KINGSTON - Ulster County legislators are considering the makeup of an ethics panel and the type of representation it should have from the public.
The number of panel members and the role it has in reviewing county government were reviewed Monday during a county Efficiency, Reform, and Intergovernmental Affairs Committee meeting.
Committee Chairman Gary Bischoff, D-Saugerties, suggested using a seven-member panel with one minority legislative member and two majority members, with Democrats and Republicans also making two appointments each representing the public.
Tracey Bartels, D-Gardiner, suggested leaving legislators entirely off the panel and working to have a bipartisan committee.
"I'd like to see an ethics committee with some teeth without members of the Legislature on it," she said.
"I would just rather see more members of the public, less members of the Legislature," Bartels said. "I just think it's odd to have legislators on a Board of Ethics."
Bischoff responded that "legislators are still outnumbered" by non-legislators.
"I don't think it's a conflict," he said. "I think that it's a common way to have some members of the (legislative) body (and) reflect the majority of that body."
Legislators, who read the county policy calling for "at least three members," couldn't agree how many people where on the most recent ethics panel or how members were appointed.
Following the meeting, county Administrator Arthur Smith said the panel was formed under state General Municipal Law Article 18 to review cases brought against county or local officials.
"If a (Town Board) had a question over whether someone on their board could sit and vote on a resolution where they may have a relative involved or some economic gain, they could petition this panel and ask then for an advisory opinion," he said.
Legislator Brian Shapiro, D-Woodstock, said responsibilities of the panel when reviewing questions about misconduct by county officials need to be clarified.
"The Ethics Board hadn't met since 1989 until I called meeting a year and a half ago," he said.

©Daily Freeman 2006

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