North Castle resident, Sara Doto asked the North Castle Board of Ethics to review the potential influence of contributions made to Councilman Michael Schiliro's election campaign in 2007, but Chairman Ed Berman declined to do so. The letter that Doto read during the public comment period of the March 9 meeting of the North Castle Town Board questioned if the 2007 campaign contributions received by Michael Schiliro influenced the appointment of four donors (or their relatives) to town advisory boards. The charges have been denied by Schiliro, especially since two of the donors had already been appointed to advisory boards prior to Schiliro's sitting on the Town Board.
As was true for the letters requesting a review of Councilman John Cronin by the ethics committee, Doto's letter about Schiliro was referred to the Chairman of the Board of Ethics, Ed Berman. Berman makes an initial determination as to whether something referred to the Ethics Board really relates to some provision of the Code of Ethics, or is instead just someone's creation of a false aura of some ''wrong" where none exists or some "conflict of interest" where no part of the code is involved. Berman did not present the letters about Cronin to the ethics board. He says he reviewed the Cronin inquiry and reread the code of ethics to see if there was some application, but that nothing in the letters applied to North Castle's Code of Ethics.
In regard to the Schiliro inquiry, Berman writes, "In no instance …is anything even smacking of any violation of any provision of the Code of Ethics." Furthermore he writes, "My first inclination was to convene the Board since I only recently rejected two letters that had nothing to do with the Code of Ethics. But I came to the opposite conclusion after further thought, study and research…"
Berman concludes, "I hope that all will take note, that no matter will be considered by the full Board of Ethics unless upon the face of any presentation an existing probable violation of some specific section of the Code of Ethics is shown."
At the March 23 Town Board meeting, Councilman Schiliro said that when he ran for office, he expected challenges and opposition to many issues, but was not prepared for the constant onslaught of nasty letters, emails and accusations. As a public servant, he knows criticism comes with the territory, but he says the town has reached a new low with this request.
Schiliro says the good people who serve this town as volunteers spend more time on town business and less time with their families and jobs, and receive no pay. Letters like Doto's, Schiliro says, will discourage people from volunteering to serve the town.
Schiliro says he is committed to improving the town and has learned from the good people who served before him like Bumpy Taylor, North Castle resident for almost a century, John Fava, Chairman of the Conservation Board, Councilman Becky Kittredge, and North Castle's Historian, Doris Watson. He asks, "Why are we now discouraging young people from serving?"
Schiliro says everyone makes mistakes, but politics are behind these charges. Schiliro asks, "What is going on here? I'm not in Washington or Albany, I'm your neighbor. Let's sit down and talk."
The recent decline in civility troubles Schiliro. Nonsense continues unchecked, but he wants people to pay attention. He asks, "Why can't there be a level of decency in this town? Let's disagree on the facts and debate issues rather than making things up or creating character assassinations. You will not find me getting into the gutter too."
Gene Matusow has lived in North Castle for over 40 years and served on the Town Board for eight years. He has been involved in the politics of this town at every level. He is aware of what is needed to be a town board member and has endured innuendoes like those directed at board members during the last two meetings.
Matusow says neither Schiliro nor Cronin deserve this awful treatment. He says the facts are thin and baseless, but he speaks from experience when he says that it is difficult to fight innuendo, to prove a negative. He asks the Town Board to put an end to this, to stand up and refuse to send baseless requests to the Board of Ethics. Matusow asks, "Who is going to serve on any town board if you have to face accusations?"
Matusow says everyone contributes money to a campaign now and then. Does that mean you're eliminated from consideration for serving the town as a volunteer? "Campaign contributions are part of our democratic system," Matusow says. "If we stop appointing campaign donors to the advisory boards, are we saying that only people who have enough money to run their own campaigns out of their own pockets can serve on our town boards?"
"This is much worse than silly," Matusow says, "it is insidious and goes to the core of the process that we need in order to run our town." Matusow says the town council is doing a lot of hard work for not much compensation. This can't go on.
Matusow asks the Town Board to give a vote of confidence to Schiliro by not sending this matter to the Ethics Board, to show that the Town Board members have integrity.
Councilman John Cronin says the allegations against him at the March 9 board meeting about his relationships with several developers working on his home renovations were completely ridiculous. Although Cronin agrees that Schiliro and the people in question as his campaign donors are good people, it would have meant more to him, Cronin says , if Schiliro had made his comments two weeks ago when it was Cronin's actions that were questioned by residents when a request was made for a review of Cronin's relationships by the Ethics Board.
Councilman Kittredge asked that the Town Board decline to send Doto's letter challenging Schiliro to the Ethics Board, and Cronin agreed even though, as he pointed out, this was not done in his case.
Town Attorney Roland Baroni said in the past no matter how insidious a letter requesting a referral to the Ethics Board was, the Town Board has made the referral. After hearing that, Schiliro himself made a motion to refer the letter to the ethics committee for an opinion on the matter. After a roll call, there were three ayes from Councilman Kittredge, Schiliro, Roth and two no's from Cronin and Weaver.
Supervisor Bill Weaver says he is amazed by the accusations made against the members of the Town Board. He says it seems to be the same group of people who say that everything we do is wrong, the sky is falling and you don't know what you are doing. He points out that the board sees a lot more information than the public does, but due to time restraints at the Town Board meetings, not all of the information can be made public. "You have elected us to make determinations of what is best for the town and that is what this board is trying to do," Weaver says. He adds that the board has become fractured because people have attempted to divide the board for at least six months. He suggests, "Let's be civil. We all live here, and we all want to do what is best for the town."
