By ADAM ATKINSON

North Country This Week

CANTON – The town and village are moving closer towards adopting a comprehensive ethics policy.

Some questions remain, however, regarding the policy’s proposed disclosure forms and public access to the private information of municipal officials and employees and family members.

The committee appointed to draft a policy presented a version of the document to both boards at a meeting Monday, March 11.

Committee members Tedra Cobb, a former county legislator who ran for Congress last fall, and village resident Kate Murphy discussed the plan with the village trustees and mayor and the town supervisor and councilmen.

“What we did initially was look at what the towns and villages have, and then we looked at what the state offers,” said Cobb.

“So we took the model ethics code (for municipalities) from the comptroller’s office and we edited it so that all of our information was in it. And then we added one addition and that is the disclosure,” Cobb said. The committee used the St. Lawrence County’s disclosure policy to model the proposed town and village version.

Cobb, who helped craft the county ethics policy when a legislator, told the boards that the county’s disclosure policy and form requires county officials and their spouses to list properties they own and other investments, “so people know if there is any conflict,” Cobb said.

Cobb added that the code is not just for citizens to learn of potential conflicts and raise concerns, but also for government officials or employees to review situations in advance that may be a cause of future ethics problems as they serve the municipality.

“It’s really for people who are elected to be able to have an objective group to go to whenever there is a question that you might foresee,” Cobb said.

The draft policy calls for establishing a five-member board to review ethics questions against the code as they arise.

Murphy added that the ethics board would require one employee or official from either the town or village to serve.

“The disclosure statements that are part of this?” said Village Mayor Mike Dalton. “Where are they kept, who keeps those, who gains control of those, are they ‘FOILable’ (subject to Freedom of Information Law information requests)?”

“The clerks should keep them, they are ‘FOILable.’ It’s public information,” said Cobb. “They are what the county uses. So any employee, a member of the board, people who serve on committees… fill out the disclosure.”

“Did you talk to any attorneys about employees’ right to privacy regarding the disclosure forms?” asked Village Trustee Sean O’Brien.

Cobb said the committee had not, but that they had sent the drafts to Village Attorney Gerald Ducharme and hadn’t heard of any conflict.

“This disclosure is a model disclosure for lots of municipalities,” Cobb said.

Cobb said the forms would allow officials such as planning board members to vote on issues with some assurances to the public there is no conflict of interest which could benefit those officials.

“Are you concerned at all that this might reduce the number of people that would be willing to serve, either as elected officials, employees or in volunteer positions?” asked O’Brien.

“I’m not,” said Cobb. “It took us two years to pass the law for St. Lawrence County. . . I think the questions you are asking are important questions which is why it took us so long, because when you don’t have something like this (the disclosure forms) it’s a little bit uncomfortable.”

She said, however, that the code is now being used by the county and since it's been in place, filling out the annual disclosure forms is part of being a county employee.

“It's called a model law because the state hopes that counties and towns and villages will have it in place. It’s about transparency and accountability at the end of the day,” said Cobb.

Cobb said the committee based the draft ethics law on the comptroller’s model, but the disclosure forms and requirement were borrowed from the county policy.

Town Councilman Tim Danehy said he would be curious to know how many municipalities and counties statewide have a similar disclosure policy in place.

“I like the fact that the county raised the bar over what Albany asks for, and I’d like to think that here in the town we’d do the same,” said Town Councilman Bob Washo.

“I agree, but we want to be careful of jumping into something that may be a little out of the norm,” Danehy said. “But I’m not afraid to let us be leading the charge on things like this.”

Discussion continued on potential privacy concerns which might arise concerning family members listed on the disclosure forms, as well as personal financial information and political contributions.

Board members also reviewed several editing issues within the draft with Cobb and Murphy, including making the document gender neutral, changing the term “spouse” to “domestic partner,” specifying the definition of “family member” and personal cell phone use for town and village business.

Village and town officials also requested that the process for bringing an issue to the ethics board be specifically outlined in the code.

“I think you’ve done a great job,” said Dalton to Cobb and Murphy. “Overall I’m a little nervous about a couple things, but I think I can live with it.”

The committee was directed to rework the document in light of the editing requests and discussion. The town and village boards are expected to review the changes and possibly adopt the policy at a later date.