A newly elected Cohoes city councilor is stepping down amid questions about his other city job.
In November, Cohoes firefighter Thomas Fiffe was elected to a four-year term on the common council. It wasn't long before rumblings began surrounding Fiffe's ability to properly represent the sixth ward's interests. Mayor Bill Keeler says Fiffe has "known for a while there's been controversy."
"I've never personally ever spoken with Tom Fiffe about the council seat, about the fire department, about anything," Keeler said. "We've never had a conversation. But he has known for a long time that the positions were incompatible. And there's the social media buzz dating back at least back to September, if not earlier."
Apparently expectations were that Fiffe would relinquish his firefighting career to serve on the council. Keeler had been monitoring the situation.
" I got paperwork in November, saying that there were a number of attorney general opinions regarding similar cases across the state where a police officer had been elected to City Council, City of Auburn, city of Glens Falls, there's another one. And in the attorney general's opinions, they said that the offices were not compatible. You could choose one or the other, but you couldn't do both," Keeler said.
Keeler adds the New York State Public Employee Relations Board opined in a case where a Glens Falls firefighter was appointed to the city council, also finding the positions to be incompatible.
"You have to choose one or the other," said Keeler. "And then the New York State Supreme Court weighed in on a similar case, and that case, it was a police officer, and they said in that case, that the moment you take the oath of office, and this was a police officer that became a councilman, that the moment he took the oath of office, he vacated his seat, his position, as a police officer. So in effect on January 1, when Councilman Fiffe was sworn in, he vacated his position as a firefighter."
The matter could have ended up in court. Gil Ethier is the Democratic Chairman of the city of Cohoes and Deputy Majority Leader of the Albany County Legislature.
"I think people knew something had to be done about they just never took the step forward to find out. They all pass the buck to somebody else, thery were saying that 'he has right to run.' 'Let's see if he wins,' then he wins. But nobody brought the question up. They all thought about the question, in the back rooms and talk like that. And then all of a sudden he gets sworn in, now people have to take action because the city, they can be held liable, in the event he was supposed to be there, and they were going to pursue getting some type of judgement from a different party. And he dropped out before they did that. He met with the corporation counselor Brian Kremer, and they had a discussion about it, and next thing I knew, he resigned. I didn't know that until the night of the meeting when he sent a letter to the council president. Council president read it off saying he resigned," said Ethier.
Keeler, a second-term Democrat, says he never tried to influence Fiffe one way or another. "It's been his choice for a long time and ultimately, and apparently he has decided that he is stepping down from the council seat," Keeler said.
Fiffe's resignation is effective January 31st.
Keeler says the council is now free to appoint someone to serve in Fiffe's place until the end of the year. "There would be a special election in November, a new sixth ward council representative would be elected. And that person would take over January 1, and fill the remaining three years on the Fiffe's term."
Fiffe did not respond to numerous requests for comment.
