Lines drawn, crossed in Milton
Supervisor’s rule changes, hirings, fiscal decisions trigger controversies in town
Scott Ostrander, a retired Ballston Spa police officer, was elected in November 2017 as the supervisor of this largely rural community of 19,000 just outside Saratoga Springs. In one of his first acts in office, he hired Arceni Polyak, another retired Ballston Spa cop, as the town’s dog catcher.
The position was budgeted for an annual salary of $31,000. Polyak is being paid $40,000.
Ostrander’s critics say the episode represents an early example of what has become business as unusual in the town administration. If a Milton resident was interested in questioning either the hiring or the boost in salary, that individual
would have to go before a town Ethics Board increasingly composed of Ostrander loyalists, or perhaps offer criticism at a meeting of the Town Board, a body that Ostrander and the town’s Republican Committee are in the process of gaining even greater control over.
In Ostrander’s first year in office, the Republican has been accused of removinga Planning Board member who supported a Democrat; placing a neighbor and a Republican Committee ally on the town Ethics Board; and hiring other friends and political insiders for town jobs.
In the latest development, two incumbents on the five-member, all-republican Town Board who have questioned Ostrander’s actions were denied the endorsement of the GOP committee for the upcoming election.
His platform
Ostrander ran on a platform of reducing costs and debt, enhancing transparency and upholding ethical standards. His commitment to ethics was especially appealing to voters who endured the exit of former supervisor Daniel Lewza in the wake of sexual harassment allegations brought by his secretary. That scandal was costly for the town, and led to accusations that some officials had worked to cover up the allegations.
But some residents say the town is in worse shape now. A mysterious $411,000 error appeared in the budget several years ago, but has never been publicly addressed. There have also been divisive fights and unanswered questions surrounding the failed purchase of the former Boyhaven camp; the development of the Hutchins Road senior housing complex; and noise emanating from a local business, Planit Salvage, that is disturbing its neighbors.
Ostrander, who is running for re-election in November, did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Not all town Republicans, however, are lending their support to his candidacy. Among them is John Olenik, a retired insurance executive who has been a close observer of town politics for dozens of years.
Ostrander “has had no major accomplishments, other than to take the town backwards by perpetuating the ‘good old boy’ cronyism that has plagued this town for years,” said Olenik, who ran for town supervisor in the late 1980s and early ’90s. “... In my 40 years of involvement with Milton government, I have not seen a more ill-equipped individual to hold the responsible seat of supervisor.”
But Frank Rossi Jr., a town Republican committee member, said Ostrander is simply taking control and doing what he thinks is right for the town.
“The thing that eats at people is that he doesn’t play by a certain set of someone else’s rules,” Rossi said. “It’s pretty refreshing to watch.”
Ostrander has certainly overturned past protocol on the town’s Ethics Board.
Traditionally, the panel recommended its members and the Town Board approved them with a required supermajority. But within two months of his first year as supervisor, Ostrander and three board members rejected the normal routine and dismissed the Ethics Board’s request to reappoint its former chair, Ryan Isachsen. (Isachsen led the inquiry into a 2017 complaint against Ostrander in which the supervisor was cleared.)
Instead, the Town Board voted in Brenda Baird, a former campaign worker for Deputy Supervisor John Frolish, a close Republican ally of Ostrander’s. The night of Baird’s appointment, two Ethics Board members, its chairman Rob Keihm and John Bory, quit in protest.
Frolish was subsequently found to have violated the town’s ethics code because he failed to recuse himself from voting on Baird’s appointment.
“The town leadership created an environment I could no longer confidently serve in, and the direction the town was being led in left me to believe ethics was merely an afterthought,” said Keihm, who said Ostrander was “stacking the deck” on ethics enforcement.
