A power struggle within Ulster County government has landed on next week's ballot and one party to the dispute has asked the public to settle the matter. The hassle concerns the county's bean counter-in-chief, Comptroller March Gallagher, whose office audits the other branches of local government. Since information is power (and numbers are pure information) Gallagher has it in spades.

The Comptroller's objections go to Proposition 2 and what she alleges is disparate treatment of her office concerning outside income, line of succession and residency requirements.

Proposition 2, if passed, would revise the County Charter to codify Local Law 17 which, among other things 1) limits the comptroller to three full terms in office and requires they have been county residents for two years, 2) forbids the Comptroller from any other “compensated employment,” 3) gives the Legislature veto power over the order of succession to the office when the comptroller is unable to function and 4) restricts the order of succession to county residents.

WONK ALERT: Like the man said, two things one should never have to witness are the making of legislation and of sausage. Proceed with caution.

Proposition 2 has roots in Ulster's Charter Revision Commission, an 11-member body which considers changes to the County Charter, thus dictating the structure and functions of county government. Five CRC members are appointed by the county executive, three each by the majority and minority leaders of the Legislature. The CRC convenes at least every 10 years, most recently in September 2022, meeting regularly through September 2023, when it issued a final report.

The CRC has advisory power only, however, and the report's recommendations concerning the comptroller's succession differ from those embodied in Proposition 2. The CRC's final report says nothing about legislative veto power over the succession. Neither does it require the comptroller to have been a county resident for two years prior to running for the office.

Whatever alchemy transformed the CRC's work went down in the County Legislature's Laws, Rules & Government Services Committee, whose job it was to review the CRC's recommendations and formulate proposed law based on them for the Legislature as a whole to approve or not.

Laws & Rules first met to consider the report on Oct. 12 of last year, then-Legislator Jonathan Heppner (D-Woodstock) as chair, Kevin Roberts (R-Plattekill ) as deputy chair, John Gavaris (D-Ellenville), then-Legislator Ken Ronk (R-Wallkill) and Aaron Levine (D-Saugerties) as members; then-Legislature Chair Tracey Bartels and Comptroller Gallagher were also present. Audio of the meeting shows Bartels as a major presence, speaking regularly, forcefully but always collegially — including numerous exchanges with Gallagher about her office and others.

Discussion of the comptroller occurred late in the meeting and centered on a four-year residency requirement for the office. “I really need to think about it,” Bartels told the room. “And it's not just that the comptroller is sitting here.” Comparing and contrasting the requirement with that of the county executive's, she continued, “But the role of the comptroller ... I'm not sure that I'm as vested in that person having lived here for four years. They're super qualified. So I really need to think about it, not that we don't have the talent here and we are very happy with our comptroller. Hope you stay comptroller for a long time. It's just not about the personality. But I don't know that I want to limit the pool necessarily for that office.”

Regarding the comptroller's line of succession, Gallagher told the committee: “I have no problem with submitting a line of succession to the legislature. I do have grave concerns over the requirements of the acting deputy or the acting comptroller to have lived in the county for four years, and I can tell you right now that would blow away my succession plan right now. My succession plan right now is Alicia DeMarco. She's been trying to buy a house in Ulster County since the day she took her job. She can't afford to do it, and she would not be able to be appointed acting comptroller in my absence. … So I really think that this would be damaging to the office. But I have no problem sending the succession plans to the legislature. I like that idea.”

No definitive action was taken on the proposals until Laws & Rules met again on the following week when, per the meeting's minutes, “Comptroller Gallagher advised the members that her succession plan would not be viable because as written in the CRC’s recommendation individuals had to be qualified electors at the time the plan is filed. She added that she had no problem with someone being required to move into the county to take office but objected to the requirement to be on the list of succession.”

“Chair Bartels restated her reasons for supporting a shorter residency requirement for Comptroller than for the Executive,” the minutes state. “Legislator Ronk commented that four years, which is the term of office, was not an unreasonable requirement. The members discussed a shorter residency requirement and took an informal vote of their preference: two years: Bartels, Heppner & Levine; 4 years: Gavaris & Ronk. The members agreed to amend the section to require a two-year residency requirement.”

