It didn’t take long for the newly constituted Joint Commission on Public Ethics to stir up controversy at its first meeting – less than an hour, in fact.
Our Glenn Blain reports:
The trouble started when
Commission Chairwoman Janet DiFiore
, after dispensing with several routine matters on the agenda, moved for an executive session – thereby forcing the public and members of the media out of the room.
“There are some matters that require confidentiality,” said DiFiore,
(pictured right)
who is also Westchester’s district attorney.
(Don’t say the Daily Politics didn’t warn you! – CK)
DiFiore did not go into detail about what those matters were, but they seemed to include a code of conduct and a non-disclosure agreement that members must sign.
Despite protests from reporter Michael Gormley of the Associated Press and claims by DiFiore that she intended to abide by the “spirit” of open meetings law, spectators were ultimately cleared from the room.
“Those are the kinds of organizational things that they should be doing in public so that the public can see what’s on their minds,” said
, the former executive director of the Lobbying Commission
(pictured right)
, who was on hand for the first meeting.
Grandeau, who at one point referred to the meeting as a “dog and pony show,” also slammed DiFiore for allowing Barry Ginsburg – the executive director of the now-defunct and much-maligned Commission on Public Integrity – to sit in on and help run JCOPE’s first meeting.
“You don’t give an arsonist your barbecue,” he said.
DiFiore, during the public portion of the meeting, announced Ginsburg had already resigned his post and that she would be forming a search committee to find a new executive director.
“We have an enormous amount of work ahead of us,” DiFiore said.
Commission member Ravi Batra –
the panel’s most controversial member
– seemed eager to make an impression on the group. He frequently chimed in on matters up for discussion and, most glaringly, handed over a $1,000 donation to a stop hunger charity in the middle of the meeting.
Batra also told his fellow commission members that state Senate Minority Leader John Sampson – who appointed him to JCOPE — was not a partner or member of his law firm, despite
. Batra said Sampson was “co-counsel” in a case they are handling jointly.