The City of Tonawanda is preparing to revamp the committee that investigates ethics complaints against city officials to bring the panel into compliance with state regulations and provide more detailed directions on how it functions.
The Tonawanda Common Council is set to disband the existing Ethics Board and then revive the board with an additional member, new term lengths and new guidance on how members will handle complaint investigations.
Council members reviewed the proposals last week but aren't expected to approve them until the next regular Common Council meeting in April.
"It's a formality – it's something that we need to do," Council President Jenna Koch said.
The Ethics Board was formed a decade or so ago, Koch said. Since 2015, the Ethics Board has investigated only a handful of cases, she said, and the current members who were appointed in January 2020 have not been called to investigate any complaints.
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Three former members of the Ethics Board in 2018 investigated Tonawanda Mayor Rick Davis after someone sent a letter asking the board to look into eight allegations against him, including his use of a city credit card and the city's hiring of his brother as a contractor, according to a WKBW-TV report.
Davis denied any wrongdoing and the board did not find evidence of ethics violations. City officials said the proposed Ethics Board changes don't stem from that investigation into Davis.
City Attorney S. Michael Rua said discussion about revamping the Ethics Board traces back to late last fall, when board chairman Christopher Fisher filed a Freedom of Information Law request seeking copies of emails sent among Common Council members and Davis.
Rua said his office was asked to review the propriety of the request because Fisher filed it in his capacity as board chair. His research determined city policy barred the Ethics Board from launching its own investigations of Tonawanda officials and, instead, it must rely on a referral from the mayor or Common Council before proceeding, Rua said.
Rua said the public records request was rejected on those grounds. Fisher was free to file the request again on his own behalf but he never did, according to the city attorney.
This series of events led city officials to delve further into the functions, powers and duties of the Ethics Board. They determined the board was in violation of state law because its members didn't include a municipal employee and decided it was a good time to further amend its operations.
"It's a simple fix," Rua said.
To start, the Common Council would abolish the board, which has three members, and name four interim members to the board whose terms would run out at the end of 2021.
The four would include the three current board members – Fisher, Joseph Kancar, Karen Carman – and Tonawanda Police Chief William Strassburg II, the required city employee.
The new Ethics Board regulations also make clear the Common Council would appoint the board chair instead of leaving it up to board members. Strassburg will serve as chair through the end of the year.
Starting in January, new Ethics Board members will serve two-year terms, instead of four-year terms, to align their terms with those of the Common Council members who represent the city's four wards, Koch said.
The new policy language preserves the requirement that the mayor or council refer a complaint to the Ethics Board for investigation but adds the provision that city police or Erie County prosecutors also will review each complaint to determine if it is a criminal matter. Rua said that under the current format the board has received complaints of which Tonawanda police aren't aware.
Also, Rua said, the city will require complaints in writing to prompt an investigation, although the filer's identity can be kept confidential.
Unfounded complaints still won't be made public, the city attorney said, but if the Ethics Board determines a complaint is founded and issues an advisory opinion to the Common Council, this would become a matter of public record, Rua said.
The Common Council tabled the Ethics Board resolutions at a recent meeting because members raised a concern about the board deadlocking in a tie because it has an even number of members. The council could opt to add a fifth member, or perhaps more, Rua said.
