Possible Conflicts Of Interest Raised
By Stephanie Mariel Petrellese

Residents packed the Village Hall boardroom at the March 13th Garden City Board of Trustees meeting to hear Mayor Peter Bee and Deputy Mayor John Mauk respond to accusations that they had possible conflicts of interest that need to be reviewed by the Board of Ethics.

"We residents delegate the affairs of our Village to you, and presume you will make decisions in the best interest of Garden City. We place our trust in you, our trustees," said resident Kevin Curtin. "Gentlemen, many here tonight believe that public confidence in our Village government has been diminished recently and needs to be restored."

Curtin supported his statement by referring to three recent issues: the Village's negotiation with Verizon, the designation of AvalonBay as the provisional developer of the St. Paul's site and the Village's opposition to the Winston project in Mineola.

On August 16th, the Board of Trustees voted 6 to 1 to grant an 11-year video franchise agreement between Verizon and Village. Mayor Peter Bee recused himself from attending the public hearing and voting since Cablevision is a client of his law firm. Curtin questioned whether Bee's recusal was timely.

The second issue Curtin raised was the Board's selection of AvalonBay. He said there is "needless confusion" among residents. "I don't need to say more on that topic," he said. "The local newspapers have reported extensively on the issue. However, what is clear to me is that a process for early detection and disclosure would have avoided the confusion."

Curtin was referring to Deputy Mayor John Mauk's resignation in February as chairman and member of the Mayor's Committee on St. Paul's. Mauk resigned several days after the February 7th Board meeting when Ed Keating, a member of the executive committee of the Committee to Save St. Paul's, announced that Mauk's employer, CB Richard Ellis, has a business relationship with AvalonBay Companies. Mauk claimed he never knew about the relationship.

With regard to Mineola's Winston project, Curtin said the Village of Mineola notified the Village of Garden City about the environmental hearing process in November or early December. "Many citizens believe but for the last-minute intervention of Trustee Lamberti, that our Village's position with respect to the environmental impact of that important regional issue would not have been presented and been part of the record at any of Mineola's three SEQR hearings on that proposal."

At the last Board meeting on March 6th, Curtin asked why the Village waited until the last hearing to speak. According to Trustee Nicholas Episcopia, who attended the Feb. 13th Mineola hearing, it did not matter when the Village's consultant voiced opposition since the overall sentiment expressed by Mineola residents and the Mineola Board was in support of the project.

Curtin has also drawn attention to Mayor Bee's recusals. At the Feb. 7th Board meeting, he recused himself when the Board voted to have a representative from the Board and Village planning consultant Buckhurst, Fish & Jacquemart, Inc. attend the public hearing of the Mineola Village Board.

However, there is some confusion as to what Mayor Bee actually said in his recusals. When contacted after the meeting by the Garden City News, Mayor Bee read his recusal directly from a transcript of the Feb. 7th meeting: "As I mentioned to several of the trustees, the proposed developer of the project is Polimeni, which happens to be the landlord of the building where my law office is. And we also do some legal work for one of Mineola's Village boards, so I am going to recuse myself on the vote and from the process."

When Mayor Bee recused himself at the March 6th meeting, when the Board voted to ask the property owners' associations for their opinion before submitting their recommendation to the Garden City Planning Commission, he was more specific and mentioned that he was doing so because he is the attorney for Mineola's Architectural Design Review Board/Planning Commission and also that the developer is his law firm's landlord.

Based on these issues, Curtin asked the Board to seek advisory opinions. "In order to restore a high degree of public confidence, I would ask this Board, not only to discuss the issue at length for our benefit as well as yours, but to seek advisory opinions on the ethics issues raised by these three recent events. Ethics revisions, gentlemen I submit, are useless if you do not make an effort to see that they are being followed."

Struggling to maintain his composure, Mayor Bee responded: "I am disheartened and sad that we should have arrived at a state of affairs where insidious insinuations should be made about our trustees...Sadly, today it seems a negative for a volunteer to have other relationships and a network of contacts and a volunteer Village trustee today is presumed untrustworthy to balance them appropriately. And I do wonder how this evolving attitude of suspicious suspicion and presumed guilt will ultimately serve the Village and whether we will be able to continue to encourage local business people to volunteer their time, efforts and their network of contacts to the Village."

Deputy Mayor Mauk angrily confronted Curtin and asked if he had specific proof of wrongdoing. "I come to this thing not because I have any interest in gaining other benefit, but because I am trying to contribute something to my Village," Mauk said. "And I hope that other people who volunteer in the Village will have a similar motivation." He said Curtin is attempting to raise suspicions because he does not agree with some of the decisions the Board has made. Mauk also claimed that others who can't get their way politically have hired a private investigator to "get the goods" on himself and Mayor Bee.

Even though he said he does not think Mayor Bee and Mauk did anything wrong, Second Deputy Mayor Thomas Lamberti made a motion calling for the allegations against them to be looked at by the Board of Ethics. However, by the end of the meeting he withdrew his motion after Village Counsel Gerard Fishberg declared it out of order.

The Village's Code of Ethics, adopted in 1970, is pursuant to the state's General Municipal Law. Section 808 of that law has been interpreted two different ways. Fishberg, who said he has consulted with two experts, claims only individuals can request an advisory opinion from the Board of Ethics on possible conflicts they may have. Fishberg said he advised Mauk that he didn't have to step down. He advised Mayor Bee to disclose his relationship and recuse himself, which he did.

