Ethics board cites McNulty with conflict of interest
Stefanik finally turns up giving a speech at CPAC in Maryland
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The Town of Queensbury has an ethics problem.
Tim McNulty, who represents Ward 4 on the Towns Board, is also chairman of the Warren County Republican Committee. Before him, George Ferone, previously a Town Board member, also served in a leadership position with the Republicans.
This is a clear conflict of interest and a violation of Queensbury's ethics policy.
After Election Day in November, I addressed the Queensbury Town Board as a resident. I reminded them McNulty is serving as chairman of the county Republican party and could influence how the other three Republican board members vote - there are three of them - because he has the power to control future political endorsements.
I reminded them that in December 2016, Town Board member Tony Metiver was told how to vote by the chair of the Warren County Republicans after a proposal was made for the board to change law firms. Metivier received a voice mail from the county chair that said, "You will vote for this, or you will pay."
Metivier did not vote the way he was asked and he paid. Despite his popularity with voters, Warren County Republicans refused to endorse him for years afterward.
No one on the board reacted to what I had to say that night in November.
I waited a week or so, then filed an ethics complaint with the Queensbury Ethics Board and argued:
The ethics policy also states that town officials "should avoid even the appearance of conflict." Considering that the chairman of a county political party has sway over the endorsements of members of the current Town Board, this essentially gives him power to influence votes on the town board. Any Republican on the town board would be beholding to Mr. McNulty.
Ultimately, the stated advice to "avoid even the appearance of conflict" should be the overriding principle for the board to follow. Being a member of the Town Board and the chairman of the county political party is a real conflict.
The Ethics Board acknowledged the receipt of my complaint on Dec. 16 and forwarded it to McNulty.
I received a letter from the Ethics Board this week saying it agreed with me. It read in part:
There appears to be an inherent appearance of a conflict of interest when a Queensbury Town Board member also serves as the chairman of a local political party. It provides an opportunity for that Queensbury Board member to further or make personal gains, in status and power and influence as the leader of a local political party. It also provides those same possibilities of gains to the political party that he is the prime member of, similar to his "family" or "tribe."
In our opinion it is obvious that holding these positions simultaneously provides the opportunity to make decisions that benefit that person and his group/family/tribe rather than the citizens of Queensbury. We conclude that this creates the appearance of a conflict of interest.
Furthermore, holding both positions creates an open channel for unethical actions. Regardless of whether there has been a particular action that has been raised concerns, the situation in and of itself may creat a propensity for impropriety or at the very least the appearance of such. Much that occurs within the closed meetings of various political parties has little or no public transparency.The presence of this dynamic and the inherent lack of transparency could undermine public trust and confidence in our town board.
Exactly!
Because there is a lack of public trust in almost everything these days, it is an issue that needs to be addressed by the Town of Queensbury.
The Ethics Board consists of chairman Kurt Koskinen, Paul Abess, Patsy Murray and Lisa Woititz, all regular citizens who volunteered to serve in a role few would take on in these days of polarized politics.
The problem is that the Ethics Board has no power to enforce its opinion.
They ended the letter by saying they had informed the Queensbury Town Board of their decision and advised it to address whether political leadership should be allowed under its ethical guidelines.
So now what?
That's up to the Queensbury Town Board and whether it chooses town or party first.
There are currently four Republicans - McNulty, Anthony Metivier, Scott Gushlaw and Michael Dixon - and one Democrat - supervisor John Strough - on the board.
It is ironic that the reason for the complaint - the possibility that McNulty could influence the votes of the other members - may be the reason that it does NOT address the complaint, or perhaps even worse, decides it is acceptable for McNulty to hold both roles, despite what the Ethics Board decided.
When it comes to this decision, you could make a case that all the Republicans should recuse themselves because they all have a stake in the matter. Perhaps, the decision could be left in the hands of an independent arbiter or let the Ethics Board decision stand as policy.
This may seem like a small issue to many of you, but if you believe "all politics is local," then you only have to look at what is happening nationally to see the possibilities for abuse locally.
So many of you have been looking for a way to lend your voice to the cause of democracy for the benefit of "We the People," well, here is your opportunity.
Below is the contact information for the Queensbury Town Board members.
I urge you to call or email them and tell them where you stands on the issue, but more importantly ask them if they will do the right thing. It doesn't matter whether you are Republican, Democrat or independent, doing the right thing is what matters here.
Eight years ago in the wake of the great email-scandal, Queensbury voters voted those responsible out of office.
It was a great moment because citizens didn't like the shady deal-making and voted to hold those responsible accountable with their vote.
Perhaps, this ethics complaint is just a symbolic gesture, but we have to start somewhere.
Queensbury Town Board
Contact information
You can contact your representative and weigh in on this matter:
- John Strough, Town Supervisor - johns@queensbury.net - 518-761-8229
- Anthony Metivier, Ward 1 councilman - ametivier@queensbury.net
518-932-1109
- Scott Gushlaw, Ward 2 councilman - scottg@queensbury.net
518-331-4836
- Michael Dixon, Ward 3 councilman -dixonm@queensbury.net
518-812-7562
Tim McNulty, Ward 4 councilman
518-480-7236 - timothym@queensbury.net
Finding Stefanik
Thanks to another eagle-eyed reader, Elise Stefanik was found at the Conservative Political Action Committee conference in Maryland Saturday singing the praises of everything Trump.