Ethics Board Chairman Says Letters Raise Insufficient Conflict of Interest
Posted: March 18, 2011 Edward Berman is Chairman of the Town of North Castle's Board of Ethics. He was appointed Chairman by Supervisor Jack Lombardi in 1977 and says it is his honor and pleasure to serve.
Although Berman says that "Ethics are very important to me," he also says that the two letters recently sent to the Town Board that point out that Councilman John Cronin's home is being renovated by a firm whose sole agent is Nicole Fareri, daughter of Michael Fareri, raise no specific allegation of a conflict of interest.
Berman has been an attorney of the law firm of Singer, Netter, Dowd & Berman for 51 years this March 30.
The Ethics Board provides advisory opinions to the Town Board on specific questions about any potential violation brought up by citizen or a Town Board member, says Berman.
On March 10, 2011, Berman received a request from the Town Board to review two letters of concern from residents who request that the Board of Ethics to review the relationship between Councilman John Cronin and two local real estate developers who are working on his home.
Berman decided not to present the letters to the other four members of the Ethics Board. In fact he said, the Ethics Board has not met since 2007. Berman's practice has always been to first review letters himself to determine if the Board of Ethics needs to convene. He carefully rereads North Castle's code of ethics to see which provisions apply. Berman says the Board of Ethics only provides an opinion about potential violations and does not engage in fact-finding.
Upon carefully reviewing the two letters, which are identical word for word except for the signatures, addresses and dates, Berman has concluded that nothing in these letters is applicable to the local code of ethics.
The letters read: "Councilman John Cronin is having a major renovation done of his personal residence by Legacy Development Northeast, LLC. As of this date the sole agent for Legacy Development Northeast, LLC. is Nicole Fareri who is to my knowledge the daughter of local developer Michael Fareri. It is my belief that Mr. Fareri has direct and/or indirect involvement with the renovation currently taking place at Councilman Cronin's residence."
Berman says the letters' also mention Cronin's "duty to disclose" and ask that he "refrain from participating in any discussions of votes concerning Mr. Fareri." But Berman says these requests do not involve Sections 19-5-A and 19-5-B of the town's code of ethics which are titled "Improper use of information; disclosure of interest". Section 19-4, "Use of town property" also doesn't apply, nor does Section 19-6, "Acceptance of gifts." The same is also true for Sections 19-7, 19-8, and 19-9.
The letters are not specific about a conflict of interest, Berman says and in his opinion there is no reason to convene the entire Board of Ethics on this matter. "If there was any vitality to the letters' words as they are written, it would go before the board. If not, there is no reason to examine something that has no substance." Comment here
Attached here
is the response from the Chairman of the North Castle Board of Ethics,
North Castle's Code of Ethics and the two letters of concern requesting
an investigation by the Board of Ethics.
Ethics Reviews Requested
Updated March 30, 2011 Three citizens (two by mail, one orally) have requested that the North Castle Town Board ask the Ethics Board to review several actions taken by members of the board. Two of the request were on the agenda of the March 9 Town Board meeting, but no action was taken that evening. The third requests came during public comments at the beginning of the meeting.
A question raised by both letters is why Councilmen Diane Roth and John Cronin haven't filed the required disclosures of local donations made during the November 2010 election campaign. Cronin says that he has filed all the information that is required by law.
A second question in the letters raised the issue of Councilman Cronin's residence. His home is being renovated by a local contractor who has a relative who has applied to build a supermarket in Business Park. At this Town Board meeting, however, Cronin recused himself during the discussion of the application to permit a supermarket in the Business Park zoning district.
At the March 9 meeting, a citizen also raised the question that Councilman Michael Schiliro received donations during the 2007 election campaign of $50 and more from various community members and some of these donors sit on several town advisory boards. While appointments to advisory boards are typically approved by a majority of the Town Board, the question was whether any of the donations received by Schiliro have affected his votes.
Since we live in a small community, it is unavoidable that some residents who make donations to town board members will be appointed to advisory boards.
Supervisor Bill Weaver says the Ethics Board hasn't had to make any inquiries for three years. Furthermore, he says fighting and bickering prevent good candidates from volunteering and helping out on advisory boards. He says, "We should be working together for the better of our town."
Councilman Becky Kittredge says sometimes it is a good thing to have the Ethics Board look into matters.
We asked Councilmen Cronin and Roth about the questions raised and they had no comment at this time.
Schiliro says the ethics allegations against him are baseless. He has always provided full disclosure. Two of the four contributors to his reelection campaign in 2007 mentioned at the March 9 meeting had already been appointed to their respective advisory boards.
Councilman Michael Schiliro says that the people of our town need to wake up. We have come to a new low with character assassinations and it is not right and saddens him, he says. There is no place for this in local government and it is a terrible reflection on the town.
During his first two years on the Town Board, Schiliro says, although the Board had many disagreements, nothing was taken personally and members tried to come to a resolution.
Schiliro says he loves this town and puts his heart into being a councilman and takes ethics seriously. He believes people should speak the truth and stick to the facts, and he will make a better effort to correct inadvertent inaccuracies.
Schiliro says it is a sad time for the town. He can't understand why anyone would think that throwing mud is appropriate behavior. He asks, what are their goals? Why would they want to attack his professional and personal integrity? He says "I know who I am and I know my values."
He hopes people will wake up, pay attention to what is going on, and resume being courteous and civil.
Attached here is the response from the Chairman of the North Castle Board of Ethics, North Castle's Code of Ethics and the two letters of concern requesting an investigation by the Board of Ethics.
