Ethics of state ethics panel questioned

ALBANY -- The new state ethics panel held its first public meeting Tuesday amid criticism after it went into a closed-door session. The Joint Commission on Public Ethics held an executive session after an hour of meeting in public to discuss unknown matters.

Pressed by a reporter to explain why the meeting was going into closed session, commission chairwoman Janet DiFiore, who is also the Westchester County district attorney, turned to Barry Ginsberg, the former executive director of the old Commission on Public Integrity, who explained that the commission was exempt from open meetings law.

"We are following the spirit of the open meetings law," DiFiore said. "It's been my determination that there are matters that need to be discussed in executive and closed session."

One member of the 14-member commission, Ravi Batra, voted against taking the meeting behind closed doors. The executive session lasted more than an hour. The commission was created this year as part of an overhaul of state ethics law to investigate elected officials and their employees in both the executive and legislative branches and to review financial disclosure. The new commission replaced the old Commission on Public Integrity. Ginsberg's final day on the job will be Wednesday.

David Grandeau, former executive director of the New York State Lobby Commission, criticized the lack of transparency.

"There are some valid reasons to go into an executive session, but far too often I think these commissions do things that are uncomfortable to do in public . . . behind closed doors," Grandeau said to reporters following the public session of the meeting. During the open part of the meeting, DiFiore said that commissioners would be asked to sign nondisclosure forms and that they would be creating a code of conduct.

Grandeau suggested those would be topics of conversation during the executive session.

"Those are the kinds of organizational things they should be doing in public so the public can see what's on their mind," Grandeau said.

Batra declined to comment and a call to DiFiore's Westchester office was not returned.

The commission authorized DiFiore to create a selection committee to find an executive director, one of its first orders of business. DiFiore wants a recommendation to be brought before the board by the middle of next month. Batra asked to be on that committee, but there was no indication whether he would be.

Batra's inclusion on the board has drawn its own controversy because of his connections to convicted former Assemb. Clarence Norman, Jr. and to Senate Minority Leader John Sampson (D-Brooklyn). Batra told the commission Tuesday that, contrary to news reports, Sampson was not an employee of his law firm.