For the Ulster County board of ethics, county legislator Kathy Nolan’s nighttime attempt to bring county comptroller March Gallagher around to her own way of thinking last year in the parking lot of the county office building could not have helped dispel the perception that the legislator had a conflict of interest.
The ethics board said that it decided to issue a reprimand owing to Nolan’s association with Samadhi Center, Inc. — a local not-for-profit whose board she chairs without pay — at the time the legislature was deliberating whether to award a $797,000 contract to the non-profit.
“This arrangement,” noted the board of ethics, “gives legislator Nolan a direct or indirect pecuniary interest in Samadhi contracts with the county ethics law 44-2B.”
A financial disclosure form filed by Nolan claimed that Samadhi owed $14,418.11 to the Bank of America because between April and July of 2023 Nolan had permitted the non-profit to use her personal line of credit with the bank. In the disclosure, Nolan noted that Samadhi would be “zeroing out [the balance] over the next few months with monthly payments to the bank.”
The county comptroller’s office, possessing no documentation of the loan, reported outstanding requests to the Samadhi Center which included a request for documentation of personal loans.
Reached by telephone, Nolan said, “Including interest, it was less than $20,000 in total, and they have completely paid it off.”
According to comptroller Gallagher, the impromptu parking-lot meeting went on for 25 minutes. According to Nolan, the discussion was the result of a chance meeting which started off as a casual and friendly conversation and ended abruptly when Gallagher mentioned Nolan’s relationship with Samadhi.
A few days earlier, the comptroller raised questions before the Ways and Means Committee regarding $83,000 which Samadhi had indicated was meant, in part, for the purchase of a vehicle.
Gallagher was concerned that the expenditure, $47,000 for a Toyota Highlander with leather seats and a sunroof, was included in a larger line item which “broadly mentioned transportation” along with “other expenditures to come out of it” such as rent and non-personal services.
In its reprimand of the legislator, the ethics board did note that Nolan had since 2022 almost totally recused herself from voting on or speaking about any matter involving Samadhi before the full legislature or legislative committees.
After Gallagher introduced her concerns at the Ways and Means Committee meeting, Nolan did speak, and did so over repeated attempts by the other legislators to remind her of her conflict of interest.
“Wait,” she interrupted them, agitated. “I am the one who determines whether or not I have a conflict, okay?”
Nolan admits that she was surprised that items of concern to the comptroller would have been discussed with the committee before the investigation had been completed. “I unwisely pushed back,” Nolan said. “I should have heeded their wise counsel.”
There are no financial or carceral consequences to a reprimand from the board of ethics, and an elected official tarnished in this fashion need not resign.
Six days later, after the conversation which Gallagher characterized as Nolan’s attempt to confront and chastise her in the parking lot, Gallagher conjectured in a memorandum that Nolan’s purpose had been an attempt to curtail her own ability to be transparent.
The legislator, Gallagher said, had attempted to convince her that she should want to help non-profit vendors, “and news articles can hurt non-profits.”
“Legislator Nolan objected to me saying Samadhi’s name in open committee,” continued Gallagher, “and thought I should raise our contract issues without reference to which vendor contract created the concern.”
Gallagher’s complaint, Nolan’s financial disclosures, and the board of ethics letter of reprimand of Nolan were published in an article written by Patricia Doxsey of the Daily Freeman on Friday, November 17. Doxsey reported that the documents were provided in a response to a Freedom of Information Law request.
Since January 2024, following an independent audit of Samadhi which aimed and failed to find justification for a reported $55,000 worth of improperly explained bank-card withdrawals, contracted payments from the county to the non-profit have been suspended.
Nolan represents the towns of Denning, Hardenburgh, Olive and Shandaken in the county legislature.
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