After Keihm and Bory resigned, Ostrander launched the search for new Ethics Board members by asking potential candidates to apply to him directly — an apparent violation of the town’s ethics law, which directs applicants to “submit a typed application/resume for a seat on the Town of Milton Ethics Board in a sealed envelope to the Town of Milton marked ‘Attention: Ethics Board.’ ”
In September, Ostrander nominated Tim Welch, a man who lives two houses away from him, to the Ethics Board. On the night of that vote, Ostrander insisted he wasn’t familiar with Welch: “I don’t know nothing about the guy,” the supervisor said.
Rossi said the supervisor knows most everyone in Milton, which means the appearances of conflicts might arise.
“I’m not sure how you avoid naming people you know to positions in that situation,” he said.
“It’s cronyism,” Keihm said at the time of Welch’s appointment. “The Town Board is trying to put on people who are friendly to them.”
Other issues
There have also been similar concerns regarding the Planning Board. Jim Staulter said he served a dozen years on that body. But after he put up political signs in support of a Democrat and Republican Town Board member Barbara Kerr, he was not invited back.
“I was told by the town attorney that I didn’t get reappointed because I was critical of the town government,” Staulters said.
Those who supported a plan to purchase Boyhaven were also marginalized by the Ostrander administration. Larry Woolbright, the Planning Board chair, worked for more than a year putting together the deal for the town to buy the former Boy Scout camp with funding from an anonymous donor. But at the end of 2018, Woolbright lost his chairmanship. (He’s now running for mayor of Ballston Spa.)
Town Board member Benny Zlotnick, who took over trying to seal the deal by heading the town’s Boyhaven feasibility committee, this month learned he had lost the backing of the town Republican Committee for the 2019 election. So did Kerr, Ostrander’s 2017 primary and general election opponent (running on a Reform line) in the supervisor’s race and the only other board member to regularly challenge his directives.
“I’ve been accused of grandstanding at meetings because I ask a question,” said Kerr, who must now submit a request under the state’s Freedom of Information Law in order to obtain any information about the town’s fiscal state. “I’m sorry, but to make an informative vote I have to ask questions.”
Instead of Zlotnick and Kerr, the town’s GOP committee is endorsing Zoning Board of Appeals Chair Megan Soden and Antonio Bianchi for their Town Board seats. Soden was a member of the Republican committee, but was forced to step down by the ethics panel after her appointment to the Zoning Board in April 2017.
Bianchi, a current member of the town’s Republican committee, is a slightly less conventional candidate: He’s in his senior year at Siena College.
“I believe his youth will be an asset,” Milton Republican Committee chair Anna Stanko said of Bianchi. “... His enthusiasm is contagious, and he wants what’s best for the town.”
Ostrander was initially selected by the Republican Committee in early 2017 to replace resigning Town Board member Bruce Couture. The Town Board wanted to interview candidates to fill Couture’s slot, but Lewza — then a few months from his own scandal coming to light — fought to appoint the town GOP’S pick.
“It’s a true democracy to let the Republican committee vet the replacement,” Lewza said at the time. “... Most people in Milton are Republicans.”
The Town Board, which initially voted 3-2 against the Ostrander’s appointment, then relented and added him to their ranks.
Stanko said Ostrander was selected by the party committee for his “integrity, values, commitment to our town and ability to lead.”
She bristled at the suggestion that the town GOP has anything to do with what elected officials do or the appointments they make.
“To be clear, the elected officials and the Milton GOP are two separate entities,” Stanko said. “Scott is not part of the committee; he was chosen as our endorsed candidate. Positions on planning boards et cetera have nothing to do with the committee. That is strictly a town appointment.”
Still, Ostrander’s critics say he takes actions to help the party faithful. In one example, he led the effort to override the state residency laws for town employees, allowing Ballston resident Jason Miller to keep his job as Milton’s deputy highway superintendent.
Miller, who is also the town’s building maintenance supervisor, has since been appointed to the town’s finance committee and will head the complex feasibility committee to determine the fate of a multimillion-dollar town hall project.
Miller said Ostrander is doing “an excellent job.”