Reproduced with permission of The Scarsdale Inquirer.

© 2004 S.I. Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Published in The Scarsdale Inquirer on Friday, September 24, 2004

By LAURIE SULLIVAN

The Greenburgh Board of Ethics will soon decide whether Town Supervisor Paul Feiner violated the town ethics code by accepting campaign contributions from two donors who both had applications pending before the town.

The code prohibits elected officials from "soliciting" monetary donations from any party "who has an application pending for a permit, variance, change of zoning ... or other material benefit not available as a matter of absolute right from the town ...."

In e-mails Tuesday and Wednesday to the Inquirer, Feiner said he had drafted a letter to the ethics board, and planned to send it by the end of this week or early next week. He declined to forward a copy of the letter to the paper, saying it was being revised.

Feiner's board of elections disclosure statement filed July 15 lists donations that might violate the town ethics code, more than previously disclosed. The Inquirer's numerous phone calls to the supervisor's office to discuss these donations were unreturned.

One of the two questionable donations the ethics board will consider is a March 29 $1,000 contribution from developer Michael D'Alessio, who is building a house at 42 Round Hill Round, Edgemont and has been embroiled in a bitter battle with neighbors over removing trees before he received an approved permit. Twelve days before D'Alessio contributed to Feiner's campaign, on March 17, the residents of Round Hill Road appealed D'Alessio's tree permit, which was by law to be decided by the town board which Feiner heads.

Feiner said he had been unaware that these contributions represented a conflict. However, one of the provisions of the ethics code, which was adopted by the town board April 10, 1991 (more than a year and a half before Feiner was first elected supervisor), is that all elected officials in Greenburgh receive a copy of the code when they are sworn in. The law requires that anybody nominated for office within the town also receive a copy of the ethics code. Once sworn in, "Each officer, employee and agency member shall acknowledge in writing by a statement filed of public record in the office of the town clerk that he has received a copy of this code."

In an interview with the Inquirer last week, Feiner said he was introduced to D'Alessio at the March fundraiser. "Nobody told D'Alessio not to make the contribution," he said.

Feiner told the Inquirer last week he would contact the ethics board for a clarification on the issue and would return the money if the board tells him to. He said, "I will think about what to do" if the board is ambiguous in its findings."

The majority of the $32,000 Feiner accumulated in his campaign coffers for the first six months of the year was collected immediately before, during or after the fundraiser. Weingarten's law firm, DelBello Donnellan Weingarten Tartaglia Wise & Wiederkehr, gave Feiner $500. The DelBello firm also represents Sunrise, the assisted living developers whom Feiner was then eager to sell the old town hall to for $2.75 million - an amount some residents felt represented a "sweetheart deal."

Requests for the town to produce a copy of an appraisal, which critics of the supervisor said would prove the property was being offered at a below-market price, were denied. DelBello also represents Madison Square Garden, which is petitioning the town to build a helipad at its training facility in Greenburgh.

John Meyer Consulting, also working for Sunrise, donated $400 to Feiner's campaign on March 29.

On March 30, law partners Ruth Roth and William Null of Cuddy & Feder, who represent the developers of Castle Walk in Edgemont, each gave Feiner $250. Castle Walk was then seeking approval from the zoning and planning boards to build on a flag lot. Right after the contributions were received, the flag lot prohibition slated to be on the town board agenda was taken off and the Castle Walk flag lot was approved by the planning board before the town board could act.

Peter Gilpatric of Morristown, N.J., gave Feiner a $1,000 contribution. Gilpatric is senior vice president of LCOR, the company that is building a $300 million project, Landmark at Eastview, with many applications pending before the town board and the zoning and planning boards.

McCullough, Goldberger Staudt, LLP, attorneys for BMW, made a contribution of $750 on April 2. Shortly thereafter, it was discovered that BMW deviated from previously approved renovation plans for its showroom on Tarrytown Road. BMW failed to resubmit new plans, a violation of the Greenburgh town code. After the donation was received, the planning board agreed to hold a hearing on the matter and let BMW off the hook.

The controversy over Feiner's fundraising first came to light at a town board meeting Sept. 8 when Edgemont attorney Bob Bernstein challenged Feiner to give back the contributions from D'Alessio and from the Greenburgh Health Center (for $250), which seeks to move its facility from Knollwood Road to Tarrytown Road.

"Return the money to D'Alessio and to anyone else who gave while under the town's review," Bernstein told Feiner. "I urge you to do that in the interests of the town." Other residents called on the supervisor to review the appropriateness of contributions accepted by his campaign over the past several months.

This is not the first time Feiner has been accused of taking contributions from parties with applications before the town.

In a Feb. 26, 1999 Inquirer story, Feiner was criticized by residents for taking $4,000 in contributions for his congressional campaign from David Snyder and his wife Leslie, lawyers then representing several telecommunications companies. Feiner was also given $270 by Richard Timmons of Nextel when the town board was considering changes to the town's antenna law. In a Journal News article the same day, Catherine Lederer-Plaskett, chairman of the town's Antenna Advisory Board, was quoted as saying. "It is absolutely apparent to me that Feiner is doing the bidding of his friend [Snyder]. It's shocking to see our town being sold."

Snyder's law firm gave $1,000 to Feiner's campaign March 17 of this year.

The penalties for violating the law include forfeiture of pay, suspension or removal from office and a fine not to exceed $250 for "any officer who willfully and knowingly violates the foregoing provisions." The law also provides for any town officer from being removed from office by any town resident, by the Supreme Court or by the district attorney "for any misconduct, maladministration, malfeasance or malversation in office."

Asked if Westchester County District Attorney Jeanine Pirro might pursue the matter, spokeswoman Ann Marie Corbalis said the office declined comment. "It is our policy not to confirm or deny the existence of an investigation," she said.