Times Herald-Record

"Trials & Tribulations: Albany's 'judgment' day May 1"

April 13, 2007

If the people who run New York state don't ante up some money for judges, we could be hearing chants of "no judges, no peace" in Albany come May 1.

That's Law Day.

It's also the day that some of the 1,300 judges who get paid by the state are selecting as their own day of outrage.

Judges are generally a pretty restrained bunch, but New York's judges haven't seen a raise since 1999.

So that's why e-mails like this one are being fired around an electronic mailing list:

"Close your calendars May 1."

"It's short of a strike."

"However, commitment from all judges acting as one will 'show them' that we have the will and our will is what it's going to take to get their respect," writes a judge from the Buffalo area.

By "them," the judges don't mean us, the public.

They mean the three-headed Albany dragon that runs New York: Gov. Eliot Spitzer, Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.

Traditionally, raises for judges are tied to raises for state lawmakers.

So much for that whole separation-of-powers deal we learned about in grade school.

A state Supreme Court justice earns $136,700 in this part of New York.

In one lively e-mail exchange between judges who sit outside the mid-Hudson, a judge says, "The average Joe or Josephine thinks that is too much already."

Another judge replies that the average "Joe or Josephine thinks that athletes make way too much, but they still buy season tickets."

A spokesman for the state court system predicts that A Day Without Judges wouldn't be well-received by Joe or Josephine Average, or by the bosses: Chief Judge Judith Kaye and Administrative Judge Jonathan Lippman.

"We expect that the judges will comport themselves in a professional and judicious manner, and understand that to harm the public would in no way help their cause," said David Bookstaver, spokesman for the state Office of Court Administration.

Kaye pointed out this week that New York ranks 38th in the country for judicial pay when you factor in cost-of-living increases.

Even without the cost-of-living factor, New York's state-paid judges rank 11th in the country in salaries, according to the National Center for State Courts.

And state workers with union contracts have seen raises, unlike the state's judges.

Kaye said that judges might have to resort to suing the state over their salaries.

That would be a history-making lawsuit.

The New York Law Journal has published articles about kids going straight from law school to New York City firms and making more money than judges, right out of the gate.

And while private-sector lawyers can pile up billable hours until their wingtips squeak, judges can't do any other legal work besides being judges.

But in an age of $3-a-gallon gas and the precarious financial condition of big chunks of upstate New York, the idea of judges marching on Albany for economic justice might not go over too well with the vast majority of people who aren't judges.

Which may be why one judge on Long Island sent this e-mail to her colleagues: "It is important to communicate, but this is not a secure site."

Trials & Tribulations is the Times Herald-Record's weekly roundup of news, updates and anecdotes about local courts and criminal justice. Tips and threats are welcome. Call Oliver Mackson at 346-3130 or e-mail omackson@th-record.com.

Judicial outrage

Here are some e-mail excerpts from an electronic mailing list used by New York judges:

"When a public official demands a payment to himself for the performance of his (or her) official functions it's called a 'BRIBE,' but when a public official demands a pay raise for approving a long-overdue pay raise for judges, it's called POLITICS" - Delaware County Court Judge Carl Becker

"Simply put, the 'three men in a room' believe we have no negotiating power and we need to show them we do."

"We are the workers without whom the courts cannot function." - Erie County state Supreme Court Justice Joseph Glownia

"Why shouldn't marching or demonstrating be part of a 'new dynamic?'"

"Would it be counterproductive for some reason?" - Manhattan state Supreme Court Justice Joan Madden

"Justice Glownia is right - perhaps all judges should close their calendars May 1st and meet in Albany."

"It may not be the most dignified approach, but it will show unity."

"For those judges unwilling to march on Albany, just close your calendars." - Erie County Family Court Judge Kevin Carter

"The public does need to be educated both as to why we deserve an adjustment and why we have not been getting one" - Brooklyn state Supreme Court Justice Wayne Saitta

"Heck, we have correction officers in Nassau who transport prisoners earning more than judges" - Nassau County District Court Judge Jerald Carter

http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/...337%2F-1%2FNEWS

THE NEW YORK SUN

"Whistleblowers Protection Bill Would Face Veto"

By SARAH GARLAND

Staff Reporter of the Sun

April 12, 2007

Mayor Bloomberg said he would veto a City Council bill aimed at protecting city employees who report the "educational harm" of a child, and suggested yesterday that the teachers union is behind the proposal.

At an anti-smoking event at a Queens middle school, Mr. Bloomberg stood beside a cigarette industry whistleblower, Jeffrey Wigand — made famous in the movie "The Insider" — and said the expanded whistleblower protections were unnecessary.

"I think that everybody has to be able to be sure to come forward and say what's on their mind," he said.

"There also should be some responsibility."

"You can't just go and stand up and accuse somebody without any merit of doing something just to be nasty and mean or to hurt them."

The mayor said the union had fought for the expanded whistleblower protections to be included in their contract last fall, but the proposal was dropped during negotiations.

He said the union now was trying to "run around" its defeat.

The bill overwhelmingly passed a City Council education committee vote yesterday.

A spokesman for the mayor, Stu Loeser, later confirmed that the mayor intended to veto the bill if it passes.

City law protects whistleblowers that report criminal activity, corruption, conflicts of interest, mismanagement, or abuse of authority.

The bill is written to protect city employees who report actions by their superiors that harm the "health, safety, or educational welfare of a child."

The bill defines educational welfare as "any aspect of a child's education or educational environment that significantly impacts upon such child's ability to receive appropriate instruction, as mandated by any relevant law, rule, regulation, or sound educational practice."

The president of the United Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, has said the bill is necessary while the school bureaucracy undergoes a major transformation this year.

"This is not about contract issues," she said.

"The mayor and the chancellor should want to have teachers blow the whistle on misconduct, cheating scandals, or anything else that hurts children."

http://www.nysun.com/article/52331

The New York Observer Politicker

"Cuomo 'Totally' Supports Judicial Raises"

Andrew Cuomo is frimly supporting efforts by state judges to force a pay raise.

"I support it totally," said the attorney general in a rare interview this morning on WROW.

"She is right," he said of the state's Chief Judge, Judith Kaye, who is leading the effort.

"You know, we're in this conundrum."

"We need to get the best and the brightest into public service, especially in the judiciary."

"And, especially in the legal community, you have to pay a wage that is going to attract the talent.

"You can't have a situation where you're paying judges basically less than you're paying first year legal associates who are coming out of top schools."

Cuomo went on to say his office was asked by Kaye to research the feasibility of a suit against lawmakers to force them to raise judicial salaries.

State judges haven't gotten a raise since 1999.

Kaye currently makes $156,000 a year.

-- Azi Paybarah

http://thepoliticker.observer.com/2007/04/...ial-raises.html

"Real change still possible in next budget"

By BARBARA BARTOLETTI

Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Sunday, April 15, 2007

Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno instructed the Legislature's Budget Conference Committee that it should not "devolve into debating," he proved what many voters already sensed: Reforms promised to fix New York's broken budget process were a sham.

The goal of the conferencing system -- begun in 1998, to end perpetually late budgets -- was to start a reform process in which budget talks would be more transparent, more legislators could help craft budgets and voters could follow the process and share views with lawmakers when public input might make a difference.

