Town of Oyster Bay announces ethics reforms

<p>Oyster Bay Town Supervisor Joe Saladino announced a slew of ethics reforms on Tuesday.</p>

News 12 Staff

Jul 13, 2017, 2:31 AM

Updated 2,644 days ago

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Oyster Bay Town Supervisor Joe Saladino announced a slew of ethics reforms on Tuesday, including the creation of an inspector general to oversee contracts.
The changes come just weeks after several former officials and contractors with ties to the town were charged with corruption. Oyster Bay has banned Carlo Lizza and Sons Paving from doing future work for the town. It also decided to terminate the one current town employee named in the indictment. And Saladino says the board will create an inspector general position to oversee the town's contracting process.
Democrat Marc Herman, Saladino's likely challenger in the upcoming town supervisor race, says he actually proposed an inspector general for the town last month at a news conference where Saladino intervened.
Herman and Saladino are now accusing one another of playing politics with the issue of ethics reform.
"When you have a one-party system, whether it's Republican, Democrat or independent, it's not healthy, and these kinds of things happen," Herman says.
"We're not going to be bothered by people on the outside who, quite frankly, want the town to fail for their own political reasons," Saladino says.
Oyster Bay’s Republican-controlled board decided to install an inspector general in a split from practices in the GOP-controlled Nassau County Legislature and the Town of Hempstead, where officials have argued that the position is not necessary.