Convention costs $8k for eight officials

RENSSELAERVILLE — Eight officials spent close to $8,000 on a recent convention trip.   

In February, from the 17^th to the 19^th, eight elected and appointed Rensselaerville officials attended the Association of Towns’ annual meeting in New York City. 

Altogether, the town spent $7,978.39 on registration fees, lodging, mileage, parking fees, cab fares, and meals, according to documents recently obtained by The Enterprise through a Freedom Of Information Law request. 

Hotel bills total $4,842 for six rooms for three nights at the Sheraton Hotel in Manhattan; registration fees for the meeting total $835.

Just days before the meeting, on Valentine’s Day, the Rensselaerville Town Board’s five members voted unanimously in an executive session to reimburse officials for up to $400 each with receipts for their transportation and meals, according to town minutes.  Those vouchers total $2,301.39.

Officials who attended the association’s meeting this year were: G. Jon Chase, the town’s highway superintendent; his sons, Councilman Gary Chase and Bradley Chase, who serves on the town’s board of assessment review; his son-in-law, Roger Gifford, a member of the town’s zoning board of appeals; Councilwoman Sherri Pine and her husband and town assessor Jeff Pine; the town’s attorney, Joseph Catalano; and planning-board member Alfred Stettner.

All are Democrats except for Catalano, who is not enrolled in a party and was appointed by the Democrats on New Year’s Day. 

 “Some were honest with their receipts but the majority were not,” says a letter to The Enterprise editor from 10 Rensselaerville residents.  “We’ll leave it to your imaginations on who the dishonest ones are.”

Chase’s view

Councilman Gary Chase, now serving his third four-year term, was the town’s delegate at the meeting.

He said yesterday of the meeting, “It’s a benefit to the people that need some of the classes and courses to go there because you’re going to take in a whole lot more there than that particular class.”

Chase said, “Everything is so costly down there that we try to cut a little bit by driving to Poughkeepsie and take the train in for $12.  If you take the train in from Hudson, it’s $70.  So we tried to cut costs there.”

A lot of people who attend the meeting drive, he said.  If Rensselaerville officials did, said Chase, each would be up to $200 or $250 in reimbursement costs for mileage before doing anything.

“We pretty much, together as a town, go out to dinner…so we split all the costs.  It makes it a little bit cheaper,” he said.  “We do a lot of walking instead of taking cabs.” 

Chase said, “There’s a lot of things that the town actually gets from the meeting.  One, we have somebody there that represents the town on a New York State basis.  We’re actually going through and voting on the proposals.  So that’s one good thing that shows affiliation with the Association of Towns.” 

Booths, he said, are set up with companies in security, engineering, and updates for clerks’ and judges’ records as well as new voting machines and equipment are on display. 

“Anything that pertains to a town,” said Chase.

Nepotism

In this small, rural town, the Democratic and Republican parties are polarized; in recent months, residents and officials have clashed over nepotism. 

The town is currently considering a law on conflicts of interest, and Rensselaerville’s Republican supervisor, Jost Nickelsberg, has questioned whether Councilman Chase’s voting on the appointments of members of his family, including his brother, brother-in-law, and mother, is legal; in all votes, the councilman did not recuse himself. 

At the request of the town board, the town’s attorney requested and recently obtained an opinion from the Office of the New York State Attorney General on whether Councilman Chase can vote on the appointment of his mother as his father’s clerk.  He can, according to a non-binding opinion recently handed down by the attorney general’s office.  

Varied vouchers

For the February meeting in New York City, money spent by the eight Rensselaerville officials and their methods of calculating their expenses varies. 

Each voucher for travel and parking expenses and meals for Gifford and each of the three members of the Chase family amounts to $400.  Bradley Chase included a note that says, “Other transportation, food, tips, etc. exceed the $400 allowance for the Association of Towns annual meeting.” 

Stettner, a former zoning-board member who now serves on the town’s planning board, spent $77.35 for a round trip train ticket and did not charge the town for lodging or food.  Catalano, who included an itemized list of his expenses on his voucher, spent $201 for his train and cab fares, parking, and meals. 

