The Town of North Hempstead will collect financial disclosure statements from town political party leaders for the first time this year.
The town has never before collected the forms from town party leaders — including Gerard Terry, the Roslyn Heights resident who stepped down as the town Democratic chairman this month — Town Attorney Elizabeth Botwin said, despite a provision in the town code requiring the “town chairman or leader of a town committee of a party” to file them.
“It’s our law, we must comply, and we will comply,” Botwin said in an interview.
The decision to collect the forms came at the direction of Town Supervisor Judi Bosworth, Botwin said.
Bosworth ordered a review of town policies and procedures after a Newsday report revealed last month that Terry, who until recently was the attorney for the town’s Board of Zoning Appeals and special counsel for the town attorney, owes more than $1.4 million in federal and state back taxes, has been party to five lawsuits and let his attorney registration lapse for three years.
The town never collected financial disclosure statements from Terry, the head of the North Hempstead Democratic Committee from 2007 until he resigned Feb. 1 except for a brief period, or any other party leader, Botwin said.
“Last month the supervisor directed me to have all the party leaders in the town file financial disclosure forms, so we’re starting to implement that in this year for the 2015 calendar year filing,” she said.
Pursuant to state law, North Hempstead adopted a code of ethics in December 1990, the online version of the town code says.
Section 16A-7 outlines who is required to submit the town’s financial disclosure statement each year, including elected officials, candidates for town office, purchasing and contract officers, department heads and their deputies, in addition to party leaders.
The form requires filing officials to report financial interests, outside employment, debts, investments and other information for themselves and their spouse and children.
The North Hempstead ethics board is investigating Concetta Terry, Gerard Terry’s wife and a deputy town clerk, for allegedly omitting her husband’s tax debts from her financial disclosure records.
None of her disclosure reports from the 2006 calendar year list Gerard Terry’s tax warrants or liens, though she did report her and her husband’s outstanding auto loans.
Newsday’s Jan. 30 report said Gerard Terry amassed the tax debt since 2000.
State records show his first state tax warrant for $60,166.21 was issued in early 2007.
The town financial disclosure form requires filers to report all debts in excess of $5,000.
Asked if the requirement of party officials to file the forms will create any new safeguards, Botwin said, “Financial disclosure increases transparency and brings important information to light, so it will necessarily have that effect.”
The town ethics board met Monday to review Concetta Terry’s omission from her financial disclosure forms.
The town code calls for a civil penalty of up to $10,000 if a filer “knowingly and willfully with intent to deceive makes a false statement or gives information which such individual knows to be false” on a disclosure statement.
Firing employees is not listed within the ethics board’s powers in the town code.
Trottere declined to comment on what implications the omission has for Concetta Terry’s employment with the town and whether the town would fire her if the ethics board finds she violated town code.
Gerard Terry’s town contract expired at the end of 2015 and was not renewed, town officials have said. He is no longer employed as the zoning board attorney or as special counsel to the town.
Terry, a longtime Democratic political operative, also ended his legal jobs with the Democratic commissioner of the Nassau County Board of Elections, the Roosevelt library board and the Long Beach Housing Authority after stepping down as the town party chair.
He has blamed his tax issues on “Type-A workaholic compulsion with self-denial and truly catastrophic health issues,” and said in a statement last month he is working with the Internal Revenue Service to repay the $1.2 million he owes in federal taxes.
Gary Lewi, a Terry family spokesman, declined to comment for this story.
Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas has said she is investigating Terry’s tax issues and public jobs.
