North Hempstead Supervisor Jennifer DeSena again referred to missing files upon taking office during a town board meeting on Sept. 1.
The comment came during the public portion of the meeting in response to a resident who said he submitted a FOIL request for DeSena’s findings on the Building Department, which is being audited by Nassau Comptroller Elaine Philips after DeSena requested one in July, and asked what scandals she found.
“My comments are based on the past, and as far as what records I have. When I took this position in January, there were no records in my office, everything was removed,” DeSena said in response to the resident. “So I am also trying to get to the bottom of why there are still problems in the Building Department.”
On July 11, DeSena, a Republican, held a press conference outside the Building Department calling for an audit, saying she conducted a complete and thorough review into the department she called scandal-plagued.
“Over the past six months, my staff and I have reviewed the operations of the department and have found a deeply flawed department that has been plagued by scandal and continually fails our residents and business owners, earning it the moniker the ‘worst on Long Island’,” DeSena said in July.
She clarified she was referring to issues the Building Department faced 15 years ago.
In 2007, five Building Department officials were indicted after a 16-month investigation by then Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice for receiving favors and payments in exchange for granting permits without inspections.
All five were later convicted, including former Building Commissioner David Wasserman, who was sentenced to one year in jail in 2008 after pleading guilty to grand larceny and falsifying business records.
Following the July press conference, Democratic Councilwoman Veronica Lurvey requested DeSena release details and documents from the review, which DeSena called “politically charged” and “ironic.”
“Prior to my arrival, nearly a decade’s worth of records and files from the previous administration were mysteriously removed from the Supervisor’s Office and have not been returned since.”
DeSena told Blank Slate Media in August about her initial arrival.
“I walked into an empty office that at one point had four staff members in it, but those employees that used to work for Supervisor Bosworth moved their computers, took their files and moved them down the hall into a locked area that used to be called the Town Board Suite.”
Lurvey said in a statement at the time DeSena has as many resources as she needs.
“Eight months into her term, the supervisor’s blaming her inability to manage the Town on paper files she believes are missing,” Lurvey said in a statement to Blank Slate Media in August. “She has a wealth of institutional knowledge at her disposal in the Town commissioners, department heads, and staff. Her failure to respond to resident requests or even communicate with her colleagues cannot be blamed on a manufactured controversy. I’m still waiting for her to provide any information from her ‘complete and thorough’ review of the Building Department.”
DeSena further clarified her complete and thorough review was via interviews, meetings and other day-to-day duties as part of her responsibilities and not created through a tangible report she is withholding.
The next North Hempstead Town Board meeting will be held on Thursday, Sept. 22.
