A Change is Needed in Yorktown After Attempts to Weaken Ethics Law
Opinion Advocates for ideas and draws conclusions based on the author/producer’s interpretation of facts and data.
Have you ever been to a public hearing where Town Board members were yelling, preventing a person from giving testimony? Where a flawed law, needing major revision, was proposed without the opportunity for public discussion at a prior work session? Welcome to the Yorktown Town Board’s Mar. 19 public hearing on revision of the town’s ethics law.
Why would the Town Board want to weaken the law, as pointed out by many speakers, allowing for indirect corruption, preventing the Board of Ethics from engaging an outside attorney as per past practice and requiring the town attorney to be involved in investigations of town officials – a clear conflict of interest.
Jann Mirchandani, a candidate for Yorktown supervisor in the Apr. 16 special election, submitted her version of an ethics law, which countered the Town Board’s attempts to weaken it. She has also posted her disclosure statement, making public her property and business interests in town. The Town Board members refuse to post their disclosure statements. What do they have to hide?
The Board of Ethics is required to review these disclosure statements and report violations to the Town Board. Jann would make these reports of violations public. The Town Board vociferously rejected this proposal. What do they have to hide? Are they not enforcing their own laws?
Jann proposed that in a case where there is a violation, the Board of Ethics be charged with investigating whether board members enabled the violation by failing to enforce the transparency requirements of the law, detailing how a past failure of an approval board to enforce the transparency requirements led to a major violation of the law.
Lastly, a speaker charged that the Board of Assessment Review had submitted 55 recusals in the last three years that did not specify the nature of their conflict of interest as required. Is Yorktown still not enforcing its own law?
Enough is enough. I am voting for Jann Mirchandani for Yorktown supervisor on Apr. 16.
Phil Corrao
Yorktown Heights
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