Glen Cove finance committee seats unfilled

After the Republican members of the Glen Cove City Council voted down two Finance Committee appointments at a council meeting on Tuesday night, a majority of the committee’s five seats remain open nearly three months after the council approved its mission statement.

The appointees under consideration were retired math teacher Michael Swirnoff and Theresa Moschetta, an insurance executive and a 13-year member of the Zoning Board of Appeals who ran unsuccessfully for City Council in 2014 as a Democrat.

Councilwoman Pamela Panzenbeck was the only Republican to vote in favor of the appointments, although she cast her vote after the resolution to approve them had already failed. Democrats Marsha Silverman and Mayor Tim Tenke both voted in favor of the candidates.

Councilman Michael Zangari later explained his vote to the Herald Gazette: “The people who were being put on [the committee] don’t have a financial background.” Of Moschetta, Zangari added, “We need new blood.”

Councilman Kevin Maccarone echoed Zangari’s point, adding that because the Fi-nance Committee was specifically assigned to examine the city’s procurement procedures, its members should have relevant expertise. After the meeting, Maccarone said, two members of the public who have such experience approached him and said they would be interested in joining the committee, and would have expressed interest sooner if they had known that the council was accepting resumes.

Silverman, meanwhile, said, “By voting down these qualified volunteers, council members have politicized this committee instead of doing what’s right for the community.”

During the public comment section of the meeting, Barbara Peebles, a former deputy mayor under Mayor Reginald Spinello, suggested that if the council were allowed to vote on the appointments separately, one of the candidates might have been approved.

At a pre-council meeting a week earlier, when the appointments were brought up for discussion, none of the council members raised concerns about either Swirnoff or Moschetta. Maccarone told the Herald Gazette that the appointees’ resumes were presented at that meeting, but members did not have time to read them thoroughly before the discussion.

The council had already appointed three members to the committee: Kitty Stewart, Joseph Panetta and Cynthia Kubala. Panetta has since resigned, citing a health condition.

The committee’s mission statement — which the council approved in May — authorizes it to “evaluate, generate and recommend financing strategies, both short and long term.” The statement specifically cites the city’s procurement procedures as a subject the committee should tackle. No other topics are mentioned, although an “including, but not limited to” clause suggests that the committee may explore other issues at the direction of the mayor and council, and “under the guidance of the City Controller.”

The controller, Sandra Clarson, citing her 13 years of experience conducting audits in the New York City comptroller’s office, said that procurement has been a top priority for her, adding, “I have proactively discussed many initiatives with both [former] Mayor Spinello and Mayor [Tim] Tenke, and implemented improved procurement policies with our employees to ensure quotes are received and documented.” She also noted that she was looking into obtaining software that would “expedite the purchase requisition process.”

Clarson said she had discussed with Tenke the possibility of hiring a purchasing agent, clerk and attorney, which would “allow us to continue improving our procurement efforts for the benefit of Glen Cove taxpayers.”

Tenke agreed with Clarson on the importance of procurement, but said that the existing policy — which Clarson implemented in March 2017, detailed in a three-page document — was not “adequate.” “The state has [a procurement policy] that’s, like, 25 pages,” Tenke said. “I don’t know how long ours is going to be, but it’ll be at least comprehensive enough to make sure that it’s sufficient going forward in the future.”

In the 2017 election, Silverman won her seat in part because of the aggressive financial reforms she campaigned on. Since her inauguration in January, she has pushed the council in working meetings to establish a finance committee.

Silverman said that the committee’s limited scope concerned her. Procurement, she said, is “a reasonable place to start,” adding that she hoped the committee would eventually be authorized to address financial practices she frequently brings up at council meetings, including a multi-year financial plan.

Asked whether he would like to see the scope of the committee’s work expanded down the line, Tenke said, “Probably, yes, but I won’t know until I see what kind of product they put out.”

The committee’s limited scope was a result of the concerns, he said, of the Republican-majority council “that the Finance Committee was going to overstep its bounds and move into areas that either the mayor or the controller are responsible for.”

Asked whether committee members could be given access to the city’s computers to avoid having to use Clarson as an intermediary — a role that she has said in the past would create more work for her already stretched-thin staff — she replied that that was not an option, and that “the integrity and security of our system is my first concern.”