Did you know that despite all of the development going on in the Town of Colonie, there is nothing requiring project developers to disclose their political contributions to town officials on their applications?
Neighboring towns, notably Clifton Park, have Ethics Committees that meet regularly throughout the year, and follow good government practices such as requiring ethics disclosure forms to be submitted along with any site plan or subdivision application.
These tools provide the public transparency about political connections between developers and others seeking to do business with the Town. This transparency can prevent misuse of taxpayer dollars, favoritism in decision making, conflicts of interest, and a “pay to play” environment.
It is not against the law for companies or individuals doing business in the Town to contribute to politicians who run for office there. However, these contributions can create a real or perceived sense of a “pay to play” environment in town government. If Town officials do not voluntarily decline such contributions, more must be done to increase transparency around these contributions during the planning and development process.
In Clifton Park, every time a person or company submits a site plan or subdivision plan application to the planning department, they must fill out a stack of forms. Along with environmental assessments and engineering plans, the town requires an ethics form be completed in order for every application to be deemed complete. This form asks questions about campaign contributions from the applicant to any town officials in the previous five years, and it asks for disclosure of any town employee that may have an interest in the projects.
Some of this information is available if one goes searching and digging on the New York State Board of Elections website. But the Clifton Park form provides an important service to the town taxpayers and planning department. It puts the onus on the applicant to disclose the information again right there, along with their application, so that it is easy to find. Of course, town employees would need to check to ensure the accuracy of the data, but it is an important first step. Second, while some of the information in the second question about town employee interests in projects could be found through town employee ethics disclosures, again, this information should be provided in a forthcoming way directly to the planning department. Furthermore, due to the use of LLCs for financial reasons for many development projects, it is not always simple to see who is actually involved in a project. By affirmatively asking for this information, the town can be sure it understands where conflicts of interests might arise. This is the town doing its job for the taxpayers.
Unfortunately, here in the Town of Colonie, we have no such disclosure requirement. Town residents are left to wonder about the connections between project applicants and town officials. Taxpayers can see that there are significant contributions from the development community to town officials, such as the current Town Supervisor, but there is no required disclosure at the time they submit their application to the planning and economic development department.
As you can see, running for Town Supervisor is expensive. Elections over the last decade have required candidates to raise tens of thousands of dollars to put their names and ideas out there for consideration of the voters . This is not new or unique. But where those dollars come from is important to how the person who wins the election, and presumably would like to run for re-election two years later, will govern.
The taxpayers have a right to understand the connections and real or possible conflicts of interest that exist in development projects being evaluated by town officials. How are contributions fueling campaigns influencing the views and decisions of town officials and the boards they appoint and employees they hire? What kind of unconscious bias does this set our town officials up for? By having “Friends of” committees stacked full of developers, consultants and other professionals who appear before the town for development and other project contracts, how are town officials influencing or limiting their own decision making ability? And, how can the town do a better job of preventing real or perceived conflicts of interest and ethical issues? Should Colonie be adopting a form like the one Clifton Park is using? Should Ethics Committee meeting minutes be available for the public to review? What other best practices can be used in Colonie to improve transparency and reduce concerns about “pay to play”?
When SAVE Colonie issued questionnaires to all candidates running for town-wide offices this year, one of the questionnaires was focused on ethics issues. The questionnaire asked candidates about these exact issues. To date, the only response SAVE has received has been from George Scaringe, candidate for Town Supervisor. No other candidates have responded. Check back on the blog soon for his response, unfortunately alone, since no one else running for Supervisor or Town Board bothered to reply and speak to these important issues.
Until then, here is an example of the kind of contributions that create a perceived or real conflict or bias. Below are corporate/business contributions to Friends of Paula Mahan, the election committee for the current Town Supervisor, for the last year or so.
