Letters

Listed on the Southampton Village Board agenda for the April 25 meeting is a resolution terminating Southampton Village’s ethics attorney. This will likely pass as a 4-1 vote, with the mayor opposing this appalling motion.

Based upon my experience dealing with the village trustees — Bill Manger, Gina Arresta, Roy Stevenson and Robin Brown — this is par for the course and mirrors my experience with them during my grievance process and their refusal to even consider my suggestions as a former partner at a big four accounting firm.

The trustees, who have now on multiple occasions violated Section 105 of New York State Open Meetings Law, Municipal Home Rule Law, changed the village’s Freedom of Information laws, and who placed a gag order on village employees, are now firing one of the most prestigious and well-respected ethics attorneys on Long Island.

Village residents should be asking the most basic question: Why?

It is my understanding that the ethics attorney was hired under then-Mayor Michael Irving. Since, Mayor Jesse Warren has praised his predecessor’s choice for the village as a “bipartisan pick.”

This same counsel wrote Chapter 7 of Village Law (ethics) and has been doing village ethics training for five years within the village. He also served by presidential appointment as a member of the New York State Bar Association Task Force on Local Government Ethics and was a professor of ethics and regulatory responsibility at Long Island University.

So, of course, it makes sense that the rogue trustees, who exclusively represent the interests of their wealthy financial donors and backers, would move to fire such a well-respected ethics expert.

This also explains why the trustees will not consider changing the way the village determines taxable assessed value. Any change would favor the everyday people of the village and mean that their wealthy estate section backers would have to pay their fair share.

Manger, Arresta, Stevenson and Brown should be questioning their own ethics, not firing the ethics expert.

David Rung

Southampton Village