Levy: Legislature should check members' disclosures
Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy tours a new community outreach center in Huntington Station. (Aug. 19, 2010) Credit: Newsday /Alejandra Villa
Suffolk Executive Steve Levy Thursday called on the county legislature to examine the financial disclosure forms of its own members as part of a special committee's inquiry into the workings of the county Ethics Commission.
"We would ask again that this committee be comprehensive, evenhanded, and look at the legislative filings and resulting conflicts that have developed in recent time," Levy said in a letter to Presiding Officer William Lindsay (D-Holbrook.)
Lindsay established the special committee to examine the Ethics Commission after Newsday reported that the county ethics panel had authorized Levy to file a state disclosure form rather than the more detailed county form. Levy was required to file the state form because he was a member of the state Pine Barrens Commission. In an interview Wednesday, Levy said the letter saying he could file the state form instead of the county disclosure form was signed by the commission's executive director, Alfred Lama.
Levy said in Thursday's letter that his office had obtained the financial disclosure forms of the county legislators from "a citizen," who, in turn, had obtained them under the Freedom of Information Law. He said the filings "revealed a number of failings in the disclosure process of legislators that deserve equal scrutiny as part of any review."
Levy's letter did not name any lawmakers nor the "citizen."
Lindsay said through a spokeswoman that he must confer with counsel and the committee before commenting.
He has said the investigation will focus on the Ethics Commission and Levy's filing of the state form in place of the local form. The resolution approved by the county legislature said the aim of the legislative panel was to "review the operations and procedures of the Ethics Commission and to recommend any corrective legislation."
The full legislature voted Tuesday to hire Mineola attorney Joseph Conway, a former federal prosecutor, as counsel to the special legislative committee. The resolution said total payments to Conway would not exceed $23,500.
