Bill Details Costs of Ethics Complaints

The bill for two ethics complaints that came before the Town Council has been made public; if you want to see it in its entirety, click on it  in the photo box that accompanies this story.

The bill for the first complaint came to $8,473.50. Board of Assessment Appeals Chairman Rosetta Jones had charged member Ann Mattson with an ethics violation; Mattson was censured.

The bill for the second was $10,290. Candy Buebendorf and Gary Murphy brought a complaint against Jones. Buebendorf and Murphy are members of the Town Council, but brought the action as private citizens. They ended up dropping their complaint.

To read about the complaints, click . To read Jones's response, click .

Council Chairman Donna Jacobson said Tuesday that, according to her research, these ethics complaints were the first that have gone all the way through to the council.

“What you’re seeing is the aspect of making sure that everything is being done properly,” so that future councils have a good foundation, should they receive ethics complaints in the future.

“We’re basically setting a precedent,” Jacobson said. She said she tried to “create and keep as much of a paper trail as possible, to make sure these costs aren’t as high, should this happen again.”

“That was my focus from Day 1,” she said.

The reason that the second action was more costly than the first, she said, was that since Buebendorf and Murphy are councilors, she felt that Town Attorney Bruce Chudwick, and not the town council, should interview them. In addition to the time Chudwick spent interviewing them, there were costs for his travel time and preparation, Jacobson said.

Buebendorf, listed on the bill, said that she had been given just about 24 hours’ notice about the meeting with Jones, and could not reschedule a commitment already set for that time. 

“I called Bruce to find out what the purpose of the meeting was,” Buebendorf said. “and it was that phone conversation that prompted Gary (Murphy) and me to withdraw our complaint, because in that conversation Bruce raised the specter of a long, drawn-out hearing.”

She said that she had had no idea what the costs of the complaint would be.

“After the fact, when we found out what the costs were, I think I was almost flabbergasted that it was that high, considering how little had been done,” she said.

“I understand that there hadn’t been a process in a long time, but I don’t understand why the same level of activity had to take place for the second one.”

Billy Caron, also noted on the bill, said that he had called to find out what to expect with the ethics complaint, as the council had never really had one.