Lamberti claims that the law allows for any officer to seek the opinion. He also said that Mayor Bee and Mauk should have sought the opinion of the Board of Ethics, not village counsel. The Board of Ethics is comprised of Deputy Mayor John Mauk, who serves as chairman, and two residents: Charles P. Menges, Jr. and James F. Dooley.

"It is the responsibility of the Board of Ethics to give opinions on whether the business relationships of the mayor or Trustee Mauk violate our Code of Ethics. Village counsel's opinion that only the mayor or Trustee Mauk can ask for such an opinion and that I, as a trustee, am prevented from doing so, is absurd. The law says any Village officer can make such a request," Lamberti told the Garden City News in an e-mail after the meeting. "In any event, let the Mayor and Trustee Mauk put this issue to rest by requesting such an opinion to restore the public confidence in our government."

When contacted by the Garden City News and notified of Lamberti's request, Mayor Bee responded:

"On those rare occasions when a business relationship of mine impacts on the discharge of my volunteer duties as Garden City's mayor, I try to disclose them promptly and decide upon recusal on a case-by-case basis. In both the cases Mr. Lamberti cites, I chose to disclose and recuse; thus, there was never any need for me to 'consult' with any Ethics Board about whether I was required to do so.

"I do not share Mr. Lamberti's view that there is a need to 'restore' public confidence in village government. I don't believe public confidence has ever been lost. Indeed, I believe most people in our village have great confidence in our unique form of government, and in the volunteers (like myself) who donate their time to it. I urge Mr. Lamberti to join the generally cooperative spirit which has previously marked Garden City's Board of Trustees, and stop unnecessary rhetoric."

Mauk responded:

"What Trustee Lamberti is offering doesn't go far enough. When I learned that my employer had investments in AvalonBay, I immediately resigned the chairmanship and stepped-down from the Mayor's Committee on St. Paul's. I did so to remove any suggestion of impropriety; not because of any actual conflict.

"Similarly, Mayor Bee recused himself from participating in any discussion or action regarding the Mineola building project (the Winston) out of concern about his role as counsel to the Mineola Planning Commission. Neither of us waited for the Ethics Committee to tell us what we should do. In my view, Trustee Lamberti needs to take similar personal responsibility with respect to his past employment by Cullen & Dykman in order to remove any question regarding the motivation for his repeated aggressiveness toward the firm and toward individual counsel ever since becoming a trustee.

"It doesn't resolve anything for Mr. Lamberti to offer anyone the right to refer this issue to the Ethics Committee. I would be surprised if the Ethics Board found any actual conflict in any of these situations, or with respect to Mayor Bee or myself. But that's not the point. Issues that are not a technical violation of the Code of Ethics, may still have an aura of impropriety requiring action.

"With respect to myself or Mayor Bee, I'm not sure what the Ethics Committee would be asked to review at this point. The committee has no investigative power. And, since Mayor Bee and I have each independently disclosed the areas of potential conflict and removed ourselves from decision-making regarding them, I think any question about conflict is rendered moot.

"I urge Trustee Lamberti to take similar action with respect to the Cullen & Dykman issue. If he really wants to eliminate the questions that continue to be generated each time he challenges the capabilities of the firm, he needs to publicly disclose the facts about his past history with Cullen & Dykman. He also needs to recuse himself from any substantive dealings pertaining to the adequacy of the firm, or of specific counsel, in providing services to the Village. I take Trustee Lamberti at his word when he says he wants transparency. He has an easy way to demonstrate that on this matter."

Lamberti told the Garden City News that he will not request an advisory opinion regarding his former relationship with Cullen & Dykman since he does not think a conflict exists. He left the firm on Dec. 31, 1995. A lawsuit followed, which was eventually resolved to the satisfaction of all parties involved, according to Lamberti. "A conflict of interest is between the municipality and the officer, his employer or family," he explained to the Garden City News. "Mauk may have a conflict of interest because his employer has a relationship with AvalonBay, which seeks a contract with the Village. My relationship with counsel is not a conflict as he is an independent contractor, hired to render services to the Village. He or his firm is not the Village."

Lamberti said that at the next meeting of the Board of Trustees, on April 7th, he will request that the Board direct counsel to draft a local law to amend the Village's Code of Ethics to provide the following: The Board of Ethics will have the exclusive jurisdiction to give opinions with regard to any violations of the Code; and will receive any request for an opinion from any officer or employee of the Village regarding a violation of the Code by any officer or employee, or it may do so on its own initiative.

Resident Andrew Cavanaugh suggested that the Board borrow a model used in the

business world, where it is common for officers to disclose all relationships which may impact their decision-making.

"It seems a wieldy task, but it is certainly one I guess that we must all reflect on." Mayor Bee responded. He said he has often thought about how trustees could disclose all of their contacts. Mayor Bee said in his case his law firm deals with thousands of clients.

"We have looked at this from time to time to see if the Village Ethics Commission should be updated," Fishberg said at the meeting. "Remarkably, the vast majority of municipalities have code provisions similar to Garden City's." He told the Garden City News after the meeting that Mayor Bee asked him to look at possibly revising the ethics code when he took office last April. Fishberg said he has not taken a look at it in a few months.