More Conflicts Of Interest, Lies and Ethics Violations

After we published the article about Mr Jones unrelenting drive to pass resolutions TB1 & TB2 on a previous Town Board agenda (see Monday, June 10, 2019 Misdirection, Lies and Ethics), we felt as though we were watching the “Greenburgh sausage” being made. We continued to dig and uncovered even more information that raises doubt about Mr Jones' sincerity of following an ethical course as a Councilman for the Town, liaison for the Greenburgh Housing Authority (GHA) or as an officer of the courts.

You'll recall during the meeting that Councilman Jones made a motion to vote on TB1 and TB2. Councilwoman Hendrickx, newly appointed moments earlier that same night, seconded his motion. After some back and forth, Councilman Sheehan requested those two resolutions be held over. Another argument ensued as Mr Jones insisted they vote on the resolutions. Mr Sheehan insisted that their rules and past procedure allowed any councilperson to hold over any resolution without cause. He's correct and even Mr Jones has held over resolutions. 

There was a contentious back and forth when someone said that Tim Lewis is the "Town Parliamentarian" and should tell them how they can proceed. At which point he said move to suspend the rules and then move the vote. We are not Parliamentarians but we have at least held a copy of Roberts Rules and question the legality, ethics and sensibility of this maneuver. Both resolutions passed with Councilwoman Juettner abstaining, stating they've never done this before and Mr Sheehan voting no. 

One of the issues we’ve uncovered was that Mr Jones, as liaison for the Town Board with the GHA, was also an attorney for the Bozeman Law Firm in Mt Vernon, NY. The Bozeman Law Firm is the law firm that represents the GHA. At one point in the arguing during the meeting, Mr Sheehan stated that a Town Board member even asked the Board of Ethics in 2018 about a possible conflict of interest. That got a rather loud and emotional reaction from Mr Jones. He claimed he had not gone to the Ethics Board and that Mr Sheehan’s assertion was ridiculous. Mr Sheehan said he never mentioned any names. But ABG will. We acquired a copy of the Ethics Board minutes and it shows below, Mr Jones appears to be lying, he was in attendance and he did in fact ask them for an unofficial ruling just as Mr Sheehan recounted. See below:

Mr Jones also stated that he no longer worked for the Bozeman Law Firm. But an email that was forwarded to us partially indicates otherwise. It shows that Mr Jones still may have an active address with Bozeman Law, which is indicated by the address at the bottom of the email. If he simply rented space from Bozeman it would still constitute a business arrangement and be wrong as well as unethical! Notice also that this is his private Gmail account with the Bozeman mailing address. Could he be using this to keep from having certain communications as a Town Board member from being F.O.I.L.-ed?

See below:

So with staffers digging, we checked the Board of Elections records for Mr Jones’ campaign donations. We found several interesting donations to the Committee To Elect Ken Jones, by people connected to the Town Board or seeking positions in the Town Administration. The first is from sitting Town Councilwoman Diana Juettner for $90; next is from Town Clerk candidate Maria Portilla for $50; Alfreda Williams for $200; Mona Fraitag for $500. Ms Fraitag was appointed this year to the Planning Board. There are others but we believe the next two are significant: Andre Early, Commissioner at the Theodore Young Community Center, for $75 and the Bozeman Law firm for $500! Sounds an awful lot like pay to play? 

Next up, we learned that there is an Ethics Board complaint that has been filed against Mr Jones. We sent a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request to the Town Clerk requesting a copy of the complaint. This request was turned over to Town Attorney/HazMat Mitigation Specialist/Town Parliamentarian Tim Lewis who determined it should be rejected and cited what we believe is an unrelated case of the Herald Company vs City of Syracuse School District where the school district denied disclosing the name or charges against a tenured teacher.

Mr Jones, while believing Town Council positions may be a tenured position, is not a tenured teacher. Nor are we seeking the name of whom the complaint is made against, we already know it’s Mr Jones. What we want to know is what the complaint is for and who made the complaint? Actually, we know that Mr Rodney Lederer-Plaskett submitted the complaint, and ABG will be writing more about this soon. Once again Town Attorney Tim Lewis tried to cite an irrelevant case to stall our information request, a common tactic from this Town administration. But his case is not related to the requested information at hand and should have been released.

Moving right along on the Ethics Express, ABG learned a lawsuit has been filed by the Legal Services Hudson Valley (LSHV) group announcing that they have filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of five current and former tenants of the GHA against The Bozeman Law Firm, PLLC. The Mount Vernon law firm which represents the GHA (a public housing authority) in landlord-tenant disputes lawsuits.

The lawsuit claims that Bozeman Law repeatedly sues tenants in the GHA’s housing sites who receive Section 8 federal housing benefits for non-payment of rent, even though Bozeman Law knows that the sums it seeks are not “rent” by law and often not owed by the tenants. If a tenant obtains a lawyer, many have used LSHV staff attorneys to defend them, Bozeman Law immediately withdraws the legal proceedings. Shortly thereafter, they will re-initiate the same lawsuit based on the same or similar facts. This process is repeated again and again. There’s more but you get the idea.

So if Councilman/Liaison/Attorney Jones is/was/remains on the Town Board as a Councilman, how is it not a conflict of interest that he worked for the Bozeman Law firm who represents and also sues the residents of the GHA? Is the liaison (Jones) to the GHA with copious amounts of information from both sides, both suing and getting sued, over the same matters? And did he ever share any of this information with Town Attorney Tim Lewis, Supervisor Feiner and the Town Board? When he went to the Ethics Board to question a conflict of interest, was the entire story laid out to them or just a partial story or any story at all? Mr Feiner appoints the Ethics Board members. Is that a conflict of interest as well? The taxpayers deserve answers and justice. 

Finally, with the Democratic primary only days away, we’ve learned about the deals that were made behind closed doors for this election. Mr Feiner was promised the Democrats’ endorsement if he endorsed the entire ticket which did not include Gina Jackson at the time. He’s done that. It’s apparently the third or so time Mr Feiner has had the party endorsement. The Democrats’ logic is interesting now that Councilman Morgan has passed away. They will take Ken Jones over Eric Zinger because they don’t believe they can control Mr Zinger. They’re also afraid of Ms Jackson because she might be an independent thinker. We still believe Mr Zinger and Ms Jackson are the preferred candidates. 

We know politics is an ugly machine for most people and they tend to stay away from it. Most people are usually clueless to know the inner workings of Greenburgh politics. We hope that we’ve helped you get a glimpse into what’s going on. If you can, please go vote in the Democrat primary on Tuesday. We suggest moving away from Mr Jones this time around and hope others will take this information and finally do the right thing for our Town. It will make for A Better Greenburgh.