Terry’s exit leaves no shoes to fill

Noah Manskar

The Town of North Hempstead will no longer contract with outside lawyers to advise its Zoning Board of Appeals, bringing it in line with Nassau County’s two other townships.

The town issued a request for proposals in February to replace Gerard Terry, former North Hempstead Democratic Committee chairman, as the zoning board’s legal adviser, but “we are not issuing a contract,” a town spokeswoman, Carole Trottere, said in an email.

 Mitchell Pitnick, senior deputy town attorney, is serving as the board’s in-house legal adviser after Terry, a Roslyn Heights resident, pleaded not guilty to state tax fraud charges in April, Trottere said. Terry’s $73,000 contract as the board’s attorney and as special counsel to the town attorney expired in December 2015 and was not renewed.

Newsday reported in late January that Terry’s job as North Hempstead’s zoning board attorney was one of six government jobs he held last year while owing almost $1.4 million in state and federal back taxes. Terry has left or lost the four other jobs since Newsday’s report, which also found he let his attorney registration lapse for three years.

Until Terry’s departure, North Hempstead was the only Nassau County town whose zoning board was advised by an outside attorney under a contract.

The Town of Hempstead’s Zoning Board of Appeals has been advised by an attorney who works directly for the board for at least 15 years, said a spokesman, Mike Deery. Oyster Bay’s Town Board has “historically” appointed an employee to advise its zoning board, said a spokeswoman, Marta Kane.

Trottere said two law firms, Jaspan Schlesinger and Humes & Wagner, responded to the town’s Feb. 26 request for proposals from law firms that could advise the town attorney and the zoning board on zoning and land use issues.

Garden City-based Jaspan Schlesinger’s proposal would have charged the town $235 per hour to work with firm partners, between $200 and $210 per hour to work with associates, and $100 to work with paralegals, its proposal says.

Steven Schlesinger, the firm’s managing partner, has previously represented North Hempstead in court and represented applicants before the zoning board. The firm currently represents four clients before the town, including the Great Neck Public Library, its proposal says.

The proposal notes that the Charity Bureau of the New York State Attorney General’s office is investigating Steven Schlesinger’s relationship to the Kermit Gitenstein Foundation.

Newsday reported in May that a federal judge removed Schlesinger as the foundation’s court-appointed manager because he spent $8 million of its money without court approval since taking over in 2007. Newsday has also reported that federal prosecutors are investigating the foundation. 

Locust Valley-based Humes & Wagner would have charged $275 per hour to work with firm partners, $225 per hour to work with non-partner attorneys and $155 per hour to work with paralegals, the firm’s proposal says.

The firm would recuse itself in cases involving the villages of Plandome and Roslyn Harbor because its lawyers are attorneys for those villages, the proposal says.

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