Board declines to review ethics issues over solar law

Town Board members do not expect to revisit local law governing solar installations in light of potential conflicts of interest involving several members of the town Planning Board and Zoning Board of Appeals.

The issue was raised at a meeting Monday, when resident Amanda Miller said town Ethics Board members should be given a chance to provide an opinion on whether zoning board member Jeff Irish and Chairman Scott Bergin acted improperly by participating with the town Task Force that drafted the law.

“Myself, along with many of my neighbors, would like for you to put a moratorium on the new solar law,” she said.

Irish is owner of Hudson Solar, which has an application in front of the town Zoning Board of Appeals for a 432.9-kilowatt array that would cover about two acres of a 16.1-acre parcel at 355 Wurtemburg Road, a property owned by Highway Superintendent Barry Sherrod.

Bergin has acknowledged affiliation with Hudson Solar and last year he and Irish recused themselves from a Planning Board discussion of an application for a ground-mounted array on Old Post Road.

“17-3 of the Code of Ethics prohibits acting in a way that could perhaps financially benefit (town officials),” Miller said.

Miller noted Sherrod and Irish signed their agreement for the proposed Wurtemburg Road array on Feb. 17, slightly more than three months before the town solar law was adopted. She added that information is being sought to determine whether Sherrod’s sister-inlaw, Sharon Sherrod, a town Planning Board member, played a part in the town task force in crafting the law.

Town Board members ended their discussion of the issue after being advised by attorney Warren Replansky not to talk about active ethics complaints.

“I don’t think it’s appropriate ... to discuss or otherwise engage in any of the issues that were raised in violation to the code of ethics,” he said. “I think that’s entirely up to the Ethics Board . ... These really should not be vetted in public.”

Replansky added that the town cannot have a moratorium on the solar law unless it was planning to change the regulations.

In a telephone interview last week, Irish said his role on the town task force that developed the local law was as a technical adviser and he didn’t consider his position as a zoning board member to be a conflict of interest.

“I didn’t write any of the law,” he said. “There were technical questions. I answered those . ... There were things that I suggested that they accepted, there were things I suggested that they didn’t accept, and that’s the way a task force works.”

Town Ethics Committee members have issued an opinion that Sharon Sherrod should recuse herself from discussions on the application. They wrote that the state Attorney General has issued a model code of conduct that covers someone who is married to an immediate relative of a person that benefits from an application.

Barry Sherrod said it is coincidental that his sisterin-law is on the Planning Board and consideration of using the site for a solar array came after he purchased the property in 2014.

Town Planning Board members have scheduled a 6:45 p.m. Aug. 21 public hearing at Town Hall on the proposed 432.9-kilowatt solar array.