Hey, Qby Town Board: This is a conflict of interest
Protests in Glens Falls, Troy, Albany and Saratoga gain momentum Saturday
Please consider supporting The Front Page with a paid subscription: HERE
State Supreme Court Justice Robert Muller did not break the law, but he did plenty wrong.
This is Example Numero Uno of what an "appearance" of a conflict of interest looks like and the Queensbury Town Board members - two of whom have such "appearances" - should pay attention.
In November, 2020, a personal injury case - Minckler v Della - was assigned to Judge Muller in Warren County Supreme Court.
By the fall of 2022, Judge Muller was running for re-election to the Supreme Court and the lawyers for Minckler learned lawyers for Bartlett Pontiff were involved in Muller's re-election campaign, including one lawyer who was representing Della in the civil case.
On Oct. 3, 2022, the Minckler lawyer requested Judge Muller recuse himself because one of Bartlett Pontiff's lawyers was a member of Muller's campaign committee and had endorsed Muller for re-election.
This was a common sense conclusion to anyone who is not a lawyer.
It was obvious.
On Oct. 7, 2022, Muller reached out to the Judicial Campaign Ethics Center by telephone and e-mail regarding the requested recusal.
Five days later on Oct. 12, Judge Muller received the opinion that concluded Muller should be "disqualified."
But here's where things took a dark turn.
Muller, despite assurances he wouldshare the opinion with the lawyers, did not do that.
In mid-October, multiple local newspapers published a letter from the Bartlett Pontiff lawyer representing Della endorsing Judge Muller for re-election.
On November 8, 2022, Judge Muller was re-elected to judicial office.
Eight days later, Judge Muller finally provided the attorneys in the Minckler case with a copy of the opinion from the Judicial Campaign Ethics Center.
But it gets worse.
That same day, Judge Muller wrote to the attorneys in the case, "I accept the subcommittee's guidance and decline the request for recusal."
Sound familiar.
It was what Queensbury Town Board member Tim McNulty continues to do.
Despite Queensbury's ethics board ruling that McNulty had an "appearance" of a conflict of interest, McNulty and the entire Town Board refuse to do anything about it.
McNulty's only defense since the Feb. 11 Ethics Board decision was to say he did not break the law.
Neither did Muller, a Democrat first elected in 2008.
On the same day that Judge Muller refused to recuse himself, Minckler's attorneys filed a formal motion for his recusal from the Minckler case. Judge Muller finally denied the motion on Jan. 4, 2023. The decision was immediately appealed to the Appellate Division, Third Department which shot back in a 4-0 decision that Judge Muller had "abused his discretion in denying the motion for recusal" and criticized him for not disclosing the lawyers at Bartlett Pontiff for being involved in Judge Muller's reelection campaign while chastising him for failing to disclose the opinion for more than a month and only releasing the decision after he was re-elected. The case was remanded to another judge.
The long-standing rule of thumb is that justice needs to be blind in order to impart impartial decisions. But in this case, Judge Muller was blind to his own conflicts of interest.
So is the Queensbury Town Board.
Judge Muller's actions led to further investigation.
The commission found that during Muller's 2022 election campaign, he presided over more than 40 cases in which one of the lawyers had hosted a fundraiser for him, or in which his campaign finance chair or co-chair appeared before him.
Your jaw should have dropped at the short-sightedness of a veteran judge.
The commission stated that the judge’s “multiple failures to disqualify or disclose created at the least the appearance of impropriety and brought reproach upon the judiciary.”
There's that most important of words agaio - "appearance of impropriety."
“Although we have no way of knowing Justice Muller’s reasons or intentions, it is undisputed that he did not disclose the JCEC (Judicial Campaign Ethics Center) letter to the parties until a month after receiving it, when his campaign results became official, and he was elected to a new term of office,” wrote Justice Christine Clark in reporting by the Times Union. “As judges need to avoid even the appearance of impropriety, Justice Muller should have disclosed the JCEC letter upon receipt and recused from the matter as soon as possible.”
