BOSTON, NY-- 2 On Your Side has confirmed that the Town of Boston clerk has resigned her position.
The Town Board voted 5-0 last month that Town Clerk Jennifer Mule violated town codes and regulations in renovating her home at 7305 Oomphalius Road by not getting a building permit.
Mule was fined $35,146.92 the cost of all town permits, documentation and all attorney fees for the Town. Mule would also face fines of $250/day until she provided the proper permits and approvals for the work done on her home.
The town condemned the home, forcing Mule and her fiance had to evacuate the property.
Late last year, the Town of Boston launched a formal investigation into an elected official after the town council discovered missing paperwork for the house that the Town Clerk owns.
Mule purchased an Omphalius Road house in 2012. Records show that the previous year, 7305 Omphalius was assessed at $128,000.
But four days before Mule’s officials purchased, something happened in which records don’t exist to explain.
“Miraculously, just days before the Town Clerk bought her home, the assessment was reduced by $91,000,” said attorney Michael Schiavone to 2 On Your Side in December. Schiavone is a corporate and business transactions lawyer with the Lipsitz, Green, Scime, Cambria law firm.
“What’s interesting is that a normal taxpayer would file a grievance to challenge an assessment, and then there would be a due process where the assessment would be reduced. That didn’t happen here,” he said.
Sale information and assessment papers do show that the house had been damaged by fire, and the description of that damage would certainly warrant some assessment reduction.
However, Schiavone says it’s the property owner’s job to take proper steps of filing paperwork for that to legally happen, and he says that’s the step that seems to be missing.
“We haven’t been able to find any records that a grievance was filed and the assessment reduced,” he said.
2 On Your Side has previously tried to reach out to Mule, but she has never attempted to return calls or emails.
