In May trustees contracted with Hargrove to investigate Mayor Friedland after a taped phone conversation revealed he pressured police chief Brennan to hire his son. The agreement also called for Hargrove to set up sensitivity training, a minority recruitment program, and a Civil Service educational program.
The complaint originally filed on May 4 by residents John and Janet Barbarite and Victor Gordon, asked the court to bar village approval of the contract, claiming it was both an illegal action by the board and a wasteful expenditure of taxpayer dollars.
Justice Robert Williams, hearing the case, did not agree to restrain the village at that time. However, he warned attorney Miller to proceed carefully, in full compliance with the law. Both parties were back in court July 21 after Williams agreed to hear an amended complaint Barbarite filed on May 5 -- one day after the village ratified Hargrove's contract.
Questions raised in the lawsuit are: Does the village have legal authority as a board to contract for a human rights investigation of the mayor? Can a village provide the general public with an instructional program on taking Civil Service tests? If trustees did not properly follow statutes for contracting services, and violated the Open Meetings Law, isn't the Hargrove contract null and void?
Village attorney Miller argued that the Monticello Board had the authority to hire Hargrove under "general powers" granted to villages and that the village affirmative-action position on recruiting created a moral imperative to provide sensitivity training and an educational program.
In his written response, Barbarite pointed out that as a municipal corporation, the village is "simply an agency of the state... and cannot govern beyond the scope of power which the state has legislated to it... Residual police power reposes in the state, not its political subdivisions, and in presuming to exercise the police power, a municipality must show a delegation of such power to it from the state."
The legislature never vested villages with such authority. Instead, the legislature provided a NYS Human Rights Commission and allowed municipalities to set up local commissions, which Monticello has done. The Friedland investigation should have been handled via those channels.
When asked, attorney Miller agreed with Judge Williams that "there is no legal preclusion from having given this issue to the NYS Human Rights Commission."
Barbarite used a parallel argument to address the village's lack of authority to provide a public education program and to intrude in the area of Civil Service, again a state responsibility. He also maintained that the contract was invalid because it was the product of an illegal executive session and that Hargrove should not have been hired to carry out the Friedland investigation because he had allowed his private investigator's license to expire.
The three bringing the challenge view Hargrove's hiring as part of a political drama playing out in Monticello, that payments made as a result of his contract are improper, and the mayor and trustees should be individually responsible for reimbursing the village.
Judge Williams decided he would grant a judgment in the case before his retirement in August to avoid prolonging it through reassignment. He ordered both Miller and Barbarite to submit judgment orders "assuming I decided in your favor," no later than July 26. Williams indicated that he would examine the orders and sign one or the other, or might choose to modify either one of them.