Finally, last month, the state Commission on Judicial Conduct sought to suspend Muller, but said it did not have the authority. Instead, Judge Muller accepted a less stringent censure if he agreed to resign as of Dec. 31, 2025 when he was scheduled to retire anyway.
In other words, he was not held accountable for his ethical failures.
So here's what the Town Board in Queensbury needs to hear:
“Public confidence in the integrity of the courts is compromised when a judge presides over matters involving active financial and political benefactors,” said commission Administrator Robert Tembeckjian said in a statement to the Times Union. “Had the judge not agreed to retire this year, and had suspension from office been available in law, the result here would surely have been more stringent than censure.”
Queensbury Town Board members, Tim McNulty and Michael Dixon, both hold leadership positions in a political party. That makes any vote, any decision they make as board members, suspect because they have an "appearance" of a conflict of interest.
If they won't address the issues now, voters should address it in the fall.
Immigrants detained again
Federal immigration officials were once again active in Jefferson County where they detained 10 to 15 workers at the CWT Farms Hatchery last Wednesday.
North Country Public Radio reported that state Assemblyman Scott Gray confirmed the action.
The hatchery is a 50,000 square foot chicken hatchery in the Thousand Island International Agriculture and Business Park. It is the largest chick hatchery in the state.
It is also located less than 10 miles from Sacket's Harbor where an immigrant family was removed and taken to Texas recently before being brought back after a public outcry.
"There's something that prompts these situations right?" Gray told North Country Public Radio. "There is either criminal activity and or previous deportation, but in this case we can’t ascertain any of those details."
Another dozen workers did not show up for work on Thursday after the raid.
WWNY-TV in Watertown reported the company is in "dire straights" after the loss of its workers.
"They can hopefully restaff as quickly as possible and stay in operation," Gray told NCPR. "It's a concern. We have to make sure that these operations, you know these businesses continue to remain viable through this (federal immigration visits).
WWNY-TV said the hatchery had been using a staffing agency to recruit workers, but that didn’t meet demand, and it began hiring migrant workers. It says the hatchery has reached out to Jefferson County officials for help recruiting workers, because with a severely reduced workforce, it has roughly 48 hours before chicks will begin to die.
Chapman golf tourney
Let me take a moment to wear my hat as trustee of the Chapman Museum to announce the museum's 37th annual tournament is on Friday, June 13 at Top of the World Golf Resort in Lake George.
Entry fee is $125 a golfer or $480 for a team of four with a shotgun start at 1 p.m.
Golf package includes, cart, greens fee, lunch post-golf reception, awards, raffles and contests.
To enter, you can fill out this form online.
ATF season tickets
Don't forget to sign up for your season tickets for the Adirondack Theater Festival. The four shows include a reading of my play The Last American Newspaper on July 25-28.
This is some of the best theater in the Capital District. Make sure to check it out.
Protests
Protests against the Trump administration policies and actions continued in Albany, Saratoga Springs, Troy and Glens Falls with an estimated 2,500 people in West Capitol Park in Albany.
Several hundred people turned out int front of Crandall Public Library in Glens Falls on Saturday as well.
The Times Union reported more than 300 were in Troy for a protest and hundreds were in Saratoga Springs.
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.
I was in attendance at the GF Protest 50501. Despite the rainy weather, the group remained encouraged by the mostly positive responses from the honking cars and waving passengers. There was one man who came with a gas powered chainsaw menacing the crowd. Fortunately GFPD was quick to respond, handcuffed the man and hauled him away. Some social media posts are disappointing when people just don't understand the threat we are under from our own Government. Hence, the situation for migrants right here in our own backyards. They seem to continue through life as if things are normal and those of us out in the streets are abnormal.
In addition to the protests that you mentioned, there were more than 200 of us protesting in Johnstown, the county seat of deep red Fulton County. Our protest was the lead story on the front page of the Sunday (Schenectady) Gazette. In addition to the well crafted article written by the Gazette’s newest reporter Eden Stratton, the Gazette had a photo of many of us protesting in front of the oldest court house in the state.