In January, Gov. Eliot Spitzer and the Legislature enacted a budget reform law promising legislators more complete information when they voted on budgets.

The results would be more deliberative budgeting and a healthier democracy.

What New Yorkers got instead was plenty of process but no reform.

The governor and legislative leaders negotiated the budget in private.

Even other legislators remained in the dark until the leaders emerged to hastily report -- not to discuss and certainly not to debate -- what back-room deals already had decided.

In the frenzied days before the April 1 budget deadline, leaders tasked conference committees with crafting details based on numbers too rushed to add up, directives too confusing to follow and schedules too hasty for considered judgment.

As closed-door deals trickled out, lobbyists and lawmakers packed hearing rooms, straining to hear what a $121 billion budget would include, with no time to digest or affect policies on taxes, health, education and the judiciary.

As the deadline passed, lawmakers rubber stamped 2,000 pages of budget bills, hot off the presses, before they were public.

On most, there was zero debate.

Disclosures required by the new budget reform law to explain the amount of money being spent were missing and, in some cases, the Legislature could not say how much it was spending.

So much for reform.

Now that the budget process has broken down yet again, it's time for New Yorkers to recall what a healthy budget process is and why a healthy process is as important as a good outcome.

The governor and the Legislature must reinvent the budget process now -- when pledges of reform still echo amid the groans of the budget debacle.

The changes must be real reforms, not window dressing, or we will be doomed to repeat the chaos that clouds the budget process.

The good news is that the four principles of a healthy budget process are obvious:

First, the process must be public.

All documents must be accessible not just after the fact but long before decisions are made, with time for meaningful public input that can affect outcomes.

Second, the Legislature must not fly blind.

All lawmakers must know the budgets they vote on and be able to meaningfully influence them at all points in the process.

Third, the governor must lead.

He must enforce a process that fully engages the entire Legislature.

Fourth, the process must be timed rationally.

There must be enough time and breathing room for full engagement, sound judgment and transparency, and there must be a firm deadline with real consequences.

A healthy budget process disperses power to help prevent abuse of the public purse.

It provides lawmakers with the time and tools they need to represent the voters who elected them.

And it gives voters the time and tools they need to detect and speak out against potential missteps.

By contrast, the fewer and more hidden the real levers of power, the more likely deals for well-connected lobbyists will inflate or skew budgets.

A healthy budget process leads to the best budgets.

But budget openness is not an absolute or a cure-all.

In all democracies, deadlines and healthy dissent can yield brinksmanship, and breakthroughs may require leadership and intensive talks that, by definition, do not involve a full public body and thus are not public.

Not even the most enlightened democracy conducts all budget talks in public.

Nor is disclosure a panacea.

As New York's sham budget conference committees show, nothing is transparent about disclosing decisions made in private and then quickly rubber-stamping them without public analysis or debate.

Time is the key ingredient that New York's broken budget process lacks -- time for rank-and-file legislators to study and debate and modify budgets, time for the public to understand and effect outcomes, time to let cool heads prevail, and time to foster the best decisions.

Late budgets are irresponsible and disruptive, but rushed budgets crafted behind closed doors and voted in the dark of night -- without time even to read them -- can be the most irresponsible and cynical of all.

New Yorkers were promised real reform: Everything -- and especially the budget process -- was supposed to change.

Hopefully the mess that was the 2007 budget won't prove the old adage that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story...&TextPage=1

RULES OF THE SENATE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK - 2007-2008

http://www.senate.state.ny.us/lbdcinfo/senrules.html

NEW YORK POST

"GOV TO RAOUL: QUIT - OR ELSE GOV. SPITZER - Dismayed by 'Schmucks!'"


April 16, 2007 -- GOV. SPITZER yesterday called on celebrity lawyer Raoul Felder to quit the state Commission on Judicial Conduct or face possible ouster because of "inappropriate" comments in his new book, "Schmucks," co-authored with comic Jackie Mason.

"The comments that are in the book are inappropriate and simply wrong for one who sits, as Mr. Felder does, in a position as chair of a commission that judges the behavior of judges," Spitzer, a former attorney general and a Harvard Law graduate, told The Post.

"It is one matter for him to say, 'I have First Amendment rights,' as, of course, he does."

"But it is a totally different matter for him to make comments that would be highly inappropriate for members of the bench and for him to sit and pass judgment on our judges, who made similar comments that would be appropriately criticized and lead to sanctions."

"In light of this fact, I think it would be appropriate for Mr. Felder to seriously consider resigning his position as both chairman and as a member of the commission."

The governor said he would personally relay his views to Felder - most likely by letter - as soon as today.

Spitzer said he'd probably initiate a disciplinary process that could remove Felder from the post if the lawyer does not step down voluntarily.

But "I hope it doesn't get there," he said.

Felder, named to the powerful commission by Gov. George Pataki in 2003, was denounced by his fellow commissioners Friday after the publication of "Schmucks! Our Favorite Fakes, Frauds, Lowlifes, Liars, the Armed and Dangerous and Good Guys Gone Bad."

He vowed to fight any effort to remove him.

He could not be reached for comment on Spitzer's statements.

A review of the new book by The Post found many crude and insulting references to prominent people on the liberal or left side of the political spectrum - including Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, former President Bill Clinton, and the Rev. Al Sharpton - deemed "schmucks" by the generally right-of-center authors.

While there were several "ethnic" references, including several gibes at Felder's and Mason's fellow Jews, there were no explicit examples of racial insults and several statements in favor of racial equality.

But Latinos could well be offended by the book's argument - spiced with a number of loaded Yiddish words - against making Spanish an official language.

Referring to immigrants from Latin America, the authors write, "All these schnorrers, schnooks, shlubs, pishers, putzers, shlemiels, and, yes, schmucks come to our country looking for a better life, speaking only a shmeckel of English, and now they expect us to become Spanish mavens?"

"What dreck [rubbish]!"

fredric.dicker@ny post.com

http://www.nypost.com/seven/04162007/news/...c_u__dicker.htm

FROM THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS DAILY POLITICS BLOG:

With respect to "STEAMROLLER" Spitzer agreeing with the state Commission on Judicial Conduct that its chairman, celebrity divorce attorney Raoul Felder, should go because his new book, co-authored with comic Jackie Mason, is "inappropriate", we countryfolks up here would refer your readers to what we call up here the "Lawyers' and Judges' Coming Out of the Closet" speech by Michael P. Friedman, President of the Albany County Bar Association, dated March 2003, and if one scrolls down to the 2d page, one sees the smiling face of Chief Judge Judith Kaye in the same publication, and I would maintain to "STEAMROLLER" Spitzer and the state Commission on Judicial Conduct that it was this very document, which received wide distribution up this way, long before this Felder book became an issue, that served to destroy any illusions that anyone up this way had about the integrity of the bar and judiciary in NYS, and by appearing in this document along with many of her fellow judges, it is our opinion that Judge Judith Kaye failed to avoid the appearance of impropriety, and that failure on her part then caused a major erosion in any trust and confidence the public up here might have had for the judiciary, as can be seen in these following excerpts from the "THE LAWYERS IN NY COME OUT OF THE CLOSET" SPEECH, and this at a time when the "STEAMROLLER" himself was up in Albany, serving as the state's top lawyer:

"As I spoke, I realized that the practice of law is essentially amoral."

