Displaying items by tag: Milton, Barbara Kerr, Scott Ostrander, Shannon Doherty, ethics, Women's Republican Club

A campaign sign for Councilwoman Barbara Kerr at the intersection of Northline Road and Rowland Street in Milton. Photo by Larry Goodwin. 

MILTON – Months after citing the town’s Code of Ethics in the appointment of a woman to the Zoning Board of Appeals, Milton Councilwoman Barbara Kerr is fending off a more recent ruling against her for violating the same code. 

On Aug. 2, the Milton Ethics Board issued a formal ruling that Kerr’s membership in the Saratoga County Republican Committee—Women’s Republican Club, as a sitting member of the Milton Town Board, violated section 14-15 of the ethics code.

The ruling stated that Kerr “should attend ethics training as well as make a statement publicly acknowledging the violation, its background, her former and current status with this organization, and the determination of the Ethics Board on this matter.” 

The town board is not required to act on any formal ethics board rulings. It did not vote to take action against Kerr at its Aug. 16 meeting, despite some heated discussion of the matter.* 

Kerr stated this week that she has since resigned from the Women’s Republican Club. She is seeking to replace Milton Supervisor Dan Lewza in a November election, but must first win a Sept. 12 primary to qualify.

The town’s Republican Committee has endorsed Councilman Scott Ostrander for supervisor. 

In April, Kerr had raised concerns about the town board’s vote to appoint Megan Soden, a previously active member of the Republican Committee, to the Milton zoning board.

Soden ended up resigning from her position on the committee and now serves each month in the review of various construction projects in Milton. 

Shannon Doherty is one of nearly 30 Republican Committee members in Milton. It was Doherty who filed the formal ethics complaint against Kerr after media reports surfaced about Soden’s appointment.

Doherty made two other allegations against Kerr under separate sections of the ethics code. They were related to her role as former director of the Ballston Spa Senior Citizen’s Club, which is provided with thousands of dollars annually by the town board. A related vote took place on January 14, involving $15,000.

The club’s director position is volunteer and not compensated, according to the ethics board ruling. Kerr resigned from that position on May 30, and the board found “no violation” of code sections 14-7 and 14-11 had occurred.

Still, according to the ethics board, Kerr “should have stated her position with the club at the time of the resolution in the spirit of public confidence, government transparency and perception of impropriety.”

“Given the need for integrity and transparency by our elected representatives, I find Ms. Kerr’s actions and excuses to be very disappointing and unacceptable for our great town,” Doherty asserted in an Aug. 12 statement on the ethics ruling.

“If I made a mistake, I made a mistake,” Kerr said in response. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s a political witch hunt. If I wasn’t running for supervisor, it wouldn’t have come up.”

[* Due to an editing error, these two sentences were mistakenly omitted from the print copies of Saratoga TODAY.]   

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