Dear Friends and
Neighbors,
What do you get when you put 20 county supervisors in a room to decide a difficult issue on behalf of taxpayers, registered voters and residents? In Warren County the supervisors look to the County Administrator and County Attorney for direction on what to do. Then each supervisor decides the issue and everyone takes a vote.
In the case of the controversy surrounding the Siemen’s Cogen Energy Plant, and now the release of the Sheriff investigator’s report, the direction from the County Attorney is what? Hire more attorneys.
Lask week, at the recommendation of the County Attorney Martin Auffredou, the Warren County Personnel Committee voted to hire outside counsel to advise the Personnel Committee on the matter by reviewing the Sheriff investigator’s report and provide counsel on any potential disciplinary matter.
It is important to know the investigator’s report was done jointly with FBI Special Agent Matthew Fontaine. In addition to the FBI the US Attorney’s Office, US Department of Health and Human Services, NYS Attorney General’s office, NYS Office of Medicaid Inspector General and the Warren County District Attorney’s office all assisted in the investigation. So this wasn’t like one lone Warren County investigator acting on his own, although Kevin Conine’s reputation as an investigator is beyond reproach.
Regarding the Sheriff releasing the report, please understand this was done under the Freedom of Information Law (FOIL)¹ by multiple parties. FOIL is based on a presumption of access, stating that all records are accessible, except records or portions of records that fall within one of eleven categories of deniable records (§87(2)).
When the Sheriff did not release the report initially (at the request of the Attorney General’s office) one party filed an appeal². Only then did the Sheriff release it and did so based on the law. The FOIL put the Sheriff between a rock and a hard place. The A.G. office did ask him not to release it, but his ultimate legal obligation is to the public, not the A.G.³ In the end he chose to abide by the FOIL, which is the law.
I commend him for that. The Sheriff as an elected official has an obligation to the people of Warren County. Releasing the report made things difficult for the supervisors, but it was the right thing to do under the law. The document was now public domain and there was strong pressure on the supervisors to read it. Once you read it you can’t ignore it. Or can you?
The County Administrator’s attorney presented at the last Personnel Meeting. He was highly critical of the Sheriff and the investigator’s report. You can listen to what he had to say by reviewing the meeting video.⁴ Here is what Ken Tingley said about it in today’s Post Star – http://poststar.com/news/opinion/columns/ktingley/column-warren-county-administrators-running-scared-of-own-administrator/article_fc8cb8fd-2f39-59e7-a785-fe1d18fa08bf.html]
We now find ourselves in a position where the county is looking to hire even more attorneys. Is that what we really need? One of the responsibilities of the County Attorney is to advise the board on potential disciplinary action of a county employee. If the county attorney feels he can’t do his job then he should assign it to the County Attorney’s First Assistant, Amy Bartlett.
What is really troubling is for supervisors to ask an outside counsel to review the Sheriff’s report. I’d like to know to what purpose? Nothing was publicly stated by the county to explain this decision. The Sheriff’s investigation is over. The report speaks for itself. Why are we spending even more county taxpayer money to do this? The Cogen has already cost county taxpayers $4.6 million.⁵ It seems more like an excuse for the Supervisors to continue to kick the can down the road.
Yesterday in The Post Star a gentleman wrote a letter asking the board to “settle this feud quickly …” I agree. Going through the process of identifying outside counsel, interviews, and paying for a review of the matter will certainly not achieve the goal of settling this feud quickly. It will instead further drag this out and add even more cost to this mess.
In my mind this is a matter of confidence in the public administrator going forward for the next tough issue the 20 supervisors have to deal with. Getting even more attorneys involved is not helpful. A simple roll call vote expressing confidence in the administrator to do his job — or lack of it –would suffice and then let’s get on with the business of the people.
When you elect someone to represent you as a county supervisor, you should get their commitment to deciding tough issues on your behalf after they’ve weighed the facts and made their best judgment of what is right for the county. You shouldn’t get more lawyers on the county payroll and an endless game of kick the can.
Mr. Dusek serves at the Board’s pleasure and we serve at yours. It should be a simple matter to take a vote of confidence to see where we stand and I will propose that at Friday’s board meeting.
Mark Westcott
1) Who is subject to the Freedom of Information Law? Every New York State or municipal department, board, bureau, division, commission, committee, public authority, public corporation, council, office or other governmental entity performing a governmental or proprietary function is subject to the Law. Each of those governmental entities is an “agency.”
Source: https://www.dos.ny.gov/coog/freedomfaq.html#subject
2) The Post-Star appealed the sheriff’s denial of its request for the report under FOIL. http://poststar.com/news/opinion/editorial/editorial-warren-county-should-release-siemens-report-now/article_8352ff24-ce24-5d98-9fd3-a7dc2e7d5779.html
3) Source: Robert Freeman, director of the state Committee on Open Government, said the attorney general’s request did not appear to be a legal basis for keeping the report secret. “The sheriff can choose not to listen to the attorney general,” Freeman said.
4) Source: 10/7/2015 Personnel Committee video. Please go to the 58:18 mark on the YouTube tape: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z48ik0633og
5) Source: Warren County Accounts Payable Report 10/6/2015 (summary page 24): http://www.westcottupny.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Westmount-Co-Gen-Payments-to-Siemens.pdf.