GUILDERLAND — After serving as the town’s zoning board attorney for a year-and-a-half, Janet Thayer has stepped down.

She gave no reason in her resignation letter to Supervisor Kenneth Runion. She only thanked Runion for the opportunity to serve on the board and offered to assist her replacement.
"She just had scheduling conflicts from what I understand," Runion told The Enterprise this week of why Thayer resigned.

Thayer did not return calls from The Enterprise for comment.

Peter Barber, the town’s litigation attorney and former zoning-board chairman, has filled in for Thayer at the last two zoning-board meetings. Barber will continue to do so until the end of the year, Runion said; the town board traditionally makes appointments on Jan. 1.

Thayer works as an attorney at Barber’s law firm, Murphy, Burns, Barber, and Murphy. In her post as zoning attorney, she was to earn $12,875 this year.

The town board hasn’t discussed a replacement for Thayer, Runion said, and will appoint a new zoning board attorney in January, when it appoints board members.

Thayer first joined the zoning board in January of 2003; she was appointed then as a board member. Her term was to expire at the end of 2007.
"She’s an attorney with a lot of experience in zoning issues," Runion said then of Thayer. "She has all the training, background and experience."

In March of 2004, when Barber resigned as chairman of the zoning board, the town appointed then-zoning board attorney Bryan Clenahan as chairman. Thayer was then chosen to replace Clenahan.

Clenahan had been zoning board attorney for only a few months. In July of 2003, long-time board attorney Norah Murphy resigned, but would not return calls from The Enterprise. Runion and zoning board members told The Enterprise then that they didn’t know why Murphy quit.

For a few months before her resignation, Murphy rallied residents in opposition of Edward Becker’s planning board proposal to change the lot configuration of his Animal Hospital and for the use of the YMCA’s Camp Nassau.

Becker, a veterinarian who was a planning board member at the time, is one of Murphy’s neighbors. The application was approved by the planning board in June of 2003 and was to proceed to the zoning board. But, in an unprecedented move, the entire zoning board recused itself from the proposal. The town board then approved it.

Then-chairman Barber said at the time that the whole zoning board felt uncomfortable; Murphy was also an attorney with Barber’s law firm.