Doctor charged in connection with graffiti retires from bank board
By DON LEHMAN
dlehman@poststar.com
Updated: Wednesday, April 22, 2009 10:19 AM EDT

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Dr. Kenneth Hopper, the Chester eye doctor who was arrested earlier this month in connection with graffiti on a highway overpass, has stepped down from the board of directors of Arrow Financial Corp.

Arrow Financial, the parent corporation of Glens Falls National Bank, notified the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission of the development on Monday through a filing with the agency that indicated Hopper "retired."

The retirement came less than a week after police charged him with two misdemeanors after allegedly catching him spray-paint the phrase "rowlow" on a Route 9L overpass in Lake George.

A Glens Falls anesthesiologist, Dr. Frank Rollo, believes Hopper targeted him with the phrase, because it was painted or scrawled around the region dozens of times over the past two decades after the two doctors had a dispute about a staffing request Hopper made at Glens Falls Hospital.

Hopper had been a director of Glens Falls National Bank since 1976, and was on Arrow’s board since 1983. He stepped down effective Friday, and Arrow notified the SEC of the development in a filing Monday.

"Dr. Hopper did not retire in connection with any disagreement with the company," the company wrote.

There was no elaboration, and a call to Glens Falls National Bank was not immediately returned this morning.

Hopper, an opthamologist who operates the Glens Falls firm Adirondack Eye Physicians, is due in Lake George Town Court on Thursday to answer two misdemeanor charges related to the Lake George graffiti.

He told the Warren County sheriff’s officer who arrested him that the phrase had no meaning and he simply found it "intriguing."