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Editor’s note: The Woodside Town Council agreed to a settlement with Nancy Reyering, paying $35,000 to cover her legal fees, on Nov. 14, 2017.
Before an audience of six or seven Woodside residents on Feb. 14, the Town Council put its equivalent of an “Investigation closed” stamp on an ethics complaint launched by former councilman Dave Burow, who was in the audience, against a former member of the Architectural and Site Review Board, Nancy Reyering, who was not.
A 41-page report by an outside attorney recommended that the council sustain five of Mr. Burow’s nine allegations against Ms. Reyering, but the council voted 4-0 to follow a recommendation by Mayor Tom Livermore to take “no further action.”
“No one really wants to continue this matter at all, despite what the local papers might say,” Mayor Livermore said, in introducing the topic. “I really think it’s time to put an end to this discussion. … I urge my fellow members as strongly as I can to accept my recommendation, and I know that some of you might have a difference of opinion with respect to that.”
Three council members were absent: Anne Kasten, Peter Mason and Dave Tanner.
Mr. Burow’s complaint concerned a May 2016 email Ms. Reyering sent to two other members of the architectural review board and the planning director ahead of a review of a residential construction project. Mr. Burow said the email violated the town’s ethics code by, among other things, suggesting “a different set of rules” for evaluating projects involving council members — Mr. Mason was the project architect — and reaching a conclusion about the project before hearing testimony.
Mr. Livermore said he based his recommendation on Ms. Reyering’s decision not to reapply for terms on the review board or the Open Space Committee (her terms on both expired in February) and that, unlike Mr. Burow, she would not make herself available for a public hearing.
In addressing an ethics code violation, the code requires that the report be presented to the council at a public meeting. “The Town Council will accept testimony on the matter and determine whether a violation of the Code has occurred,” the code says. The council “may impose sanctions on elected or appointed officials” if it determines that a violation has occurred.
In response to a question from Councilman Daniel Yost, an attorney, as to whether the council would violate this code by dropping the matter without making a determination, Town Attorney Jean Savaree noted that the council had the authority to proceed as the code dictates, but added that since Ms. Reyering was no longer on the review board, the council had no authority to impose sanctions.
Asked in an interview if the council acted properly, Mr. Yost said the ethics code addresses a category of people elected and appointed officials and town staff and that the sentence in the code requiring the council to determine whether a violation occurred is inapplicable to persons no longer in that category.
Ms. Savaree, when asked later about the applicability of this sentence, said she would not address questions not posed by the council. The council had the authority to close the investigation, she said.
In his report, Mayor Livermore asked the council to re-examine the ethics code and enforcement procedures “to explore ways in which we can improve it should complaints be filed in the future,” and to emphasize the importance of ethics training for all elected and appointed officials.
Testimony
In a statement, Mr. Burow said that Ms. Reyering’s email was “unambiguous and clearly in violation of the Town’s Code of Conduct.” He said he did not ask for an investigation or her removal from the board, but he said the town acted correctly in investigating Ms. Reyering, given her reaction.
Asked in an interview to elaborate, Mr. Burow said Ms. Reyering could have apologized. “All she’s doing is trying to blame others for a mistake that she made,” he said. “Nobody said, ‘Take her off the board and send her to Siberia.'”
Mr. Burow said he agrees with many of Ms. Reyering’s causes, but not with her methods. She could have filed her own ethics complaint, he said. “If she really wanted to change the world, she should find a way to work within the system,” he said.
In her statement, Ms. Reyering disputed Mr. Burow’s claim, noting that Ms. Savaree told the council that the investigation proceeded as it did because Mr. Burow “had insisted I be removed.”
In her remarks, Ms. Savaree said that in the two formal complaints the town has received over time, a category that includes the complaint against Ms. Reyering, both complainants were “seeking the removal of the individual” because he or she had allegedly violated the code of ethics.
Responding to Mr. Burow’s suggestion of an apology, Ms. Reyering said in an email she was unaware of the complaint until the process had begun. “Had the Mayor — Deborah Gordon, at the time — properly handled the matter by reaching out to me and informing me of the complaint, I agree with Mr. Burow that this matter could and should have been dealt with informally.”
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The original story incorrectly attributed Town Attorney Jean Savaree’s remarks on the insistence that the formal complaint against Ms. Reyering be followed through to its conclusion as having been made to Ms. Reyering when they were, in fact, made to the Town Council.
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