KINGSTON — The Ulster County Legislature's Republican majority leader wants three Democrats off the jail oversight committee.
Majority leader Michael Stock, R-Bearsville, who serves as committee chairman, announced Wednesday he's asking for voluntary resignations from the committee's Democratic contingent: Legislators Tracey Bartels, D-Gardiner; Peter Kraft, D-Glenford; and Richard Parete, D-Accord.
Stock based his request on what he called "an appearance of impropriety" caused by a meeting held last week at Democratic Party Headquarters. The committee Democrats met with two state auditors reviewing the jail project, along with county Democratic Chairman John Parete and a former county employee familiar with the project. John Parete is Richard Parete's father.
The meeting caused the state Comptroller's Office to remove the two auditors from the jail audit and assign two new ones.
"[Stepping down] is enabling the process to continue in a bipartisan manner so we don't have public's perception that there's been wrongdoing," Stock said.

Request was a surprise
The committee Democrats were surprised by the request, as Stock had not spoken to them about the matter before making his announcement. They were resolute, however, that they would not step down from their positions.
"I am not resigning," Kraft said. "I have a lot of time and energy invested in serving on this committee."
Stock would not say what he would do if the three refused to step down. Republican committee members had not been informed about Stock's request, except for Legislature Chairman Richard Gerentine, R-Marlboro, who could not be reached for comment.
Committee Democrats suspect Stock made his request to divert attention from one of the county's biggest issues — whether the Ulster County Law Enforcement Center would be finished by its scheduled completion date of Sept. 21.
"[Stock's] job for the last year and a half was to bring this job to completion. The fact is, it's not going to be finished in September. Now, he's doing anything he can to take attention away from this jail," Richard Parete said.
Bartels, Kraft and Parete have admitted that given another opportunity, they would not have met with state auditors at Democratic headquarters. But they have denied any wrongdoing, saying they discussed the same opinions and facts they've proffered at open committee meetings.

"The comptroller made a decision just so there were no appearances of politics. ... But as to whether [the meeting] was inappropriate or was something that had never happened before, no one's spoken to that," Bartels said.

Hemmy So can be reached at hso@poughkeepsiejournal.com