"Our advice to clients is not designed to guide anyone in ethical behavior."

"We do not exist to tell anyone what is right or wrong."

"We are all but prohibited from doing so!"

"Our duty is to advise of the legal consequences of actions, and to promote the interests of our client within the boundaries of the legal system."

"For this reason, we do not necessarily advise the guilty to accept their punishment, nor do we chastise the adulterer, the negligent driver and the trespasser."

"So, we don't deal in fairness, we deal in legal results, without regard to ethics."

"You think clients come to us for our opinions on good and evil?"

"Think again, Jack."

"We are not the clergy."

"After all, it is just 'Ethical Considerations' in the Code of Professional Responsibility, as in 'OK, I've considered it, now here's what we do' ....."

"It is this fine line between the practice of law and the absence of moral judgment that confounds the public in so many ways."

"After all, we stand in defense of the most heinous members of our society, and I'm not just talking about defense negligence lawyers here, of course."

http://www.albanycountybar.com/MarNL-03.pdf

Posted by: John Galt | April 16, 2007 8:02 AM

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypoli..._2.php#comments

NY TIMES - The Empire Zone

"Spitzer Learns His Job Comes at a Cost"

By DANNY HAKIM

Published: April 16, 2007

ALBANY — Gov. Eliot Spitzer has taken some lumps in the press during his first 105 days in office, while Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo has been riding a wave of positive publicity about his investigation into student loan practices.

In a Quinnipiac University poll this month, Mr. Cuomo even surpassed the governor’s still solid job approval numbers for the first time, a development that did not go unnoticed in the capital.

“As attorney general, there are a series of binary choices between right and wrong and good and evil,” Mr. Spitzer said in an interview last week when asked about the difference between the public perception of his current and previous jobs.

“As governor, one is always making very difficult allocations, decisions in a zero-sum context, and necessarily there are winners and losers.”

And as attorney general?

As Mr. Spitzer put it, “One is always on the side of righteousness.”

In other words, it is often easier for the public and the press to extrapolate good guys and bad guys in investigations brought by an attorney general, as compared with, say, the dueling budget proposals being wrangled over by the governor and the Legislature.

Mr. Cuomo’s latest investigation has revealed that top officials at several universities had lucrative financial ties to a major student lender.

Mr. Spitzer and his aides, in the meantime, have been trying to explain why they compromised with Senate Republicans in budget negotiations more than some observers had expected.

How does the governor feel about his first 105 days?

“It has been a remarkably successful stretch,” he said.

“I don’t mean to suggest successful in terms of the governor versus the Legislature."

"I think successful in terms of showing that we can govern the state, that Albany need not be dysfunctional.”

Mr. Spitzer ticked off a number of previously intractable issues that he forged consensus on, including major agreements on the workers’ compensation system and the civil confinement of sex offenders.

The governor also has insisted that he achieved his major goals in the budget, winning substantial increases in education aid and property tax relief and $1 billion worth of Medicaid cuts.

The Legislature returns today after a two-week vacation, and top items on the agenda include negotiating campaign-finance reform legislation and wrapping up leftovers from the budget, including a bill delineating capital projects.

“Doing the job of governor properly necessarily means losing friends, saying no to supporters and making decisions that will have political costs,” Mr. Spitzer said.

“Life is much more complicated.”

Bruno Reads Up on Spitzer

What’s on the reading list of the Senate majority leader, Joseph L. Bruno?

“Spoiling for a Fight,” the 2006 biography of Governor Spitzer written by Brooke A. Masters, now a reporter at The Financial Times.

Mr. Bruno, the state’s top Republican, was the governor’s principal sparring partner during the budget negotiations, even getting into a shouting match with Mr. Spitzer in the governor’s office.

Many observers in both parties said Mr. Bruno, 78, held his own against the 47-year-old governor, winning concessions on health care and increased education aid for Long Island, a stronghold of Senate Republicans.

Why read up now on the governor’s back story?

“He had certainly heard some things about the book, and after 100 days, he thought it would be a good opportunity to get to know the governor a little better,” said John McArdle, a spokesman for Mr. Bruno, right.

Mr. McArdle has his own copy of the book on his desk.

DANNY HAKIM

Idle Talk About the Speaker

Chalk it up to spring fever.

In recent weeks, the Capitol hallways have echoed with unlikely chatter about who might succeed Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, right, though Mr. Silver has shown no interest in voluntary retirement and little vulnerability to the forced kind.

(He put down a coup once before, in 2000, led by Michael J. Bragman, now a former assemblyman.)

Some published reports have Richard L. Brodsky, an outspoken and ambitious Westchester assemblyman who made a bid for the state comptroller’s job this year, angling for Mr. Silver’s post.

Mr. Brodsky called the reports “silliness of the highest order.”

“I’ve done nothing differently than I’ve always done, for better or worse, in terms of speaking my mind and being willing to defend things I think need defending,” he added.

“I supported Shelly for speaker, and I still do."

"There’s nothing to this stuff at all.”

Also making the rounds is talk that Joseph R. Lentol, a long-serving assemblyman and dean of the Brooklyn delegation, is being promoted by some fellow Brooklyn Assembly members as a Silver successor.

Reached by phone, Mr. Lentol said he was “not actively seeking the position” and had no plans to do so.

“There is a sitting speaker,” he said.

“I don’t think there’s anyone, including Mr. Brodsky, for all the fanfare, who is looking to take out the speaker.”

Not that he would not be interested.

“Members do look to me for advice,” he said, “and I hope that they would think of me as a possible leader, should that opportunity ever arise.”

NICHOLAS CONFESSORE

Out of Albany, in the Money

Former Assemblyman Ryan S. Karben left the capital under a cloud last year, but he continues to serve as a fund-raiser for Governor Spitzer, above right.

Mr. Karben, 32, was at a breakfast last week at which the governor discussed, among other things, his new federal political action committee, which he plans to use to support Congressional candidates.

“He’s got a really exciting vision for the state that I first saw when he was running for attorney general in 1998, and I’ve been supporting him ever since,” said Mr. Karben, who resigned last year after being accused of improperly fraternizing with interns.

Mr. Karben also has been invited to serve on the governor’s 2010 re-election finance committee.

“I would anticipate committing to raise a minimum of $100,000 for his election,” said Mr. Karben, who has a law practice in Monsey, N.Y.

DANNY HAKIM

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/16/nyregion...amp;oref=slogin

"Spitzer says judicial official should resign"

By MICHAEL GORMLEY, Associated Press

Last updated: 5:17 p.m., Monday, April 16, 2007

ALBANY -- Gov. Eliot Spitzer says the chairman of the state panel that rules on judges' conduct should resign after co-authoring a humor book that said the accused are likely guilty.

Manhattan attorney Raoul Felder, the unpaid chairman the state Commission on Judicial Conduct, wrote a book with comic Jackie Mason titled "Schmucks! Our Favorite Fakes, Frauds, Lowlifes, Liars, the Armed and Dangerous, and Good Guys Gone Bad."

