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Attorney General Needs To Answer Questions Regarding PV Town Attorney
(Reprinted at the request of the author)
Dear Mr. [Putnam Valley Supervisor] Santos and Town Board Members:
As you may recall, on July 8th, the PVRCC sent a letter to you, asking that you direct the Town Attorney to seek the opinion of the New York State Attorney General as to the ethical propriety of his continued service as Town Attorney.
The reasons why we asked that the Town Board direct Mr. Zutt to seek this opinion are stated in our July 8th letter. However, in sum and substance, our concerns amount to this: Mr. Zutt still represents developers outside Putnam Valley in neighboring towns. who have projects pending in Putnam Valley. Although he may not currently be their attorney in Putnam Valley he is still responsible for protecting his client’s interests. As Town Attorney, he is drafting, or has already drafted, legislation or has otherwise recommended actions to be taken by the town government, that will affect some or all of these pending projects .
We want the Attorney General, not the Town Attorney, to tell us that Mr. Zutt can ethically perform his duties to us while he is simultaneously representing major developers with projects pending in the town, where the success of these projects may depend on town laws which the Town Attorney may be asked to draft or interpret.
We want the Attorney General, not the Town Attorney, to tell us that Mr. Zutt can ethically represent our interests without creating an appearance of impropriety, or a conflict of interest, where his advice and advocacy on behalf of the Town significantly enhances his other clients’ pending projects, to the possible detriment of Putnam Valley’s very substantial environmental interests.
We want the Attorney General, not the Town Attorney, to tell us that as long as Mr. Zutt is Town Attorney, we can confidently accept the Town Board’s and Planning Board’s assertions that its members have acted in our best interests when following Mr. Zutt’s advice and counsel.
We have received a copy of Mr. Zutt’s letter to you dated July 21st. While we appreciate that Mr. Zutt is a very experienced attorney with a broad spectrum of clients, his letter plainly avoids answering the core question we put to you and the reason why we wrote to you in the first place: to request an opinion from the Attorney General as to the propriety of Mr. Zutt’s continued representation of the Town and developers under the circumstances that presently exist in our Town.
We cannot accept Mr. Zutt’s judgment as to when recusal may be required as the solution to his ethical dilemmas. We reiterate our request that the Town Board direct Mr. Zutt to contact the Attorney General’s Office immediately in order to answer these very important questions.
Wendy M. Whetsel
President, Putnam Valley Residents’ Coalition Corp
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