Town of North Elba

HIGHWAY CHIEF RESIGNS FROM LAKE PLACID:

Mayor Jamie Rogers accepted the resignation of Highway Superintendent Norm Harlow during the regular meeting of the Lake Placid Village Board Monday night.

Rogers said Harlow, who will continue to serve as the town of North Elba’s superintendent of highways, asked to resign from his position with the village in December.

Harlow declined to comment on the reasons for his resignation. Village Trustee David Jones told the Enterprise today that Harlow resigned because of other work-related obligations.

Harlow, aside from his position with the town, has a construction company, Harlow Excavating and Contracting Inc. out of Lake Placid.

“To have a person run a town and village department and run a private business is almost next to impossible,” Rogers said today. “He’s been a great asset to both departments.”

“It’s a full-time job.”

Harlow, whose resignation was effective Dec. 31, was elected by the town but appointed by the village.

OK, not a terribly interesting article, but it does prompt a couple points:

1. It seems like everyone does it, but there is no authority for a municipal governing body to "accept" the resignation of a town employee or officer. The resignation of a town officer must be submitted to the town clerk in writing. If there is no effective date specified, the resignation takes place immediately upon delivery. If an effective date is specified it takes place on that date, except that the effective date can be no more than 30 days subsequent to the delivery date, so if an effective date is specified but it is beyond the 30 day limit, the resignation is effective automatically on the 30th day subsequent to delivery. Once properly submitted a resignation may be withdrawn, cancelled, or amended only by consent of the Town Clerk. (See Section 53 of the Public Officers Law for more details). In this case it appears a resignation letter was submitted effective December 31, 2006, so it's completely irrelevant that the Board of Trustees "accepted" it three weeks later. But also harmless.

2. More importantly, the Comptroller's office has opined that "the positions of village superintendent of public works and town superintendent of highways are incompatible." 1989 N.Y. Op. Atty. Gen. (Inf.) 155. The same reasoning applies to a village superintendent of highways. I suspect- with absolutely no evidence, admittedly- that that's the real reason behind the resignation here.