Felder's colleagues on the commission have already called for him to step down, citing several passages in the book it considered offensive, including:

"anytime you hear the word 'allegedly,' you can bet it's true," and "nothing in our country is more insidious than affirmative action."

Spitzer weighed in on Monday on Felder, who said his free speech is protected by the First Amendment.

"He does not have a First Amendment right to be chair of the commission on judicial conduct," Spitzer said Monday.

"By virtue of having that position, he accepts certain limits upon his own behavior, just as judges do."

"Just as other elected or governmental individuals do, whether appointed or elected."

Asked if he would seek to remove Felder if he doesn't resign as chairman, Spitzer said:

"Let us see how this plays out."

In an interview Friday, shortly after the commission announced its vote of no confidence, Felder said he would defend his First Amendment rights in court.

"I would feel better as an American if they could point to something, some official act I have done, where I haven't acted appropriately or somebody feels their rights were infringed by anything I've done," Felder said.

"And they can't do that."

The panel said the book is "crude, biased, vulgar and otherwise demeaning" and "repeatedly invokes racial, ethnic and religious invective."

Panel members said the affirmative action statement "raises a reasonable perception that the speaker could not pass fair judgment on anyone he perceived to have benefited from affirmative action."

The commission rules on complaints against judges including conflicts of interest and inappropriate behavior.

The commission seeks to remove Felder as chairman, but not as a commissioner.

Felder's term ends next year.

He was appointed by former Gov. George Pataki.

------

On the Web: http://www.scjc.state.ny.us/

NY1 NEWS - Top Stories

"Clarence Norman Sentenced To Additional Time In Jail"

April 16, 2007

Former Brooklyn Democratic leader Clarence Norman was sentenced Monday to another one to three years in prison.

In February, a jury found Norman guilty of demanding money from a judicial candidate in exchange for his support.

The trial was the last of four criminal cases against Norman.

In two previous trials, he was found guilty of stealing funds from his own re-election campaign and concealing contributions made to him.

He has already been sentenced to two to six years in prison, but he is out on bail.

http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?s...1&aid=68777

NY TIMES EMPIRE ZONE

April 17th, 2007 7:48 am

As a life-long citizen of NYS who resides up-state and who has been following the affairs of NYS government for some 30 years or so with great interest, I can say with some degree of authority that up here, no one outside of the “brown zone” down in Albany ever expected “STEAMROLLER” Spitzer to enter Albany with a magic wand and clear away all of the dysfunctional stuff, period!

And that is because by the time that the “STEAMROLLER” became governor, he had already been an integral part of all the Albany “dysfunctional stuff” for several years in his capacity as state Attorney General, so absent a complete and total transformation of the “STEAMROLLER”, which never happened, nor did we expect it to, Albany politics being what they are thanks to the efforts of people like “STEAMROLLER” Spitzer, we expected more “dysfunctional stuff”, and the “STEAMROLLER” has not disappointed us at all in that regard, favorable comments about himself by himself in the news media notwithstanding.

And with respect to the role that the “STEAMROLLER” has played in perpetuating “all of the dysfunctional stuff” in Albany, I refer first to a news item in the upstate Albany TU entitled “Media join lawsuit in pork case - Times Union action to obtain information on spending draws support from major news groups” by JAY JOCHNOWITZ, State editor, Albany, New York Times Union, first published Wednesday, August 2, 2006, wherein is stated:

“ALBANY — More than two dozen news organizations moved Tuesday to join a Times Union lawsuit against Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver over their refusal to reveal the names of lawmakers who helped direct millions of dollars for pork barrel projects.”

“The case in state Supreme Court alleges Silver, D-Manhattan, and Bruno, R-Brunswick, violated the state Freedom of Information Law by refusing to disclose which lawmakers asked for specific grants for community projects, part of $170 million in annual discretionary spending.”

“Attorney General Eliot Spitzer’s office, in papers filed Monday, said the names are protected under the state constitution, which says ‘for any speech or debate in either house of the legislature, the members shall not be questioned in any other place.’”

“Spitzer’s office argued that disclosing ‘information concerning a legislator’s involvement with particular pieces of legislation could potentially chill the legislator’s activities.’”

And then there is the story “Six groups back suit against legislators - ‘Friend of the court’ briefs filed in support of Times Union’s bid for information on member items” by JAMES M. ODATO, Capitol bureau, Albany, New York Times Union, first published Saturday, August 5, 2006, wherein is stated:

“ALBANY — Six government-reform groups filed court papers backing a lawsuit against the leaders of the Legislature for withholding the names of lawmakers who influence the spending of hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayers’ funds.”

“The groups filed a ‘friend of the court’ brief Thursday supporting the Times Union in its suit against Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno, R-Brunswick, and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan.”

“The two officials, who are seeking re-election this year, have turned down Freedom of Information Law requests by the newspaper, which sued for full disclosure of documents showing how lawmakers carve up $170 million a year in discretionary money.”

“The funds pay for lawmakers’ pet projects, or ‘member items.’”

“The Brennan Center for Justice, Citizens Budget Commission, Citizens Union of the City of New York, Common Cause, League of Women Voters of New York State and New York Public Interest Research Group filed court documents that say keeping such records secret can breed corruption and foster public cynicism.”

“Legislative leaders, represented by Attorney General Eliot Spitzer’s office, have moved for dismissal, arguing lawmakers don’t have to answer for what they say in the legislative process.”

“Spitzer’s office argued that disclosing ‘information concerning a legislator’s involvement with particular pieces of legislation could potentially chill the legislator’s activities.’”

And there is the “STEAMROLLER” Spitzer that we have come to know up here in the Albany area over the time that the “STEAMROLLER” was the state AG, and all during that time, and right up to the present moment, in our minds, anyway, associating this “STEAMROLLER” with true reform of our state government to bring it back to what our state Constitution mandates it be is a real joke, on us.

And so ….

— Posted by Livyjr

http://empirezone.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/0...-days/#comments

THE NEW YORK SUN

"Floyd Abrams May Stand By Raoul Felder's Side"

By JACOB GERSHMAN

Staff Reporter of the Sun

April 17, 2007

ALBANY — A First Amendment lawyer, Floyd Abrams, said he would consider providing legal counsel to a celebrity divorce lawyer, Raoul Felder, whose satirical new book has ignited an effort to oust him from his position as chairman of the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct.

The dispute between Mr. Felder and commission members has the makings of a high-profile freedom of speech case.

On Friday, Mr. Felder, a Pataki appointee who became chairman last year, received a unanimous vote of no confidence from the other commission members, who argued that passages in Mr. Felder's book concerning race, ethnicity, and religion compromise the dignity of the state body and undermine his ability to appear impartial when reviewing allegations against judges.

Mr. Abrams, a Manhattan lawyer who has defended clients in some of the most important First Amendment cases of the past 40 years, said he hasn't spoken with Mr. Felder or finished reading his book co-written with comedian Jackie Mason, "Schmucks!"

Mr. Abrams said Mr. Felder's allegation that his First Amendment rights are being violated is a "close" call.

"He can't be dismissed simply because he wrote a book that has disagreeable ideas," Mr. Abrams said.

"At some point the totality of views expressed based upon considerations of race and national origin could so compromise his real or reasonably expected conduct that it could be appropriate to dismiss him."

