A town board discussion about amending the town code governing ethics turned into a furious argument among members on Tuesday, largely over a May 7 event that honored pandemic frontline workers and food pantry staff but drew criticism from the town's board of ethics.
Hugh King of the ethics board outlined three proposed changes to the ethics code. One would add the board of ethics itself to the appointed boards whose members cannot belong simultaneously to any political party committee. Another would require members of the town board, appointed boards, the town's housing authority, or their legal counsels to disclose any clients with applications pending before them in the last 12 months, and to describe how they addressed or would address the services they provided to the applicant.
The third would address potential conflicts of interest, adding a provision prohibiting any public officer or employee, following their employment with the town, from lobbying for or otherwise representing a client before any board in which they "directly and substantially participated" during their public service.
Southampton Town's ethics code has a 12-month prohibition on the latter scenario, Mr. King said, and the ethics board would defer to the town board as to determining its own time span. "We just think it should be clarified more," he said.
Councilman Jeff Bragman, who is a practicing attorney, said he was wary of the "direct and substantial" involvement language, which he said lacked clear definition. Town board members often engage in long-term planning, he said, citing as an example the recently concluded hamlet studies. "For example, I may have direct and substantial participation in hamlet study reports. Does that mean if a property included in a hamlet study report comes before the board, I can't comment on it or participate in it?" The town board often has indirect contact with properties that may be the subject of a future application before an appointed board, Mr. Bragman said. "I don't think that kind of involvement should bar future participation in, for example, a property that was part of a hamlet study report."
Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc said that the board had looked at specific properties when deliberating on rezoning them, one outcome of the Wainscott hamlet study. Members of the town board appoint those on boards including planning, zoning, and architectural review. "Anyone representing in front of them has had a direct impact," he said. "To then be acting as an agent for bringing forward an applicant under those circumstances would seem to be problematic."
Mr. Van Scoyoc is up for re-election in November, and Mr. Bragman is challenging him. They regularly clash during town board meetings.
After more back-and-forth, Judy Samuelson of the ethics board told the town board that the intent was "just to put a little more definition around not representing a client, when you're off the board, who you were directly involved with when you were on the board . . . I think we're merely asking for some sort of statement about how, maybe . . . you should wait a year before you represent someone whose case you adjudicated, or whatever, when you were on the board." The intent was not to cover every eventuality, she said.
Mr. King referred to a letter from the ethics board to the town board that criticized town board members for having brought guests to the May event at the Clubhouse in Wainscott, which included a performance by the rock 'n' roll musician Jon Bongiovi Jr., an East Hampton resident who fronts the band Bon Jovi. The ethics board had been asked, on less than 48 hours' notice, to rule on the propriety of town board members accepting the invitation to the private event. The ethics board approved that, but specifically warned against inviting guests. Four of the five town board members nevertheless took a spouse or a friend to the event, which featured an open bar and four-course dinner with wine pairings.
"The board of ethics is sorry this turned into a contretemps," Mr. King said. The purpose of the letter, he said, was to emphasize, going forward, that "timeframe is important" when seeking an advisory opinion. He also implicitly criticized Mr. Bragman for posting his board's letter on his Facebook page. "Our correspondence with the board should be confidential unless we agree it should be put in the public sphere," Mr. King said.
To its members' dismay, Ms. Samuelson said, the ethics board's May 6 opinion, rendered one day before the event, "sort of turned into a political football." The short time they had to deliberate "kind of indicates a lack of respect for the opinion and the weight of the board of ethics," she said.
Mr. Van Scoyoc said he had apologized "for the shortness of time that you had to render a decision," but that the board's attendance at an event "to recognize the efforts of so many people who were critical in helping us through the worst, dark days of the pandemic" had been deemed appropriate. (In response to the ethics board's May 6 letter, the supervisor told Mr. King that his wife, who volunteered at Covid-19 vaccine clinics, had attended, but as a guest of an owner of the Clubhouse. Councilman David Lys said that his wife, a physical therapist who has seen clients throughout the pandemic, had also been invited by the hosts.)
Mr. Bragman complained that "everybody is being dainty and dancing around the issues" that in fact, he said, constitute a serious ethical lapse. The ethics board had "said that they weren't given time to ask questions or do a full analysis of the situation," he said. It was also concerned "that the ethics opinion they did hurriedly agree to was only distributed to four out of five members," excluding himself. "We have an ethics code that prevents us from taking gifts worth in excess of $75, and this was lavish hospitality by a business that we regulate . . . I feel what this shows is that there is an ethical blindness."
Mr. Van Scoyoc responded that Mr. Bragman was taking "grandstanding and political maneuvering to a new level." Mr. Bragman had attended the event, he said, returning to a theme repeatedly voiced during the board's June 1 meeting: that Mr. Bragman drank excessively before driving away from the event. "I find it repulsive that you continue to try to assassinate the character of the town board and undermine the board," he said.
"I find your behavior completely inappropriate," Mr. Bragman said. "Your own ethics board wrote a follow-up letter to this board and was highly critical of the way it was handled."
Eventually, Ms. Samuelson had heard enough. "I'm uncomfortable listening to this whole discussion," she said. "With respect, I'm going to leave." She hoped the town board would continue to consult the ethics board when it had questions, she said, but "I never want to hear about this issue again."
