Four Montgomery board members have resigned recently. They blame it on 'frustration.'

TOWN OF MONTGOMERY — When Conrad Flickenschild joined the town’s Board of Ethics two years ago, he said he was looking forward to helping the town and serving as a voice for people who have concerns about ethical issues. 

However, he decided to step down in January after he realized his efforts were not appreciated by the town, he said — it had dismissed the board's rulings on several conflict of interest complaints.      

“It didn’t matter what conclusion we reached, they disregarded it. They totally ignored us as if we weren’t even a board,” Flickenschild said. “It was very difficult to be on a board while sincerely trying to make a difference.”

Flickenschild is not alone. Three other residents recently resigned from the town’s Board of Ethics and from its Industrial Development Agency (IDA). Their reasons are similar: They say they felt frustrated. 

Joseph Keenan, former chairman of the Board of Ethics, said typically it takes several months for the board members to research and review local and state law before they render a conclusion. The board receives about a dozen inquiries each year, and most are conflict of interest related.

“When we get an issue, we ultimately render an opinion. But it wasn’t our personal opinion, we researched the opinion,” Keenan said.     

However, he said, the Town Board voted to override their rulings on some cases even though a violation of the town’s ethics law had been found. The last straw that drove Keenan to resign in August was a case regarding an IDA member, Matthew Stoddard, who voted in favor of granting $21.5 million in tax breaks to a warehouse that will be occupied by Amazon. Meanwhile, he holds a position as union president of Ironworkers Local 417. The warehouse proposed to create 300 construction jobs in the application. 

In a letter obtained by the Times Herald-Record, Keenan said on behalf of the board that Stoddard is in “positions of decision-making which can influence both agencies, and a conflict of interest and violation of the Town Ethics Law exist in the matter."

“His decisions then on the IDA can directly affect and gain benefits for the union… While Mr. Stoddard may be of the most honorable men, his dual role presents the conflict,” the letter read.

Five months later, the Town Board dismissed the ruling in March citing the General Municipal Law exempts persons from having a conflict of interest when their outside employment compensation is not directly affected by a contract with a municipality. 

“Thus, even if the Town or (IDA) had a direct contract with Local 417, which it does not, it would not have any bearing on a salaried employee such as Mr. Stoddard,” Town Supervisor Brian Maher wrote on behalf of the Town Board.

Board members: our efforts not 'respected'

“They want us to do the job and we do the job right. We get no respect,” Keenan said. “It’s one thing to take a thankless job, it’s another thing to get insulted.”

The sentiment is echoed by Guy Cusumano, who requested to resign in August. 

“I was trying to help the town, do my civic duty and make things better for people. We want to hold everyone to the same standard,” Cusumano said. “After all the time and efforts we put into it, they were like, ‘OK, thanks, we heard what you said, but we don’t agree with you.'" 

While Flickenschild and Cusumano decided not to serve on any other boards at this point, Keenan has joined the Historic Preservation Commission in hopes of continuing to serve the community.          

Town says it seeks community input

Supervisor Maher said the resignations were mostly fueled by issues with the previous administration and actually Keenan stepped down because he had been appointed to the Historic Preservation Commission.

“The Town Board has been transparent and has made a great effort to get feedback from our community from outside, and we’re going to continue to do that,” Maher said.

However, Don Berger, a former IDA member who resigned in August, said he was unfairly treated and concerned about the IDA’s pro-warehouse stands. 

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As a founder of a citizen group, Residents Protecting Montgomery, he said during a private conversation Supervisor Maher requested that he take sides between the two roles and run his questions by the chairman before meetings. 

His frustration reached its peak when he found the Amazon project had built a tilt-up wall using outside labor before it was granted a waiver from the local labor law. 

“The IDA should make the decision to the best interest of the town. However, it continues to move forward on what for the past two and a half years the residents have come to all these meetings and spoke out against it, and they have not listened to a word we’ve said,” said Berger, who was an active speaker at the hearings and was appointed to sit on the other side of the table in March. “I was hoping to change the direction of the board, but that was not going to happen.”

Maher denied the accusations and said the construction of the wall prior to receiving a waiver is a “procedural issue” since the board members, including Berger, eventually approved the waiver.

“Berger was given an opportunity to be a stakeholder and a leader of our community as an IDA member. At some point, he decided that what matters more to him is sensationalizing parts of the process and getting headlines,” Maher said.    

The town has appointed two new members to the Board of Ethics, which is ready to continue its business. Maher said ideally the board should render opinions for town officials to be able to ask whether or not a particular situation is ethical. 

“Previously the board did not have the resources they needed, including having a general counsel to be able to make determinations and function. Moving forward they will have that support from the Town Board and be assured that it will have a general counsel to guide them through the process and advise them properly,” Maher said. 

He added the Town Board attorney will act as a general counsel for the Board of Ethics except for situations when Town Board members are involved in a complaint.

hwang@th-record.com