As chairman, Mr. Felder is head of the disciplinary agency that reviews complaints of judicial misconduct in New York.

The commission said in a statement announcing its no confidence vote that Mr. Felder's book is vulgar and "invokes racial, ethnic, and religious invective."

Mr. Felder said the claim is an "offensive lie" and that he would go to court to keep his position.

Governor Spitzer said he supports the commission's vote and insists that Mr. Felder resign from his position.

Commission members are weighing their options and could vote to dismiss Mr. Felder.

In an interview, Mr. Felder said he had been planning to step down as chairman by September, but that he changed his mind and would fight it out.

"I can't surrender on this issue," he said.

Mr. Felder, who is writing an autobiography and is also working on a Broadway play about the life of his late brother, songwriter Doc Pomus, previously said he did not have enough time for the job and was searching for a replacement.

He is also writing a second book with Mr. Mason scheduled to be completed in September.

http://www.nysun.com/article/52606

NEWSDAY

AP New York - Former Brooklyn Democratic leader sentenced for extortion"

April 16, 2007, 4:55 PM EDT

NEW YORK (AP) _ Former Brooklyn Democratic Party Chairman Clarence Norman Jr. was sentenced to one to three years in prison Monday for shaking down a judicial candidate in 2002.

It was the third criminal conviction in two years for Norman, a former state assemblyman who remains free on bail and has vowed to appeal.

Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes said in announcing the verdict, "This trial showed how Clarence Norman manipulated the judicial system and perverted the way judges are elected in this county."

Norman's lawyer, Edward Wilford, said he believed his client would prevail on appeal.

Norman was found guilty in February of grand larceny in what prosecutors called a scheme to extort judicial candidate Karen Yellen.

Norman was also found guilty of one count each of attempted grand larceny and coercion but was acquitted on five other counts.

At two trials in 2005, Norman was found guilty of stealing $5,000 donated to his re-election committee in 2001, and of trying to conceal $10,000 in contributions.

He was acquitted last year of charges of unlawfully billing the Assembly for mileage on a Lincoln Town Car leased by the Democratic Party.

In the latest case, Yellen, a Brooklyn civil court candidate defeated in a 2002 primary, testified that Norman had demanded she pay his favored consultant thousands of dollars for a get-out-the-vote effort.

Monday's sentence will follow two consecutive one-to-three-year sentences for Norman's previous convictions, bringing his total sentence to three to nine years in prison.

Norman was forced to resign from the Assembly following his first conviction.

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/new...egion-apnewyork

"Assembly has about $40M left to spend - Fewer appearances for Speaker Sheldon Silver on $46.2M list of grants"

By JAMES M. ODATO, Capitol bureau, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Wednesday, April 18, 2007

ALBANY -- The Assembly on Tuesday released a list of $46.2 million in member item grants for this year for uses ranging from housing for homeless dogs to cultural programs in Albany and Manhattan.

Notably absent is the sponsorship of Speaker Sheldon Silver for many causes he has championed in the past.

The total is considerably less than the $85 million the Assembly is authorized to spend this year in "community project fund" appropriations, also known as legislative pork.

Tens of millions of dollars in items the Assembly used to sponsor, including legal aid services, were instead included in Gov. Eliot Spitzer's executive budget, said Silver spokeswoman Sisa Moyo.

With nearly $40 million left for the Assembly to spend, more projects could surface in another appropriation bill later this year.

The Senate, which also has $85 million to spend under the $121 billion state budget approved April 1, plans to release its list on Thursday or Friday, said Mark Hansen, a spokesman for Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno.

Assembly and Senate minority conferences and some individual legislators released their lists, lacking some details, last week upon request.

It was unclear why the majority conferences have had difficulty providing the detailed data, but the Assembly posted all the items for its 150 members on its Web site Tuesday afternoon.

The public postings, which include the sizes of the grants, the recipients' names, addresses and telephone numbers, the names of the sponsoring members and what they're for, started last year after the Times Union successfully sued for disclosure of the full information.

The items on the Web reveal that big initiatives were sponsored by rank-and-file members instead of Silver.

In the new posting, for example, Assemblymen Ron Canestrari, D-Cohoes, and John McEneny, D-Albany, were listed as the sponsors of a $150,000 member item for the Center for Disability Services Inc. in Albany.

The money is for a health care clinic and equipment.

The project director is listed as Kristin M. Proud, a former top fiscal officer for the Assembly Democrats who left to work in the nonprofit industry.

Spitzer recently hired her as a director of health and human services.

Canestrari and McEneny had said their member items were for nominal amounts of about $5,000, and lists they released of their projects didn't include money for the center.

Both said they didn't consider the funding part of their member item allocation of about $180,000 each, and that the center received money at their request after Spitzer didn't include funding in his budget.

Such an addition might have been listed as a Silver member item in the past, Canestrari said.

In another instance, $285,631 was granted to Albany-based TASC (Treatment Alternatives to Street Crime) of the Capital District Inc. from four Assembly members, none of whom live in the region.

One of them, RoAnn Destito, R-Rome, explained that members involved in public safety committees were listed on such grants to spare Silver from being listed as the sponsor.

In two past years of member item spending, Silver funded $15.2 million in member items personally, and more than $23 million with other members.

Canestrari was also listed in the new posting as granting $250,000 to the New York University School of Dentistry for a "mobile dental van for pediatric outreach" that isn't expected to travel to the Capital Region.

He's also down as sponsor of $150,000 for Capital Culture Inc., doing business as Capital Repertory Theater in Albany, which wasn't on the list of member item grants his office released.

The amounts for local Assembly members, according to their offices, were $185,000 for Canestrari; $185,000 for Assemblyman Paul Tonko, D-Amsterdam; and $180,000 for McEneny.

Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco, R-Schenectady, had $544,000, while his members had at least $100,000 each.

Following heavy media scrutiny of the member item system, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said he is requiring all recipients to answer questionnaires and disclose any relationships with legislators or staffers.

They must prove good standing with the state, promise the money is for a public purpose and enter into contracts with implementing state agencies.

Members worry many small nonprofits will be burdened with paperwork and won't get funding this year, if ever.

Many member items don't reach their destinations for a variety of reasons.

Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli reported this week that $278 million in past member item money was still unspent at the end of March.

The Assembly list shows grants to many typical groups -- local sports organizations, YMCAs, ethnic organizations and domestic violence services.

Several ASPCA chapters, animal shelters and humane societies also received grants.

M. Odato can be reached at 454-5083 or by e-mail at jodato@timesunion.com.

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS - The Daily Politics

"Buley Unplugged (Updated)"

DN Albany Bureau Chief Joe Mahoney reports:

Public Service Commissioner Cheryl Buley, at a commission hearing today on ConEd's handling of the power outage that darkened Long Island City last summer, accused Spitzer administration energy advisor Steve Mitnick of pressuring her to delay a decision on putting the utility on trial for its alleged negligence.

Buley also claimed that Mitnick "threatened" her, implying she would be canned from the PSC if she did not follow his instructions.

The Spitzer press office did not have an immediate response.

Buley stunned those in the hearing room when she declared that Mitnick repeatedly called her to get her to refrain from coming out in favor of allowing a so-called prudency petition against the company to move forward.

