Mamaroneck trustee responds to criticism of son getting village job (updated)
There’s been an interesting discussion on our forums about Mamaroneck trustee Louis Santoro’s son getting a job with the village’s Department of Public Works.
I chatted with Louis Santoro about it Monday before the village’s regular work session. He said his son was hired last week by the DPW for a part-time seasonal job cutting grass for the village. He added his son has gotten seasonal jobs for the village before too in 2005 and 2006.
“He went down, filled out an application and got interviewed like everybody else,” he said. “He’s working to pay his bills. If you want to pick on me, just don’t go after my family.”
UPDATE: Apparently this issue came up last year too and it was deemed a non-issue. Here’s the text from an email Village Manager Richard Slingerland sent to village officials on Monday:
For the record, a similar issue came up last year, with regard to summer seasonal employment, which in my understanding is a part time designation.
I reviewed the issue with then-Village Attorney Janet Insardi, and we determined that a summer seasonal employee is a part time, not full time, employee. They do not have full time benefits or standing. Therefore, we found that an employee working as a summer seasonal employee in the same department as another family member employed as a full time employee was not a violation of the Ethics Law. However, such summer seasonal employee would be ineligible for full time employment.
I spoke with the village’s Board of Ethics chair Charles Mitchell about possible conflicts about the children of elected officials getting municipal jobs. He said “Personally, I don’t see where it is a violation” because Santoro’s son is working part time and without benefits.
“I don’t think the code, from my reading, addresses anything but full time employees,” Mitchell said.
He added the ethics board will collectively review the matter next week during its regular meeting.
Santoro said he did not notify the Ethics Board prior to his son getting hired because he didn’t think it was an issue considering his son has gotten seasonal jobs before. But he did bring it to the Ethics Board once concerns were raised.
Santoro added concerns about his son getting a job are “political” to him. Currently, Republicans have a 3-2 majority on the Village Board. But party control over the board is up for grabs with 3 seats up for election in November (Trustees Toni Ryan, John Hofstetter and Marianne Ybarra).
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This article doesn’t present both sides of the issue, the situation that the Village manager references had nothing to do with an elected official. Was this opinion given in writing or is this just the recollection of the Village manager? How can we now check,the new Board immediately fired the nonpartisan attorney.
The simple fact is that the law talks about not allowing an elected official to hire an employee on a “full time” basis. The ethics law says nothing about seasonal or temporary employment. Mr. Santoro’s son works 40 hours a week which qualifies under civil service law as full time. To be part time he would have to work less then 20 hours a week. I personally have nothing against Mr. Santoro’s son and I am sure he is a fine young man. This is about following the law not about personalities.
This law was passed to guard against impropriety or the appearance of impropriety. The appointment of a trustee’s son fails on both fronts. The Village Manager should have known better.