Jeff Pine also gave the town an itemized list; his voucher totals $261.54 for parking, meals, taxi services, a train ticket, and mileage from Rensselaerville to the Poughkeepsie train station — 150 miles at the Internal Revenue Service’s rate of reimbursement of 50.5 cents per mile.

His wife, Councilwoman Sherri Pine, spent $161.50 on train fares and meals. 

While questioning officials’ spending, the 10 Rensselaerville letter-writers also find fault with officials’ spending town funds on alcohol. 

“Now we all have spent ‘our time and our dimes’ drinking alcoholic beverages but apparently some of your representatives feel they can spend your dimes, too,” they say.

Richard Tollner, the town’s deputy supervisor, also questioned spending.  He wrote on an official’s voucher, “Advise town board to have stipulation [of] $100 per day and no alcohol.” 

Expenditures for the purchase of alcoholic beverages may not be considered a proper or necessary travel or meeting expense of the local government, according to the Office of the State Comptroller’s financial management guide. 

The guide says, “Meals would be a proper charge if a business meeting is of an immediate nature and a meeting at mealtime is essential.”

Officials on spending

Last year, three Rensselaerville officials attended the association’s meeting; four went in 2006, and seven attended in 2005. 

Councilman Gary Chase said he believes there are years in which 12 or 15 officials attended. 

“If you investigated that farther, you’d find out that there was a lot,” he said.  There have been different arrangements for reimbursement under different supervisors, he said. 

“It used to be you were given $350, and that was it.  Mr. Lansing,” said Chase of the Republican councilman, “when he was supervisor, decided that we’d all go down and just bring back all receipts and be reimbursed.  Well, that got us a little out of hand because people were turning in receipts for $600, $700…I brought that up last year and a cap was put back on.”

While he was at the meeting, Chase talked to officials from a few towns, and most set up a policy, which the comptroller’s office said was a good idea, he said, and is much like the state’s: officials are allowed $75 per day plus travel expenses. 

“And most towns that I talked to down there, that’s what they get,” Chase said.

Jeff Pine, a town assessor who attended the February meeting, said this week he kept track of his and his wife’s meals.  His meals total $144.27, and Councilwoman Pine’s amount to $137.28. 

“For four days in New York, I don’t think that’s extravagant,” said Jeff Pine. 

He said he has all expenses documented, and the letter-writers “took a receipt” for five people dining and “picked apart all the people’s meals and tried to blame it on us.”

Last year, at a Rensselaerville meeting, Pine questioned the supervisor’s spending at the association’s meeting. 

In 2006, Nickelsberg charged the town $91 for a breakfast in bed when there was a free breakfast by the association hosted by the governor, he said. 

“I brought that up at a meeting and these same people didn’t have an issue with that,” said Pine.

“I’m all in favor of Sex on the Beach...That’s their big issue.  Someone had a drink called Sex on the Beach,” Pine said.  “So, I’m in favor of that.” 

Nickelsberg questioned the use of town funds the week of the meeting and the accuracy of the minutes from Feb. 14; a resolution shows all members of the town board, including Nickelsberg, voted to reimburse each official up to $400 for expenses. 

“My vote, of course, was in last year’s budget,” said Nickelsberg this week.  “And that is that we wouldn’t send anybody or that we would send serious people from planning boards and zoning boards for their continuing education.” 

He said, “I have yet to hear the first good idea coming from this, and we spent $10,000 on it, and our contingency fund, with four months gone in the year, is almost depleted.”

Gary Chase responded through The Enterprise.

“First of all, he has no clue on how much money, I believe, that we have, and I questioned him last night on the spot,” said Chase. 

The Rensselaerville Town Board meets the Tuesday before its regular meeting.

“We haven’t had a report from the supervisor for about six months now, maybe even seven,” said Chase.  “He’s supposed to have a monthly report that shows every dollar that’s taken in by the town and every dollar that’s spent.”

He said he has no idea where any money is in the town. 

