A week after the Southampton Town Board’s Republican-Conservative majority appointed Russell Kratoville to a $150,000-a-year management position—a move many criticized as a rushed decision—Republican Town Councilwoman Nancy Graboski defended the move as one designed, in part, to halt what she said is an increasing grab for power by Town Supervisor Anna Throne-Holst.
Ms. Throne-Holst rejected Ms. Graboski’s claims this week that such a dynamic was brewing at Town Hall, saying that any sort of defense of the move by Ms. Graboski detracts from the fact that the majority made an appointment that circumvented town hiring policy.
Ms. Graboski said she was the one who initially floated Mr. Kratoville’s name to her colleagues in the majority, Chris Nuzzi and Jim Malone, as a possible appointment for the post, which had been cut by Ms. Throne-Holst in her proposed budget but was added back by the board majority. Mr. Malone and Mr. Nuzzi did not immediately return calls seeking comment this week.
As Ms. Graboski tells it, if everything had worked out the way she had hoped, Mr. Kratoville of Aquebogue would have been the Southampton Town comptroller two years ago.
Mr. Kratoville first surfaced on Ms. Graboski’s radar when he interviewed for the vacant comptroller position in 2008. The councilwoman said she was impressed by his interview and qualifications in governmental finances. She was also stunned by his knowledge of Southampton Town’s financial software.
“When I learned that at the time, I said to myself, ‘Oh my gosh,’” Ms. Graboski said of Mr. Kratoville’s qualifications.
Mr. Kratoville, a registered Republican, has served in various appointed positions in Riverhead Town Hall, beginning in 1991 as the vice chairman of the town’s Zoning Board of Appeals, a position he held until 1995. The following year, Mr. Kratoville was appointed by Republican Town Supervisor Jim Stark to serve as his deputy supervisor, according to his resume. He also oversaw Riverhead Town’s recreation department and senior citizens services program in that position. He currently serves as the treasurer/director of finance at Suffolk County Off Track Betting in Hauppauge.
When interviewed by phone this week, Mr. Kratoville acknowledged that he had caught the attention of Town Board members back in 2008. He said earlier this fall he recalls running into Mr. Malone, who had expressed interest in his qualifications, but had not made a formal offer for any position.
“He said to me, ‘Russ, you’re a person I think would really do well in Southampton. If ever anything came up in Southampton, what do you think?’” Mr. Kratoville said.
Mr. Kratoville lost out on the comptroller position to Steve Brautigam two years ago, Ms. Graboski said, because the board had already committed the position to Mr. Brautigam by the time Mr. Kratoville’s resume arrived. Ms. Graboski said the board had urged Mr. Kratoville to consider working as a deputy under Mr. Brautigam, but he wasn’t interested in that position. But instead of chucking his resume, Ms. Graboski said she hung on to it, hoping there might be a place for Mr. Kratoville at Southampton Town Hall in the future.
Fast-forward to 2010, when Ms. Throne-Holst unveiled a tentative budget that, among many other restructuring moves, called for the disassembling of the General Services/ Business Management Department. That move also included the elimination of the head of that department, the town management services administrator position—the position to which Mr. Kratoville was appointed in late November. Richard Blowes, who currently holds that position, is retiring at the end of the year under a state early retirement incentive. He will take a part-time position with the Southampton Housing Authority.
The Republican-Conservative majority thwarted Ms. Throne-Holt’s restructuring plan and budget by approving a slew of late amendments that reinstated both the department and the position of town management services administrator, at a base salary of $107,100, or $149,457 including benefits.
In thinking of someone to fill the spot, Ms. Graboski remembered Mr. Kratoville’s qualifications, she said, and ended up suggesting him to her colleagues. “I almost felt as though, to a certain extent, we had already done a search, although it was [for] comptroller,” Ms. Graboski said.
The public took the podium at a Town Board meeting on November 30 to denounce the move, calling it a political stunt, and slamming the board’s majority for not pausing to consider other potential candidates for the costly management position.
But in Ms. Graboski’s eyes, she didn’t want to let Mr. Kratoville’s talent “get away this time.” She also wanted to make the hiring as quickly as possible, to give Mr. Kratoville a chance to learn the ropes of the new position from Mr. Blowes before he takes his new post.
“At the end of the day, as much heat as I took over the Kratoville appointment, I know I did the right thing,” she said.
The structural move to disassemble the General Services/Business Management Department under Ms. Throne-Holst’s budget, in Ms. Graboski’s view, was one that would have allowed the supervisor to centralize the operations of those departments under the authority of the deputy supervisor, Francis Zappone. It was why, she stressed, she felt it was important to maintain the management position.
Ms. Graboski pointed to one of the recommendations in a draft town organizational study drawn up by Bowne Management Systems Inc. of Mineola. The recommendations speak to creating a central management authority, charged with the day-to-day operations of the town—based in the supervisor’s office, overseen by the deputy supervisor, who would become something like the chief operating officer of the town, according to the study’s recommendations.
“I will have to tell you I was pretty surprised when I opened up to that one section,” Ms. Graboski said. “That particular recommendation came leaping out to me. I have no idea what her communication with the consultants have been, but I just I thought to myself, ‘This is wrong.’”
Ms. Throne-Holst stressed, however, that the recommendation to create that role for the deputy supervisor was not binding. “It was a sort of ‘for example,’” she said. She also said that the move to do so was not on her agenda.
Additionally, she said that her plan to dismember the General Services/Business Management Department would have divided its offices up in a way that would not have created a central authority. The only exception would have been the Human Resources Division, which would have fallen under the supervisor’s office—a move that is common in most municipalities, she said.
But still, Ms. Graboski said the study and her budget moves underscore something she’s felt for a while: an air of tension between the members of the Town Board and some of the town’s department heads, which has led to an overall distrust of Ms. Throne-Holst, she said. She cited miscommunications between members of the Town Board and Mr. Zappone in relaying accurate information about the state’s early retirement incentive—a charge Ms. Throne-Holst challenged.
Ms. Graboski also said that Town Attorney Michael Sordi checks up on conversations that Town Board members have with assistant town attorneys and department heads, including code enforcement, creating an overbearing atmosphere. “It’s about control,” she said. “There’s a heavy hand at work here. There’s a heavy presence.
“I never know what’s going on,” she continued. “I always feel like there’s some manipulation or agenda going on in the background that I’m not privy to. So there’s no trust at all.”
But Ms. Throne-Holst denounced the characterizations, suggesting that Mr. Sordi’s monitoring does not seem abnormal since he is the department head overseeing the code enforcement division.
Also, Ms. Throne-Holst reiterated statements she made at the November 30 meeting, noting that the appointment was overwhelmingly criticized by the public, and violated town hiring policy, which calls for the creation of a selection committee charged with conducting a search for all high-level town management positions.
“I think there’s certain people who need to hold a mirror to themselves before hurtling accusations like that,” Ms. Throne-Holst said of Ms. Graboski’s allegations.
Rohma Abbas on Dec 8, 2010