Tuckahoe Mayor Andino hires village attorney to close home purchase, unlike predecessors

When Tuckahoe Mayor Omayra Andino decided to buy her new home in Briarcliff Manor last year, she said she contacted three acquaintances for recommendations on a lawyer for the real estate transaction.

Her decision on who to hire has sparked a new round of criticism regarding the mayor's setting up of her principal residence 19 miles from Tuckahoe. The discussion has now been expanded to include the four mayors who preceded Andino, a Democrat.

Andino has said that, to her surprise, all three of her trusted acquaintances recommended Tuckahoe Village Attorney Gary Gjertsen. The part-time village employee began working for Tuckahoe as deputy village attorney in the early 2000s and was elevated to the top post in 2014, upon the departure of John Cavallaro.

Andino detailed her personal business relationship with Gjertsen at a Tuckahoe Board of Trustees meeting on June 3. She was responding to criticism about the purchase of her Briarcliff Manor home in the final week of the 2023 election campaign.

“I didn’t know that’s who they would recommend,” said Andino. “I later learned that Gary Gjertsen had helped several other mayors prior to me. I did not ask him for a favor. I did not ask him for a discount, a family discount, a mayor’s discount. I asked for the service of his firm and that’s what I got.”

Andino maintained she was following in the tradition of previous Tuckahoe mayors, who she said had also obtained Gjertsen’s legal services for their real estate transactions.

“Anyone can see that that’s OK to do,” said Andino. “He actually helped several other mayors with some closings of their own. No one took issue with that."

Four former mayors weigh in

Interviews with four former mayors who served while Gjertsen has worked for the village, however, found otherwise. None of the former mayors — Steve Ecklond, Michael Martino, John Fitizpatrick, and Greg Luisi — said they turned to Gjertsen for legal help with real estate transactions while in office.

“You can rest assured I never used this village attorney for my personal business,” said Fitzpatrick, a Democrat who served as mayor from 2008 to 2011. “That’s amateur hour.”

Michael Martino, a Republican who served as mayor from 2003 to 2007, said he never availed himself of Gjertsen’s services.

Greg Luisi, a Republican who served as village trustee for 8 years and was mayor from 2019 to 2021, said he didn't seek legal services from Gjertsen while in office, but hired him for “some personal business” when he was no longer in government service.

Steve Ecklond, a Republican who served on the Village Board from 2004 to 2019, and was mayor from 2011 to 2019, said that he did not employ Gjersten on real estate transactions. But he said that he recalled hiring then-Village Attorney John Cavallaro for legal work for his scaffolding company.

“He might have done a collection matter for my scaffolding business,” said Ecklon

More: Tuckahoe mayor bought Briarcliff home for her 'principal residence' during last campaign

Joe “Scooter” Scott, a Tuckahoe Republican who lost to Andino in the 2023 mayoral contest, said that Andino’s private financial relationship with the village attorney may color Gjertsen’s approach to contentious village issues.

“It doesn’t have the ring of political neutrality,” said Scott. “It doesn’t have the appearance of neutrality and appropriate behavior.”

Gjertsen was Andino’s attorney for the purchase, according to documents on file at the Westchester County Clerk's office. His representation of Andino was first reported by the Yonkers Times.

Gjerstsen, a partner in the law firm, Clair Gjertsen & Weathers, is appointed annually by the Village Board, which set his salary of $75,643 in June 2023. He did not respond to emails or phone messages seeking comment. Andino did not respond to emails and text messages.

Expert on municipal ethics: relationship 'inherently coercive'

According to the village’s Code of Ethics, municipal officers and employees cannot “engage in, solicit, negotiate for or promise to accept private employment or render services for private interests when such employment or service creates a conflict with or impairs the proper discharge of his official duties.”

Attorney Mark Davies, an authority on municipal ethics and former executive director of the New York City Conflict of Interest Board, said that Gjertsen’s representation of Andino was “troublesome as a general proposition.”

He said such a relationship between Andino and Gjertsen would be “inherently coercive” because Andino oversees Gjertsen, with his appointment and salary determined by the Village Board, which is chaired by the mayor.

“It’s inherently coercive when you have business relationship between a superior and subordinate,” Davies said.

Marcotte speaks out

More: Supporters back Tuckahoe mayor despite her principal residence being in Briarcliff Manor

Eastchester Town Board member Sheila Marcotte, a Tuckahoe Republican, said these responses from the former mayors raised new questions about Andino’s fitness for office. Marcotte, who said Tuckahoe voters were kept in the dark about Andino’s Briarcliff home purchase during 2023 campaign, was concerned that Andino had mistakenly said that Gjertsen had conducted real estate closings for former mayors.

“The pattern of deception that the mayor has perpetuated on village residents is quite concerning,” said Marcotte. “The one honorable thing that the mayor can do now is to step down and let the village residents choose a new mayor and not conduct the usual ‘musical chairs’ that have been part and parcel of her mayorship.”

It called on Westchester District Attorney Mimi Rocah or state Attorney General Letitia James to investigate the ethical concerns.

"Tuckahoe residents deserve better and they most certainly deserve an ethics investigation by the district attorney and the attorney general," said Marcotte.

Tax Watch in early June found that Andino had moved her principal residence from her Tuckahoe cooperative apartment to a 3-bedroom home with 3,800 square feet of living space in Briarcliff Manor.

It’s close to the Tarrytown campus of the Institutes of Applied Human Dynamics, where she serves as executive director.

Andino has kept her co-op in Tuckahoe, which preserved her residence in the village. Andino in May said she declared Briarcliff Manor her principal residence on mortgage documents to obtain a preferential interest rate on her $749,000 mortgage. She later acknowledged that’s where she cares for an ailing parent.

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David McKay Wilson writes about tax issues and government accountability. Follow him on Twitter @davidmckay415 or email him at dwilson3@lohud.com.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Tuckahoe NY Mayor Andino hires village attorney to close home purchase