All seven of supervisor’s picks are rejected
The Town of North Hempstead hosted its third town board meeting of 2022 on Feb. 17. All councilpersons and town Supervisor Jennifer DeSena were in attendance for this lengthy meeting that lasted for four and a half hours.
The meeting was full of town residents voicing concerns or bearing witness to the town board’s ongoing struggles to present a united front. Out of the many items on the agenda, the vote on appointing new members to the town’s Board of Ethics stuck out and provoked disagreements among board members.
The Board of Ethics is an important aspect of the town’s government as the board is responsible for implementing the provisions of the town’s code of ethics. According to the town of North Hempstead website, the board has various duties, including “enforcing the code of ethics and determining penalties” and “rendering advisory opinions to town employees regarding the code of ethics.”
When discussing the Ethics Board, DeSena pointed out that “one of the primary things the board is responsible for is to review financial disclosure forms to determine if someone might have a conflict of interest.”
Considering that the financial world is always changing with new ways of ownership and new cryptocurrencies “you want to have a board in place that’s confident that their decision will be respected,” DeSena pointed out.
Members of the Board of Ethics serve a four-year term, and the majority of the current board members’ terms have expired months and even years ago.
“These four-year terms are important because it makes [the board] independent of everyone including this [town] board, and including myself, the supervisor, since my term is only two years,” said DeSena during board discussion.
Since the Board of Ethics members’ terms had all expired, they have been in “holdover status” for months and years now.
“When they don’t have a term, they’re not independent,” said DeSena. “When you’re in holdover, you can be replaced at any time. You can be replaced at the next meeting and you will never know when it’s going to come and you never know if it’s going to be a result of a decision you made.”
To allow the board to work independently and have security with a four-year term again, DeSena nominated seven candidates to fill the Board of Ethics. She expressed her confusion as to why the board wasn’t filled and appointed to terms earlier, explaining as to why she named them all in one night.
The first to voice his concerns was Councilman Robert Troiano, a Democrat, who explained how diversity among Board of Ethics members is a priority to ensure that the town feels represented by a board that looks like them and will represent their best interests.
“I don’t see that diversity in the seven nominations from the supervisor,” said Troiano. “I understand and believe that [DeSena] is great at adhering to diversity, but I don’t see that in her recommendations. So I’m going to ask you to go back and re-look at these and see if you can do a better job at creating more diversity.”
Troiano decided to abstain from the first vote to re-appoint Ethics Board member Dr. Isma Chaudhry.
After that, Councilman Peter Zuckerman, Councilwoman Veronica Lurvey and Councilwoman Mariann Dalimonte—all Democrats—followed suit and decided to abstain from the first vote, and the ensuing six votes to appoint other Ethics Board members.
“We just got the résumés 15 to 20 minutes before we had to come in here,” said Dalimonte. “So I haven’t been able to look at the résumés of any person nominated. I want everyone to know that I am going to abstain on all of the votes till I have the time to review this and to make sure this is diverse.”
“I also want to say my vote to abstain is not an indictment or in any way a judgment on any of the individuals that are being proposed by the supervisor,” added Lurvey.
Dalimonte pointed out that there is one person from Great Neck, two from Manhasset, two from Mineola, one from Roslyn, and one from Port Washington that DeSena nominated to the Ethics Board.
“I feel that the board should be more diverse and should be filled with people throughout the town and not just in certain areas of the town of North Hempstead,” said Dalimonte.
“I was looking for people I knew would contribute, either because they are knowledgeable about financial products or the law,” DeSena said in defense of her choices. “I did have people nominated belonging to different ethnic groups and religious groups. I was very conscientious about finding diversity, including geographical diversity.”
Among the seven nominated candidates, one is Francisco Vasquez from Port Washington.
“Vasquez is an accomplished bankruptcy attorney and assists as an attorney for the Knights of Columbus,” DeSena said at the board meeting.
“I know we don’t have Hispanic representation for the town and when I was searching for someone from the Port Washington area I remembered his name,” she added. “I wanted to bring people into the town who are not already a part of it. I’m new to local government and I have found that so many people are interested in learning more about local government and Francisco Vasquez is one of them.”
DeSena, and fellow Republican councilmembers Dennis Walsh and David Adhami, voted yes on the first vote, and continued to vote yes for the ensuing six nominations for the Board of Ethics.
Since none of the seven nominees received the minimum amount of four votes required to pass, no one was elected at the meeting.
The holdover members will remain for the time being. With the holdover, only five people make up the Board of Ethics. Two spots are vacant.
“With two vacant spots, I can’t believe [the town board] wouldn’t appoint even one of my nominees to fill a spot,” said DeSena. “I’m surprised [the town board] was unwilling to give me the courtesy of a review of two of the seven nominees.”
Troiano continued to voice his concern about the lack of diversity. “There is nobody from District 1 that has been recommended here,” said Troiano, who represents that district. It includes Westbury and Carle Place.
“There is no requirement that each town has a representative on the Board of Ethics,” replied DeSena. “It’s clear that [Troiano] wants someone from his district to be named and I’m not against that. I do know people in his district that would be wonderful at this job, so I am going to try to find someone and we will see.”
The next town board meeting takes place on March 10.
