The city’s ethics board is out of business

Last September, 140 people signed a formal complaint with the Buffalo Board of Ethics. The complaint alleges that city employees, including police officers, used city resources to campaign for Mayor Byron Brown on city hours.

Almost a year later, there has been no response – not even an acknowledgment that the complaint was received.

No wonder, as it turns out: the ethics board has not met in two and a half years.

According to the city clerk’s office, the board of ethics — charged with overseeing compliance with city government — has been charged. Code of conduct – He didn’t meet after the Covid hit, “due to lack of quorum.” The last ethics board meeting was held in February 2020.

Lack of quorum It will close the board until 2021 and stay on until 2022, said Sharon Adler, the city’s legislative assistant. Adler is listed as the board’s public relations. website.

The board has seven members and meets monthly. Five members are appointed by the Mayor in conjunction with the Nominating Committee and approved by the Common Council.

The other two, ex officio, are the city clerk and the corporation counsel – the city’s leading attorney.

Currently, the board has just three members, Adler said: City Clerk Tiana Marks, Corporation Counsel Cavette Chambers and attorney Megan Brown, a partner at Goldberg Segalla.

Brown is the only appointed member currently serving.

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The ethics board collects annual financial statements from city officials to manage potential conflicts of interest. He is charged with investigating alleged ethical violations by city employees. The Board has the authority to subpoena testimony and documents if it requests an investigation.

The board can fine a city employee up to $10,000 for violating the city’s code of conduct and recommend that the employee be suspended or fired.

Appointments to the Board of Ethics are made by a five-member selection committee—one each appointed by the mayor, city supervisor, president of the Common Council, chief judge of the Buffalo City Court, and the dean of the University at Buffalo Law School, with the appointee serving as chair.

The selection committee must submit nominations to fill vacancies “not later than January 20 of each year and no later than 30 days after any mid-term vacancy occurs.” City charter. The mayor then sends the nominees to the Common Council. Board members are appointed for five years.

Evidence suggests that none has occurred in at least three years.

Minutes are posted on the Ethics Board’s website Only two meetingsBoth in 2019. In both meetings, attorney Douglas Coppola – then chairman of the board – indicated that he had approached the selection committee to fill two vacancies.

Buried in the records of the House of Commons Minutes of the January 2020 meeting of the boardCoppola indicated that the board will soon be looking for three new members. Longtime member James Magaver wanted to step down, but minutes indicated he agreed to stay on until a replacement was found.

Magavern was never replaced. He passed away in March at the age of 89. His seat is vacant.

Coppola resigned from the board a year ago when he moved from the city to Williamsville. He has served since 1999. In an email, Coppola said he understood the investigation postDuring Covid, the city did not have the resources to hold a rally. Vacancies made it difficult to get quorum, he added.

“It will still be a challenge,” he wrote.

The loss of Coppola and Magaver left the ethics board with just three members, failing to reach a quorum.

According to the president’s lawyer, Paul Wolff, that is “simply unacceptable New York Coalition for Open Government.

In the year In 2019, the coalition — which monitors compliance with the state’s open meetings and freedom of information laws — gave Buffalo’s ethics board a failing grade (Zero out of a possible five points) for clarity.

“There should be a fully functioning ethics board so that the public has a place to bring ethical issues, Wolff told the Investigative Post in an email. “City officials should make this issue a priority and immediately set up a full board to address the issue.”

Email inquiries to the mayor’s spokesman, the council president’s chief of staff and the dean of the UB Law School to appoint the chairman of the selection committee all went unanswered.

Adler, legislative assistant to the city clerk, told The Investigative Post in an email: “We are working on this and expect this to be implemented soon.

Megan Brown, currently the ethics board’s only appointed member, told the Inquiring Post that she was “not authorized by the board” to respond to Inquiring Post’s questions. When asked if she was given the authority to speak to the board — or who would allow her or anyone else to do so, given the board’s quorum problems — “I’m sorry, but I have no further comment.”

Last September, attorney Stephanie Cole Adams A complaint with the Ethics Board regarding a Brown campaign TV ad featuring more than a dozen Buffalo police officers. The caption of the video states that they are “real Buffalo cops”. Some wore clothes with the word “police” or the department’s stamp on them, he complained.

The complaint alleged that the officers were “not acting as private citizens,” but were using their authority as police officers to “solicit support and donations for a party candidate.”

According to the complaint, these violate the city’s code of conduct, as well as state law and the federal Hatch Act, all of which regulate the political activities of public employees.

Adams never heard back from the ethics board — which by then had stopped meeting a year and a half ago.

such as First reported by Investigative Post. Last week, the U.S. Office of Special Counsel opened an investigation into Hatch Act violations by city employees campaigning for Brown.

The investigation was prompted by a citizen complaint filed with the federal watchdog agency in June. According to the complainant, the complaint was filed because the city’s ethics board did not respond to a complaint filed against them last season.