Pursuant to General Municipal Law § 808, the Town of Chatham does hereby adopt the Board of Ethics of the County of Columbia as the Board of Ethics for the Town of Chatham. The members of such Board of Ethics shall be nominated by the Chairman of the Board of Supervisors and appointed by the Board of Supervisors. The Board of Supervisors shall make an effort at bipartisan cooperation and participation in appointing the board of ethics. Such Board of Ethics shall consist of five members, a majority of whom shall not be officers or employees of the Town of Chatham or of municipalities wholly or partially located within the Town of Chatham and at least one of whom shall be an elected or appointed officer or employee of the Town of Chatham or of a municipality located within the Town of Chatham. The members of the Board of Ethics shall receive no salary or compensation for their services as members of such Board and shall serve at the pleasure of the Board of Supervisors. Members of the board shall serve at the pleasure of the Board of Supervisors. The Board shall be appointed at the appropriate organizational meeting.
The jurisdiction of the Board of Ethics shall be limited to matters of the Chatham Town Ethics policy and the ethics provisions contained in Article 18 of the General Municipal Law.
The Board of Ethics of the Town of Chatham shall have the authority to enforce the filing requirements with respect to annual statement of financial disclosure imposed by this article, and said Board of Ethics shall also have authority to promulgate rules and regulations governing procedures of the said Board, said rules and regulations to have the same import as is enjoyed by the rules and regulations of the Temporary State Commission on Local Government Ethics, the scope of which rules and regulations shall include, but not be limited to, the establishment of:
A. 
The procedure whereby a person who is required to file an annual statement of financial disclosure may request additional periods of time within which to file such statement, due to justifiable cause or undue hardship; and
B. 
A limitation upon the granting of such additional periods.
The Board of Ethics of the Town of Chatham shall render advisory opinions to officers and employees of the Town of Chatham and of municipalities wholly or partly within the Town of Chatham with respect to Article 18 of the General Municipal Law. The Board of Ethics shall render advisory opinions to officers and employees of the Town of Chatham with respect to the Code of Ethics of the Town of Chatham adopted pursuant to Article 18 of the General Municipal Law and with respect to the filing of the annual statement of financial disclosure promulgated by the Town of Chatham pursuant to Article 18 of the General Municipal Law. Such advisory opinions shall be rendered pursuant to the written request of any such Town officer or employee under such rules and regulations as the Board of Ethics may prescribe, and the said Board of Ethics is hereby authorized and empowered to adopt such rules and regulations. The Board of Ethics shall have the advice of counsel employed by the Board of Ethics or, if none, the County Attorney. In addition, the Board of Ethics of the Town of Chatham may make recommendations with respect to the drafting and adoption of a Code of Ethics or amendments thereto by the Town Board of the Town of Chatham.
The Board of Ethics for the Town of Chatham shall have the authority to impose penalties for failure to comply with the filing requirements herein of the financial disclosure statements as set forth in Article II and § 9-18.
The Board of Ethics of the Town of Chatham may, in its discretion, limit its advisory opinions to opinions concerning the circumstances of the requester, and thus, the Board of Ethics may decline to entertain a request for an advisory opinion when:
A. 
The request inquires about the propriety of conduct of a person other than the requester,
B. 
The subject of the request is a person other than the requester, or
C. 
The request raises an abstract or hypothetical question.
The advisory opinions of the Board of Ethics of the Town of Chatham shall not be made public or disclosed unless required by the Freedom of Information Law (Public Officers Law Article 6) or required for use in a disciplinary proceeding or an appeal of the designation of a policy making position pursuant to this article and involving the officer, employee or other appointed official who requested the advisory opinion. Whenever a request for access to an advisory opinion is received, the officer, employee or appointed official who requested the rendering of the advisory opinion shall be notified of the access request by written notice to be mailed within 72 hours of the receipt by the Board of Ethics of the request for access.
When an appointing authority determines that a position under its authority is a policy-making position thus requiring the holder of the position to file an annual statement of financial disclosure, an appeal of said determination may be taken by an aggrieved party by the filing of a written petition in opposition to such designation within 30 days from the date that the designation was filed with the Board of Ethics of the Town of Chatham, and upon receipt of said petition, the Board of Ethics shall make a determination upon the merits of the petition within 30 days.