republican fools who are trying to put the finishing touches to our decimation. This Gilbert may be one of the most obtuse individuals many of us will ever encounter. His rationalizations would be comical if they were not so sad and strangely child-like. Helen Keller, from across the Grand Canyon, could spot the walking conflict of interest that is our very own Deputy Supervisor/Ethics Chairman/Political Hack/Two Time Loser & Sometime Attack Dog Blog Impresario. Yet the walking and talking conflict himself only sees a shiny halo when shaving each morning. I'd love to see you respond directly to this guy on his little TU blog or his Gone Fishing blog.

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  13. Rather then pay any mind to Ed and give him any credence while also allowing our attentions diverted from the real issue, which is the casino, ignore his simple rants. He supports the casino, and the majority of the Town does not and some of the few who did support the casino were insulted by Featherstonaugh's proposal's Executive Summary. Ed will do what he is told and the rest of us should focus on opposing the casino with points as to why it does not belong in EG.
    As I have stated many times and was the major issue I had with the casino--it is NOT properly zoned for the casino. That is a problem that the Board has been ignoring every step of the way. Why?
    Also, EG does not meet the economic criteria. It is not an impoverished community. The proposal intentionally omits mentioning Rensselear's economic conditions and lists only Albany and Troy because Rensselaer has its own casino proposal in play and their casino proposal is from a big player--Hard Rock. EG has a bank with over $170 million in deposits another that was built from zero to $22 million in deposits in 3 years, another that supports two offices less than 2 miles apart, and a credit union that is one of the biggest in SEFCU's system. A few years ago many residents in this Town complained that there are too many banks in this Town. Too many banks means there is money in this Town. The households in this Town consist of hard working people. Hampton Manor and Prospect Heights, which were insulted by the casino's Executive Summary, are populated by Town employees, teachers, accountants, computer science techs, contractors, small business owners and the list goes on and on. People who built those banks and transact their personal finances as well as their own small business finances through those banks. Banks don't open branches where there is no business. The number of banks that are nestled in this Town is a sign of healthy household and small business incomes. Those factors would disqualify a casino.

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  14. Hi AnonymousJuly 10, 2014 at 7:47 PM: The point of the information was to show the households in this Town are healthy enough to support an average HEL of $150,000 which is derived after 20% of the market value is deducted and the first mortgage's outstanding balance is deducted. "Market value is how much a home would sell for under normal conditions. This excludes sales where the buyer or seller is under pressure to act, perhaps due to career relocation, death of a family member, or divorce. Market value is basically an educated guess, but it can be fairly accurate if you apply the right method and consider all the important details." There are many factors that are considered to determine market value. That is from the NYS Dept of Tax and Finance and that definition as well as the factors are listed on their site, http://www.tax.ny.gov/pubs_and_bulls/orpts/mv_estimates.htm.
    Agreed, a HEL does not presuppose a first mortgage. Which means, in the case of no first mortgage, it is the market value, minus 20% and that is the max equity the person has in their home. Plus, based on that point which you make, no first mortgage, it would mean an even healthier household financial situation because they do not have a mortgage which more so supports my point. The origination fees have nothing to do with the point of whether the household is financially healthy and self-sustaining.
    Agreed--it is an average. That being said, it is a healthy average for this market and we should be proud to reside in a community that shows its taxpayers and residents are financially healthy. In this economy, that is a pretty big deal and for purposes of determining economic criteria for a casino, it a very big deal.
    To stay on point---EG is not impoverished and we do not meet the economic criteria as was also evidenced by this article regarding affluence ranking, http://www.bizjournals.com/buffalo/news/2014/06/25/here-are-the-affluence-rankings-for-all-861.html?
    appSession=586137394576219&RecordID=640&PageID=3&PrevPageID=2&cpipage=1&CPIsortType=&CPIorderBy=&cbCurrentRecordPosition=15
    AND THIS LISTS EG'S RANKING WHICH SHOWS THE MEDIAN HOUSE VALUE of $199,200 AND THE MEDIAN HHLD INCOME IS $75,900, http://www.bizjournals.com/buffalo/news/2014/06/25/here-are-the-affluence-rankings-for-all-861.html?appSession=101377322601095&RecordID=632&PageID=3&PrevPageID=2&cpipage=1&CPIsortType=&CPIorderBy=&cbCurrentRecordPosition=2
    THANK YOU FOR RESPONDING AND ENGAGING IN DIALOG; UNLIKE SOME IT DOESN'T BOTHER ME IF YOU DO IT ANONYMOUSLY. Enjoy your evening!

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  15. Here's an important article in today's TU by Jim Flanigan. I'm proud to say that he's a friend of mine.

    http://www.timesunion.com/default/article/Plan-snubs-ecological-questions-5613258.php

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    1. Here's another. Try to tell us all, Feathers, that you didn't know the zoning status of the property you bought. This delay is nothing but a "favor" to the local land "dealers" who thought they could pull this whole thing off "under the radar."

      http://m.timesunion.com/local/article/Capital-View-Casino-s-East-Greenbush-PDD-delayed-5614050.php

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  16. It makes no sense. Everyone knew, in the very beginning, that site was not properly zoned and yet everyone (Town Board) forged ahead with a unanimous yes vote--TWICE. When the casino made their first presentation to the Planning Board, not one word was mentioned to the casino about the zoning issue and that the site was not properly zoned. The Town Board knew it wasn't properly zoned and still past a resolution for a casino on that specific site. Why? Why would they do that? Why would the casino entwine themselves in a site that is not properly zoned? Makes one wonder if something else is at play, behind the scenes.

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  17. Voting Senior CitizenJuly 12, 2014 at 9:54 AM

    Dear Gadfly,
    Would you mind posting the names and email addresses (if available) of the members of the East Greenbush Zoning Board of Appeals? I have a few questions I would like to pose to them regarding the zoning process.

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    1. Take a look at the Zoning Board Minutes at this link. You should be able to find a list of the ZB members.

      http://www.eastgreenbush.org/document-downloads/zoning-board/minutes

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