The other commissioners said no one had pressured them in the manner outlined by Buley, an appointee of former Gov. George Pataki and the estranged wife of former state Repulican Party chief counsel Jeff Buley, a onetime lobbying partner of Al Pirro.

Reporters surrounded Buley during a break.

Mahoney's transcription of the group interview with her follows after the jump.

Buley: "I was so concerned about (Mitnick’s) approaches to me that I’ve taken notes."

"Each time he has called he has suggested that he is managing my career plans in some respects."

"And when those conversations started tying themselves to policy decisions, that’s when I became concerned that there was undue influence on his part to suggest my disposition."

"I felt threatened."

Q: How many calls?

Buley: "I would say roughly five, and frankly I have been so busy preparing for session I am going to download all of the notes I have taken and catalogue these conversations.

"It was on five or six occasions, and on each time he had contacted me, it consistently he has unduly threatened my role as commissioner."

"I served with honor and dignity for the past six years on the New York Racing and Wagering Board, and also as chairwoman of that board."

"And I had a growing concern that my honor and my integrity was being challenged."

"He was suggesting in somehow his intimidation would be an effective tactic."

Q: Did he say why they wanted a delay?

Buley: "He didn’t explain that at all."

Q: Did he say the governor was involved?

Buley: "No, he basically in a veiled or not so veiled way said I should not support the Assembly position and that I should not only be moderate and measured, but not speak out about the need to commence a prudency investigation immediately."

Q: What type of communications?

Buley: "Telephone, and then finally, just yesterday, he called and said he wanted to have a really productive working relationship, and I said I would no longer speak with him."

"You know, I’d be happy to talk about constructively about policy issues, but I would not longer speak at all with him about my career or accept his threats about my career or accept his threats about my career, and he agreed to extricate himself about any further discussions and apologize for his bad judgment."

Buley was asked about her marriage to Jeff Buley, whom she had previously accused of domestic violence in a police report before withdrawing that allegation.

Her response:

"I’m involved in a divorce proceeding with my husband."

"He has absolutely nothing …"

"He has not lived in the house with me for the past couple of years…so…."

"I’m an independent commissioner and I’m proud to say that I have been.

Q: So you don’t think there would be any criticism that the only one speaking out is someone with ties to the Republican Party?

Buley: "Maybe I have some courage, and I take pride in the fact I will not be the subject of any attempt to coerce my position as an independent commissioner when I took my oath of office .. I took that oath with a sense of deep integrity, and a lot of this discussion about transparency raises the need to disclose that I have been attempted (for) coercment (sic) on policy decisions, and it is wrong."

Q: When were these communications made?

Buley: "For the past few months ..."

"My term is set to expire in 2012."

"It’s a six year term which commenced in July."

"He was asking me to look at the law, Section 4-B, about removals."

"I was left with the sense that at any given moment, if I didn’t do what he wanted me to do, then perhaps I would be ousted from my position."

Q: Was it your sense he was trying to get you to take the side of Con Ed?

Buley: "That’s a good inference."

Q: Do you believe you were the only one so approached by Mitnick?

Buley: "I have courage."

UPDATE: Spitzer spokesman Darren Dopp denied Buley's claims that she was pressured and threatened by Mitnick.

"Her allegations are false," Dopp said.

"There is no mechanism for removing a person (from the PSC) once they are appointed.

Dopp said there is nothing improper about Mitnick having contact with PSC members, since he is the administration's energy expert.

Posted by Elizabeth Benjamin on April 18, 2007 2:17 PM

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypoli...ugged.html#more

"Ex-attorney general's firm faces fine - Dennis Vacco lobbying company could get $325,000 penalty in probe of casino deal"

By JAMES M. ODATO, Capitol bureau, Alnamy, New York Times Union

First published: Wednesday, April 18, 2007

ALBANY -- The lobbying firm of former Attorney General Dennis Vacco could be fined $325,000 for allegedly hiding an illegal contract for millions of dollars if a tribal casino was built in the state, the Temporary Commission on Lobbying said Tuesday.

The commission agreed to set up a civil penalty hearing in June at which Crane & Vacco can respond to charges it broke the law by contracting for a contingency fee that would have richly rewarded the lobbyists if a tribal casino for the Seneca-Cayuga Tribe of Oklahoma came to pass.

The investigation stems from a case the firm proposed settling last year for $50,000 but failed to follow through, said Lobbying Commission Executive Director David Grandeau.

Now it faces $325,000 for failing to disclose the allegedly illegal "success fee" contract and not filing reports about it and instead filing a "false" report, lobbying commission documents say.

The case involves a 2004 deal, first reported in the Times Union, between the lobbying firm, led by Vacco and James Crane, and Caywil, a Rochester development group headed by Thomas Wilmot.

Wilmot held development rights with the Seneca Cayuga, which was proposing casinos in the Catskills and Rochester area.

Vacco and Crane have denied any wrongdoing and Albany County District Attorney David Soares concluded a year ago that the case lacked the evidence necessary to bring criminal charges.

Representatives of the firm could not be reached for comment.

NY TIMES

Metro Briefing | New York

"Albany: More Trouble for Felder"

By DANNY HAKIM

Published: April 19, 2007

The state commission overseeing judges said yesterday that its chairman, Raoul Felder, no longer speaks for the panel.

Last week, Mr. Felder received a unanimous vote of no confidence from the nine other members of the State Commission on Judicial Conduct after they accused him of invoking “racial, ethnic and religious invective” in a book that he wrote with Jackie Mason.

Gov. Eliot Spitzer has also called for Mr. Felder to step down, but he has refused to do so and has disputed characterizations about his book.

The commission said yesterday that the staff administrator would speak for the commission, and that the clerk would sign the panel’s orders.

Mr. Felder said he did not oppose any of the steps being taken.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/19/nyregion...amp;oref=slogin

NY TIMES EMPIRE ZONE

April 18, 2007, 2:50 pm

"Commission: Felder Doesn’t Speak for Us"

By Danny Hakim

The State Commission on Judicial Conduct, stepping up its cold war with its chairman Raoul Felder, said today that Mr. Felder no longer speaks for the commission.

He also will no longer sign commission orders or official letters of caution or dismissal sent to judges, according to resolutions passed by the commission at a meeting yesterday.

This comes in the wake of the other nine commissioners taking a unanimous no confidence vote in Mr. Felder last week, after they accused him of invoking “racial, ethnic and religious invective” in a new book he co-wrote with Jackie Mason.

Mr. Mason rallied to Mr. Felder’s defense yesterday, but the governor has called on him to step down.

Mr. Felder has said he intends to serve the more than 11 months he has left as chairman.

Comments so far...

April 18th, 2007 7:45 pm

As an older upstate NY-er, I find myself somewhat puzzled and perplexed by the fact that anyone in America thought this celebrity divorce lawyer Raoul Felder had any credibility whatsoever BEFORE he co-authored that foolish little book “Schmucks! Our Favorite Fakes, Frauds, Lowlifes, Liars, the Armed and Dangerous and Good Guys Gone Bad”, for which he was denounced by his fellow commissioners Friday.