At one point in her speech, she said "And at the UN, we are already at work with President Trump delivering results."
"We?"
Has she already started that job. She has not resigned her congressional seat so any "We" should be referencing what she is doing for the citizens of the 21st Congressional District. If she has started that job. She should immediately resign.
Trump reverses course
Seven members of New York's Republican congressional delegation - although not Elise Stefanik - and one Republican member from New Jersey asked Donald Trump to restore funding and staff cuts that benefited 9/11 first responders last week.
After the backlash, the Trump administration relented and restored the funding and staff cuts on Saturday.
John Feal, a retired construction worker from Long Island who began advocating for the program’s creation years after he was injured helping with cleanup and recovery efforts at the World Trade Center, praised the reversal to the New York Times.
“The White House underestimated us,” he said.
Tupper Lake raid
If you are wondering how immigration crackdown is impacting the North Country, The
Adirondack Daily Enterprise reported this week that Immigrations and Customs Enforcement conducted a raid at a Tupper Lake lumber mill and nine employees were detained.
“We can confirm that the Tupper Lake Pine Mill, owned by the Matra Group, was subject to an ICE raid this past Tuesday,” Matra's Nicholas Drouin told North Country Public Radio.
“In my 32 years, I’ve never had an operation where they (ICE) had to notify me, that I know of, in my area, so this is a first for me, too,” Tupper Lake Police Chief Eric Proulx said.
“Nine employees were detained, all of whom were, to our knowledge, authorized to work in the United States, as we verify all employees through the I-9 process,” Proulx said.
All U.S. employers must follow that process to verify workers' identities and employment eligibility.
Drouin said the company has made efforts to contact the detained employees, but hasn’t been able to reach them directly.
E-town protest
On another front, it was surprising to see a protest unfold in Essex County. Generally speaking, Essex County is considered a Republican stronghold, but Elizabethtown voted for Biden in the last election.
North Country Public Radio reported it this way this week:
On a brutally cold and windy Monday, just hours after the biggest snowstorm of the year, about one hundred people gathered in front of the Old County Courthouse in Elizabethtown, the seat of Essex County.
They came from a wide radius: Westport, Essex, Lake Placid, Paul Smiths, Keene, Saranac Lake.
"For the past few months people have been very afraid, and feeling demoralized about this current administration," said Tom Duca, one of the impromptu organizers of the protest. "We thought that it was time that we did something in a public setting."
From AP lawsuit
The Associated Press, a world-wide nonpartisan nonprofit wire news conglomerate, has been banned from White House events the last week because it won't change its stylebook to "Gulf of America."
Seems like a ridiculous, childish dispute, but of course we are seeing that more and more with this administration.
AP began playing hardball this week and filed a suit against the administration saying this:
The press and all people in the United States have the right to choose their own words and not be retaliated against by the government. The Constitution does not allow the government to control speech. Allowing such government control and retaliation to stand is a threat to every American's freedom."
Hard to argue with that, yet White House Communications director Steven Cheung did, calling the lawsuit "demented" and said the AP is "clearly suffering from a severe, debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome that has rotted their peanut-sized brains. We will defeat them in court just like we crushed their leftist reporters at the ballot box."
Trump golf
It takes a lot to shock me these days but when I saw that Donald Trump had golfed 10 times during his first 31 days in office, it was shocking.
I like golf and I haven't golfed 10 times in the past decade.
Considering it takes about four hours to play a round, that the equivalent of taking a week off during your first month on the job, not to mention myriad of challenges facing a president in getting his administration up and running.
I guess we should applaud the fact that a 78-year-old man can even get in and out of a golf cart, but I still find this odd set of priorities unsettling.
Ken Tingley spent more than four decades working in small community newspapers in upstate New York. Since retirement in 2020 he has written three books and is currently adapting his second book "The Last American Newspaper" into a play. He currently lives in Queensbury, N.Y.
Great job in filing the ethics complaint!
When the town board voted to replace Rachel Seeber at the Board of Supervisors both the chair and immediate past chair of the county GOP voted for Hilary Stec, Dan Stec’s former wife and a member of the GOP committee who addressed her letter of interest in the position to the Republican committee, not the town board. After a set of what were clearly mock interviews, they voted for her, I should add.
If Stefanik is working at the UN while serving as an elected Representative I think it would be a violation of the Hatch Act.
The Tupper Lake ICE raid should put business owners on notice that ICE could show up at their door and effectively shut them down. They need to know their rights. They should never allow ICE to enter any non-public area of their property without a signed and legitimate judicial order.
Check the order to be certain it is signed by a judge and that everything on the order is correct, including address and date.
A huge thank you, Ken, for filing that conflict of interest complaint. The silence of the board when you spoke to them directly was deafening. Depending on our added participation, this should, at the very least, put the board on notice that "business as usual" has to change. Ken, you were and are the voice of many of us who "smell a rat" but don't voice it directly to the offenders. We need to step up and protect ourselves, our communities, our country from sleazy and manipulative political hacks. Note that the sheriff stated that all of the workers had been vetted for their immigration status. The ICE raid is meant to terrorize both the immigrants and the employers. It's time to join you and all of the courageous resistors, determined women and men, young and old, and lend our voices and efforts in this fight. THANKS AGAIN!