Ethics Board: No Conflict for Officials, but Disclosure Required

Yorktown’s Board of Ethics advised Supervisor Ed Lachterman and Councilwoman Luciana Haughwout to publicly disclose their ties to attorney Michael Grace whenever he appears before the Town Board.

In an article published Sept. 17, Examiner Media reported Lachterman, who has been a Town Board member since 2016, has used Grace in a personal injury lawsuit against the Greenburgh-Graham Union Free School District.

According to legal papers filed in state Supreme Court, Lachterman filed a lawsuit on June 19, 2019, to recover monetary damages for injuries he says he sustained on July 25, 2018, while attempting to break up a brawl between two high school students while he was providing food services to the district. The case is still ongoing.

Lachterman was interviewed by Examiner Media on Aug. 1, when he called suggestions that he should refrain from any matters before the board involving Grace as “absolutely ridiculous.”

A few weeks later, he apparently contacted the town’s Board of Ethics to seek an opinion.

In a Sept. 1 e-mail, which Lachterman provided to Examiner Media, James Martorano, Sr., chair of the Board of Ethics, wrote: “Assuming the matter that you have with Michael Grace as your attorney does not involve the town, we do not see a conflict of interest as it is defined in our present Ethics Law for you to participate in matters in which he is representing clients before the town board. We do believe however that you are obligated to disclose your relationship each time a matter comes before the town board when Mr. Grace is representing an involved party. Such disclosure needs (to) be publicly stated each and every time he appears before the town board and concurrently filed in written form with the Town Clerk. The written disclosure need only be filed once on each matter. The disclosure need not specify in any detail the nature of your pending civil matter aside from the fact that the Town of Yorktown is not an involved party.”

When contacted by Examiner Media, Martorano explained last week the board did not formally meet on Lachterman’s inquiry. However, each member was polled by phone or e-mail and the board was in full support of the opinion he submitted to Lachterman.

“The ethics law is not the strongest ethics law on the books. It’s designed to shine light on things,” said Martorano, a former town councilman. “Disclosure is the legal remedy. What is the better practice? Recusal is cleaner.”

Robert Giordano, another Board of Ethics member, said, “When in doubt, disclose.”

Lachterman was asked last week whether Examiner Media’s inquiry and pending article prompted him to contact the Board of Ethics.

“I had asked the question long before, but asked for the written opinion for my records,” he wrote. “I had spoken with multiple town attorneys just to make sure that there was not an issue.”

Lachterman also remained steadfast that his association with Grace, which also includes the preparation of wills for himself and his wife, does not represent a conflict of interest with board matters.

“According to the law and according to how I would handle anything, where I thought it was a conflict, there is no issue at all,” he stated. “Once again, someone (who) has representing them has nothing to do with the project for the town. The conflict would come if I had a relationship with the individual being represented.”

Since ending his six-year run as town supervisor in 2017, Grace, whose law offices are directly across the street from Town Hall on Underhill Avenue, has represented several clients appearing before the Town Board and Planning Board.

Grace represented Competitive Carting when in October 2022 it was awarded a five-year contract to be the town’s garbage hauler. Nine months later, the Town Board replaced Competitive Carting after problems arose with garbage collection.

In September 2022, the Town Board voted to amend the town’s zoning code to allow for the construction of boutique hotels in certain business corridors. That decision paved the way for a boutique-style hotel planned for the corner of Veterans Road and Commerce Street to move forward in the planning process.

Hotel Gardena, represented by Grace, was approved by the Planning Board in July 2023. It has yet to be built and the property is now for sale.

More recently, developer Charles Diven, and his attorney, Grace, have requested Navajo Fields be added to the Lake Osceola Overlay District. The property is currently zoned for single-family homes on two-acre lots. Diven is looking to build 254 units, a 23,000-square-foot athletic structure and 4,000 square feet of retail space, along with expanding the existing ball fields.

The Lake Osceola Overlay District, approved in 2021, allows mixed-use developments with more than double the density permitted in the town’s current multifamily zones.

In exchange for being included in the district, Diven is offering to construct a sewer trunk line from the property along East Main Street to Hill Boulevard where it would connect to an existing line that hooks up with Westchester County’s sewage treatment plant in Peekskill.

Joanne Sillik, a Jefferson Village resident, mentioned the connection between Lachterman, Haughwout and Grace again at the Oct. 15 Town Board meeting.

“When the Ethics Board issues an opinion, does that take away the obvious, the ever-present conflict of interest that any reasonable person can see?” Sillik said.

Lachterman responded by saying he had relationships with many people who come before the board.

“We all do business in town,” he said. “Our integrity as public officials, I look at this entire board, and I can say, through and through, we have the utmost care of Yorktown and we keep that in mind when we make our decisions based on the good of the town.”

For the last four years, Haughwout has rented space in the Grace Building for her Connecting Wellness Center business.

Haughwout told Examiner Media in August she has publicly advertised where her business is located. She said having her office there, instead of in her home, following the COVID-19 pandemic, has proved beneficial in her elected role when she can simply walk across the street to Town Hall.

She also stressed her tenant-landlord relationship with Grace has not affected her views of any dealings he has before the Town Board.

Martorano noted the Board of Ethics made the same recommendation to Haughwout as it did to Lachterman regarding disclosing a relationship with Grace.

Councilwoman Susan Siegel cited the issue of perceived bias.

“Nobody was accusing you (Haughwout), and Supervisor Lachterman, of a conflict of interest. It was just an acknowledgement of a professional relationship that transcends a normal friendship,” she said. “Just acknowledging something, that is the key.”

According to the town’s Ethics Code, “No Town official or employee may participate in any decision or take any official action with respect to any matter requiring the exercise of discretion, including discussing the matter and voting on it, when he or she knows or has reason to know that the action could confer a direct financial or material benefit on himself or herself, a family member, or any private organization in which he or she is deemed to have an interest…”