“If he says that [the contingency’s] low, I doubt it, because I have no way to prove different.  If I’d seen some kind of record from him for the last six or seven months, maybe I’d know,” said Chase.

On reporting back with ideas from the meeting, Chase said, “At the last town board meeting, I told some of the things I did at the meeting, and that’s what he’s going to get.”  The highway superintendent has reported on Consolidated Highway Improvement Programs funding and Jeff Pine has also reported, he said. 

“When [Nickelsberg] went down there, he made a big deal about it, and he wanted everybody to make a report out — an in-depth report on what you did, where you went, what you learned, and how it was better for the town.  He wanted this,” Chase said.  “Four of them went, including himself, and I never, ever got a report.  I questioned that report every month for a year, and he never, ever gave me one.”

Nickelsberg said, “We’re going to have higher school taxes, higher county taxes, higher state taxes, higher federal income taxes.  And what are we doing?  How can we do this to people that make decisions all winter long — whether or not to use medicine or use their money for food?”

Nickelsberg said, “I had no idea that eight [would be going], especially from one family.”

Asked how the eight were chosen, Chase said each department has monies allotted during budgeting for at least one person to attend the meeting.  “If a new person gets on the board, they try to send them,” he said. 

Nickelsberg questioned whether officials’ being reimbursed for alcohol is legal and said he’d contacted state agencies. 

Asked how the board decided on $400 for officials’ reimbursement, he said, “I was not at that meeting, and I have no idea.  It’s unbelievable.” 

Told again of the resolution, Nickelsberg said, “That’s just incorrect, first of all…The reason that we didn’t put it in the budget and the reason that we didn’t allow this to happen last year and the year before is because we knew what was going to happen.”

In other Hilltowns

In other Helderberg Hilltowns, views are markedly different on the Association of Town’s annual meeting. 

“We haven’t sent anybody in years,” said Westerlo Supervisor Richard Rapp.  “I’ve never been and I won’t go.” 

He called the meeting “a waste of money.”  He said he thinks the last Westerlo officials to attend were Gertrude Smith, the town’s longtime clerk, and Peter Hotaling, the town’s former highway superintendent; John Nevins, Westerlo’s current highway superintendent, has never attended.  “We seldom go,” said Rapp.

The town of Knox did not send anyone to the New York City convention this year, and hasn’t in quite a few years in the past, said Michael Hammond, the Knox’s supervisor.  The policy has changed to the point where the town board looks at the calendar and finds that training sessions are available locally, said Hammond, and individuals go to local presentations rather than to New York City. 

In Berne, the town’s supervisor, Kevin Crosier; the town’s longtime clerk, Patricia Favreau; and the town’s two justices typically attend.  This year, Berne’s planning-board chairman, a planning board member, and two judges attended; Crosier and Favreau did not.

Like Rensselaerville, Berne officials are reimbursed for transportation to and from New York City and for their lodging and meals.  Some drove to the train station in Poughkeepsie “because it was cheaper,” Crosier said, and some parked at the station in Rensselaer; the town got a governmental rate when traveling by train and for hotel rooms.  Crosier said he would have to go back and look at records to see whether the town paid for alcoholic drinks. 

“We didn’t pay for six beers and a night out at a club,” he said.

This year, the cost for sending the Berne planning-board chairman amounted to $1,353, and $1,226 and $1,401 for the town’s two judges.  Last year, the cost for one justice was $1,080.

“It’s good education,” said Crosier.  “You’re in class most of the time.” 

The town’s justices go to get their required training, Crosier said, and spend eight hours a day “in the classroom.”  He tried to get the town’s newly-elected officials to attend, he said, because there are a lot of good educational classes for newly-elected officials.  Crosier said he went for the first six years he was in office, but, this year, saw no need to go back.

Crosier cited the meeting’s location in the city and the high costs there. 

“You could get a hamburger, and it could cost you $20,” he said.  New York City, he said, “is not centrally located.”

“It was hard because some people come all the way from Buffalo,” Crosier said.  He added, “I was hoping, when they built the convention center in Albany, it could be held there.”