Put another way, who actually thinks that comments about “the other spouse” made to judges by celebrity divorce lawyers in the course of being celebrity divorce lawyers for politicians like Rudolph Giuliani are appropriate and simply right for one who sits, as Mr. Felder does, in a position as chair of a commission that judges the behavior of judges?

As we countryfolks see it out here, this Mr. Felder did not talk any different in that book than he has been talking verbally for all the years that he has been a celebrity divorce lawyer for people like Rudolph Giuliani, and so, it is quite hypocritical of the members of this state Commission on Judicial Conduct to be getting all uppity now because they have been sitting there all this time with a celebrity divorce lawyer as their chair who talks like Raoul Felder does in that foolish little book, which they now have a problem with, but didn’t before the book was published.

Which raises the question of who would even take the time to bother to read the thing in the first place to be insulted by it, assuming that one could even understand what is written in there in the first place, which is not certain, since in his April 16, 2007 NEW YORK POST article entitled “GOV TO RAOUL: QUIT - OR ELSE GOV. SPITZER - Dismayed by ‘Schmucks!’”, Fred Dicker had to translate excerpts from the book, just so the average reader would even know what this celebrity divorce lawyer Felder was saying in the “divorce lawyer-ese” that he speaks.

I know that I wouldn’t, and quite frankly, I can’t see some Spanish-speaking person taking the time to read it, either, especially with the need to translate as you go, because with Jackie Mason’s kind of humor involved, you already know it is going to be mainly derogatory, and who wants to bring that **** into their lives voluntarily, when it is just too easy to walk on by.

So, quess what, members of the state Commission on Judicial Conduct and “STEAMROLLER” Spitzer, as well, out here in the countryside, you already didn’t have a lot of credibility before this celebrity divorce lawyer who is your chair wrote this book, because you had for your chair a celebrity divorce lawyer, who is not looked upon by us more conservative countryfolks up here as any kind of role model that we would care to emulate, nor do we find ourselves overly impressed or confident about the type of values that a celebrity divorce lawyer would bring to the state Commission on Judicial Conduct, and that was before he wrote the book.

And we are curious, with a man whose job it is to make someone’s spouse look bad before a judge to get a better settlement for his high-paying client, what exactly is it that he would then find unprofessional in a judge, who happens to be a member of the bar, as well as Felder.

And “STEAMROLLER” Spitzer, who calls himself a “****ING STEAMROLLER” while he sits in judgment of Felder, who only calls people schmucks.

And so …..

— Posted by Livyjr

http://empirezone.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/0...or-us/#comments

NY TIMES EMPIRE ZONE

April 19, 2007, 12:39 pm

"Nine and a Half Weeks, Albany-Style"

By Nicholas Confessore

That’s how much time Gov. Eliot Spitzer has left to carry out the remainder of his agenda, as the governor himself noted today.

That agenda now includes, as per the major speech Mr. Spitzer delivered today at a breakfast sponsored by Crain’s Business, an ambitious effort to lower the state’s energy consumption through both new conservation efforts and the construction of new clean-power energy plants.

But it will not include gay marriage — something Mr. Spitzer was asked about by the breakfast’s moderator, who wondered what had happened to the governor’s earlier committment to the issue.

“It’s there,” Mr. Spitzer replied.

“And it is also something I believe in."

"I’ve been unequivocal about that.”

The list of priorities he unveiled Monday, he added, were “a statement of what the priorities are for the next few weeks, that I was listing bills that I think we can and should get passed by the Legislature in the next few weeks."

"And so I am focusing now on politics as the art of the possible.”

We also learned a few other things.

He’s not going to raise taxes during his term.

He’s going to “vigorously contest” the State Senate races next year, when the Democrats have a chance to finally retake that chamber (and solidfy the party’s dominance of state government).

He still wants to get a judicial pay raise and plans to introduce legislation to that effect.

Not surprisingly, Mr. Spitzer is also still saying that he basically won on the budget, though it increased spending at three times the rate of inflation.

“It was not sufficient fiscal discipline,” the governor conceded, but it was “substantively the right budget” and also on-time.

We suspect we’ll be hearing a lot of this “on-time budget” claim, especially when the next election rolls around.

Technically, of course, the budget was late, though only slightly.

Comments so far ...

April 19th, 2007 4:34 pm

In the state of NY, where the budget process is very tightly defined and controlled by ART. VII of the NYS Constitution, there is no such thing as “Technically, of course, the budget was late, though only slightly”, and this newspaper should be the very first to know that, based upon its own story from January 18, 2002 entitled “Court’s Budget Ruling Hands Pataki a Big Victory” by James C. McKinley, Jr., wherein was stated in relevant part to this very discussion that:

“But Justice Bernard J. Malone, Jr. of Albany ruled today in the governor’s favor, saying the Constitution and previous court decisions unequivocally gave the executive the power to include policy changes in the descriptions of appropriations.”

“In essence, Justice Malone said Article VII, Section III of the Constitution gives the governor the choice of folding any policy changes he thinks necessary to carry out his spending plan into the budget bill or submitting those changes in separate bills.”

“He ruled that the Legislature’s contention that appropriation bills should consist only of a list of numbers with short descriptions of their purpose would render that part of the Constitution meaningless.”

So, according to this newspaper’s own reporting, in 2002, NY Supreme Court Justice Bernard J. Malone, Jr. of Albany ruled in favor of the New York State constitution, and in 2002, “Eliot “STEAMROLLER” Spitzer was state A.G., so there is no way that the “STEAMROLLER” could be ignorant of that decision, and yet here he is, in the pages of your newspaper, mocking us and treating us like a bunch of chumps by telling us his budget was “substantively the right budget” and also on-time.

Pardon me here, but that is a bunch of absolute crap, and shame on us for not calling “STEAMROLLER’s” Spitzer’s cards on this gross abuse of our constitutional processes for state budgeting here in NYS as they are delineated in ART. VII of our state Constitution.

Pursuant to sect. 3 of ART. IV of the NYS Constitution, “The governor shall …. take care that the laws are faithfully executed”, and with respect to the state budget, that “law” which thoroughly binds the governor, any NYS governor, including “STEAMROLLER” Spitzer, is ART. VII of our Constitution, and instead of taking care that ART. VII was “faithfully executed” with respect to this budget, “STEAMROLLER” Spitzer simply trashed the NYS Constitution and did things his own way, for which we upstate people believe he should be removed from office, right now, as soon as possible, for he is an oath-breaker and he is a danger to our democracy here in upstate NYS to boot.

An unconstitutional budget is not “late, though only slightly” as your newspaper maintains, and would apparently have us believe, as if we were really all nothing more than a bunch of ignorant chumps up here who would fall for anything any roaming “drummer” or snake-oil salesman or ordinary con-artist would sell us; to the contrary, an unconstitutional budget in NYS is a nullity - it doesn’t exist, because you cannot get something lawful out of an unlawful, unconstitutional process!

In your own newspaper just five years ago, in 2002, it was stated with respect to our present constitutional budget process as follows:

“The state’s current budget-making system was drawn up during a redrafting of the Constitution in 1927, at a time when the public had grown tired with the Legislature’s penchant for spending.”

“The changes were refined again in a 1938 revision.”