On the matter of an incumbency requirement, the minutes note: “Comptroller Gallagher questioned the requirement that the person be incumbent in county government. Legislator Ronk stated that as long as they were a county resident, he did not feel they needed to be incumbent in county government. The members agreed to the change.”

The committee returned briefly to the matter of residency until Gavaris “commented that the conversation has moved to a situation where they are talking about the people and not the position, adding he supports the qualified elector language. Chair Heppner asked for the will of the committee. Legislator Ronk stated that he offers removing the incumbent in county government requirement but leaves the qualified elector provision. Chair Bartels stated she was inclined to agree. They agreed to give it some more thought.”

Kingston Wire found no record of further discussions, nor did we find a Laws & Rules Committee vote related to the comptroller's office. Still, at the committee's next meeting, the committee approved a resolution to have a public hearing on Local Law 17 before the legislature on Dec. 6. Public interest (and awareness, probably) was such that only one person showed up to speak on it, veteran former legislator and a CRC member, Fawn Tantillo, a Republican, who opposed the measure.

“The fact that you are pushing through huge changes to the [county] planning board, which I have to tell you, we have a remarkable planning board, and that you're not grandfathering in the deputy comptroller,” Tantillo said. “To me, it's just appalling. I know that can't be what most of you want to do in your hearts. So I urge all of you to take some time so that it's very clear and it's very transparent about what you're changing. The way you've gone about this is confusing ... and I think you at least need to hold another public hearing on 17 because there's substantive changes.”

Tantillo pleaded to no avail. On Dec. 18 the legislature met and unanimously agreed to place 17, with the language Gallagher complained of, on this November's ballot.

(Regarding the Ulster County Planning Board, Gallagher points to the legislature's reluctance to make changes that would have given the county executive greater power over the board as evidence of disparate treatment. As Proposed Law 16, those changes were voted down at a Dec. 21 special legislative session.)

Ken Ronk stands behind Laws & Rules’ work. “I heavily support the line of succession language,” he told Kingston Wire. “I believe that it should be the same way for the county executive. ... It's a check and balance on the comptroller's office in that the Legislature has a say on her line of succession. It's not like somebody else is picking her line of succession. It's just she submits it and the legislature can confirm it or not. The other part of it is it restricts her from being able to put somebody from outside of Ulster County in her line of succession. But to me, that's like, you know, a no-brainer. We've had deputy comptrollers, two of them from Albany and one from Dutchess County. I'm not sure if she's ever until now had a Deputy Comptroller from Ulster County.”

March Gallagher, unsurprisingly, has a much different take. When asked to expound on her public letter's speculation that Proposition 2 may be “an attempt to undermine the independence of the Comptroller’s Office for reasons that remain unclear?” she wrote back: “Because they want to be able to control the office in some way. Through a succession plan. Or through residency. But why? I don’t know. So that I answer to them in some way. I actually believe these changes were supposed to apply to the executive too but ‘never made it in’ to the resolution.”

And while everyone involved asserts the dispute is strictly business, not personal, it's clear there are bruised feelings involved.

“Ken Ronk made a bunch of changes that hurt my deputy ... and at one point proposed residency requirements knowing she lived in Dutchess County,” Gallagher wrote to Kingston Wire. “It was brutal. She has since left county service, a great sharp CPA who was on to [disgraced former county finance commissioner] Burt Gulnick's shit. She had worked for former Comptroller Elliott Auerbach then she went private sector. While she was out of county service she uncovered a $1 million embezzlement. I brought her back to the county and she was treated very poorly.”

(Kingston Wire notes, with some dismay, that Proposition 2 appears on the ballot with no detailed description of Local Law 17, only glossing it as “revised Charter language and additions.” We understand the space limitations but it does leave the electorate in the dark.)