KINGSTON – The secretive City of Kingston Board of Ethics met once again Wednesday evening, for two and a half hours. No witnesses were called for this session; the only person to enter the closed hearing room was a pizza delivery guy.
After the meeting finished the members quickly dispersed with no comment.
Board Chairwoman Jean Jacobs offered a brief statement to MidHudsonNews.com.
“We met this evening,” Jacobs said. “The final report is being completed by our attorney Michael Sussman. Then we have to evaluate it, and then it will go to the respective members of the city. We made a final decision based on the recommendations but we don’t have the final report from our lawyer, and we may have to meet again.”
Jacobs declined to speak to what would be in the pending report, which might take a week to finish drafting. “We have to follow the ethics law, and there’s a whole protocol, we have to respect the next level of administration. That’s all I can say now.”
At certain points during the meeting, deliberation became heated, and raised voices could be heard clearly through the door outside in the hallway. Those parts focused on City Council President James Noble, who as “department head” for the Common Council should receive the final report first, and decide what punishment to mete out, fines or other sanctions.
This is potentially good news for Third Ward Alderman Brad Will, who is likely to receive a mere slap on the wrist, or at worst admonishment with a wag of the finger from his political ally James Noble. Last week, Noble sympathized with Will and suggested the city pay for his attorney fees.
Despite valiant efforts by the Ethics Board to make the proceedings confidential, the provincial nature of a small city like Kingston made it nearly impossible to keep the nature of the hearings under wraps. According to sources and previously published accounts, the Pike Plan Commission had filed a complaint alleging that Alderman Will improperly voted on matters which represented a potential conflict of interest.
The Pike Plan, a series of arcade canopies in Uptown’s Stockade District, was reconstructed four years ago but is falling apart due to substandard materials and improper installation of skylights. The leaking skylights can cause an electrical fire which might burn down the entire neighborhood, due to the lack of an adequate firewall between the canopy and adjacent buildings. The skylights also have improper moldings which risk falling through onto passing pedestrians. Also the pillars holding the whole thing up were salvaged, not replaced, and are now rotting away.
