Attorney presents report to Town Board on disrespectful behavior

Update in Ancram

ANCRAM — The attorney hired to investigate allegations of disrespectful behavior within the Ancram Town Hall and among its various boards and committees presented her findings at the Town Board meeting on Thursday, April 21.

The 7 p.m. board meeting was held via Zoom only, rather than in person due to an “increasing risk of COVID spread,” according to town Supervisor Art Bassin’s Ancramemail reminder of the meeting on April 19.

Bassin said the meeting “went quite well,” adding “there are two sides to this story and both were probably accurate.”

The town supervisor posted video of the attorney presenting her report and the report itself on Sunday morning, April 24.

“The attorney’s report went through all her findings and gave us an awful lot of recommendations on how to improve the situation in town,” said Bassin.

Attorney Elena DeFio Kean, of the Albany law firm Hinman Straub, interviewed roughly 20 men and women who had either complained of being mistreated or who said they had witnessed people being mistreated while either working or volunteering for the town or while going to the Town Hall for services.

“She absolutely confirmed there was a problem,” said town Councilwoman Bonnie Hundt, who added she thought Kean “did a thorough job in investigating what was asked of her.”

The issue was first brought to light by Ancram Ethics Board Chairman Jack Lindsey.

Lindsey informed the Town Board at its Jan. 20 meeting he had received 15 calls in the past year-and-a-half with complaints from residents of both sexes about the problem.

Now that Kean’s report has been presented, Lindsey told this newspaper that he feels he fulfilled his duties. He did not attend the meeting on the 21st.

“I purposely did not attend because my job was done,” he said on Friday, April 22. “I do know that the town is planning on distributing [the report] town wide… So I haven’t seen it [yet], but obviously, of course, I’ll read it.”

Lindsey said he went to the Town Board because he wanted to make sure if people felt they had been mistreated, he wanted the issue to be brought to light.

“The whole purpose of what I did was to get the town aware of what was going on and the experience of a lot of women and men who support them, and that indeed seems to be what has happened,” said Lindsey. “There were voices who weren’t comfortable to come to the Town Board directly, so I hope this serves good purpose.”

Bassin and Hundt said it did, as now the Town Board is leaning toward creating a committee to revamp its Code of Conduct and to provide a means for people who want to file complaints.

Hundt said the new Code of Conduct will likely be added to the town’s employee manual handbook.

One of the attorney’s takeaways from her investigation was that much of the poor treatment the women in Ancram had complained about was not based on gender, but rather on opposing beliefs.

“Although it is clear that some individuals reasonably felt dismissed or treated disrespectfully, it also clear that the actions of many were not intending to be rude or disrespectful and are clearly a result of a lack of communication,” wrote Kean in her conclusion. “Further, several of the issues at hand do not appear to be gender based but may be driven, intentionally or unintentionally, by political ideology.”

While Hundt acknowledged the differences in ideology among public servants, elected officials and volunteers in town causing friction “is true,” she added there have been women who have complained of being mistreated for years. She said there was also an instance “with a person who was transgender and was targeted.”

Hundt also referred to a section in the report that specifically mentioned Lindsey, in which he said a town volunteer had made “past inappropriate misogynist comments which led to a court case costing the town significant legal fees… ”

Kean wrote “there was no court case and there was only ‘one comment,’” and later recommended in a bulleted section the town should “stop responding and/or proceeding forward on complaints received from a town resident and treating it as ‘gospel’; rather, look into things before responding.”

Hundt defended Lindsey for coming forward with the complaints he received, and said the town is better off for his actions.

“I think he did us a favor by coming forward and finally getting us to acknowledge it and talk about it,” she said.

The councilwoman said she also “felt they were shooting the messenger a little bit,” in terms of how the report treated Lindsey, but overall she was optimistic that Ancram would be able to move forward.    

“I think right now we have a really positive moment for us, not that the problem has been addressed, but everyone has been put on notice and we can now move ahead with the policy we’re coming up with and if this happens in the future, people who feel they’re the victim of disrespectful behavior can feel they have a place to go to file a complaint and have it dealt with, with real clear policies and procedures,” said Hundt. “All we had before and still have really is the ethics law, but that doesn’t deal with this. It only really with deals with conflicts of interest, which is a different thing.”

One board member proposed a resolution to create a committee on respectful behavior at last week’s meeting, which Bassin said the Town Board will “consider” at its May meeting.

Kean summarized her findings with the following:

“The Town Board of Ancram should be applauded for examining this issue and affording this exploration with no impingement on the investigation,” she wrote. “While there was no finding of a violation of law or ethics, the investigation did reveal areas for potential improvement and consideration.”

To view the report and the presentation in its entirety, go to www.ancramny.org.

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