“Those amendments gave the governor the power to write and submit appropriations bills as well as others needed to carry out the budget and severely limited the Legislature’s ability to change the appropriations.”

“The governor was given the power to veto any additions, but the legislature was barred from passing other appropriations until they took ‘final action’ on the governor’s bills.”

There, I submit, right in the pages of your own newspaper, is the “bones” of what is laid out in more exacting detail in ART. VII of our state Constitution, and it is too bad this newspaper has such a short memory that it forgets its own words of yesterday about such an important issue to us in upstate NYS today, that being the crafting of our state budget according to our Constitution by both the governor and the Legislature, because just like in 1927, which was just before a major U.S. depression, once again we, the people have grown damn sick and tired with the Legislature’s penchant for spending, along with that of “STEAMROLLER” Spitzer ….

And so …

— Posted by Livyjr

http://empirezone.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/0...style/#comments

THE NEW YORK POST

"PANEL PLACES GAG ON RAOUL - STRIPPED OF SOME POWER"

By FREDRIC U. DICKER State Editor

April 19, 2007 -- ALBANY - Celebrity lawyer Raoul Felder was in more trouble with the state Commission on Judicial Conduct he chairs yesterday, as members revealed they had stripped him of his right to speak and sign letters for the commission.

Felder, the target of an unprecedented "no confidence" vote by commission members last week because of the contents of "Schmucks!" a book he co-wrote with comedian Jackie Mason, blasted the commissioners for "acting like hysterical children."

"This doesn't disturb me at all," insisted Felder, who has vowed to remain at his unpaid post despite calls from the other commission members and Gov. Spitzer to resign.

The latest anti-Felder action came at an unannounced commission teleconference Monday where a resolution was adopted declaring, "Only the [commission] administrator will speak publicly on behalf of the commission and answer substantive press inquiries."

The commission also resolved that "until further notice," all "letters of dismissal and caution" sent to judges under investigation should be signed by the commission vice chair, and not by Felder.

Felder, who chose not to participate in the meeting, said he didn't object to either of the actions.

"I never believed I should speak for the group," he insisted.

He also said he spent considerable time away from New York and, therefore, didn't object to having the vice chairman sign letters.

But Felder conceded that the actions were taken against him in the wake of his controversial book, saying, "The reason they did this is a little hysterical."

Commission members claim the book - which skewers "our favorite fakes, frauds, lowlifes, liars, the armed and dangerous, and good guys gone bad" - contained racial and ethnic "invective," ridiculed the legal presumption of innocence, and attacked affirmative action.

fredric.dicker@nypost.com

http://www.nypost.com/seven/04192007/news/...tate_editor.htm

"Bonacic bill aims to shake up Legislature patronage"

By Brendan Scott

Times Herald-Record

April 19, 2007

Albany – And now for John Bonacic’s latest act of defiance.

The Catskills-area senator who recently won statewide notoriety as the only Republican to call for Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno’s ouster says he’ll soon introduce a bill that would ensure equal staff budgets for lawmakers of both parties.

The bill, which also is being introduced in the Assembly by reform-minded Westchester Democrat Sandy Galef, represents a direct assault on the partisan hierarchy that has existed in Albany for as along as anyone can remember.

It would essentially end the practice of doling out money for staff based on party status, seniority and good-standing with political bosses by insuring that every lawmaker gets the same amount.

“It’s unfair that a minority senator does not get the same resources to represent the same amount of constituents,” said Bonacic, who represents Delaware and Sullivan and parts of Orange and Ulster counties.

He said the current system exists “to send a message that if you elect a minority member, your district will be underserved."

"Any system that punishes the people is morally unfair.”

Good government groups often cite equal staff allocation as the type of reform that could finally shake up the state Legislature’s more than 90-percent re-election rate and make lawmakers more accountable.

That means it’s not likely to be well received by the Legislature’s longtime leaders, Bruno, a Republican from Brunswick, and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan.

Typically, such bills are announced and then sent to some committee to die a slow, quiet death.

So, it’s notable that Bonacic says he’s willing to call for a “motion to discharge,” a bit of parliamentary trickery that allows a majority to force a vote on the bill.

It’s a rule sometimes applied in futility by the Senate’s Democratic minority, who are outnumbered by the Republicans 29-33.

Presuming Bonacic has the Democrats’ support, he would only need two more Republicans to carry the vote.

The senator says four Republicans and Senate Minority Leader Malcolm Smith, D-Queens, are among the bill’s co-sponsors.

Bonacic says Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who has been a critic of the Legislature’s way of doing business, also supports the bill.

“This new governor is basically trying to end Albany’s culture of controlling power,” Bonacic said.

“You’re seeing talk of reform that you’ve never seen before.”

A spokesman for Bruno could not immediately be reached for comment.

http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/...NEWS%2F70419009

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

"Can't fix this! Brooklyn judge Garson guilty of bribes"

BY NANCIE L. KATZ, DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Friday, April 20th 2007, 4:00 AM

A disgraced Brooklyn judge, who was caught on hidden cameras accepting boxes of cigars and expensive liquor during cozy meetings with a crooked lawyer, was convicted yesterday of fixing divorce cases.

Former Supreme Court Justice Gerald Garson did not react when the jury, which deliberated for two days, found him guilty of receiving bribes and official misconduct.

He was acquitted of four other lesser counts.

The ex-judge faces up to 15 years in prison at his sentencing in June.

During the four-week trial, prosecutors showed Brooklyn jurors excerpts of hundreds of hours of profanity-laced audio and videotapes of Garson, 75, accepting boxes of expensive cigars, top-shelf liquor and other gifts from his pal Paul Siminovsky from October 2002 to March 2003.

Siminovsky testified against Garson.

"We proved the court system is corrupt," said Frieda Hanimov, who in 2002 raised suspicions that Garson was accepting bribes to fix divorce cases.

She had been told her husband, who was divorcing her, paid a bribe to win custody of their children.

"It's a big shame."

"It proves no citizen should trust anyone in the court system," she said.

Garson's conviction comes as the result of a wider investigation District Attorney Charles Hynes conducted into whether judgeships were being bought and sold.

The probe nabbed the head of the Brooklyn Democratic Party, Clarence Norman, who was convicted three times, including once for forcing a judicial candidate to pay $10,000 to Norman's pals or lose his political machine's support.

Garson's attorney, Michael Washor, vowed to appeal.

He called the videotapes a "Class-D" movie that created the "illusion of criminal conduct."

nkatz@nydailynews.com

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime_file...arson_guil.html

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

"It takes one to know one"

Friday, April 20th 2007, 4:00 AM

Editorial

What a schmucklehead.

By which we mean Raoul Felder, who, for the sake of cheap laughs, has disqualified himself from serving as chairman of the state Commission on Judicial Conduct - an agency with the critical job of policing judges.

Felder, a celebrity divorce attorney, made the sublimely stupid decision to co-author a tome titled "Schmucks" with his old buddy Jackie Mason.

It's obviously humor, Felder kvetches.

Yes.

But when you have taken responsibility for investigating alleged ethical lapses by judges, you don't go around saying, "Anytime you hear the word 'allegedly,' you can bet it's true."

Nor, when some of those judges may turn out to be black, do you declare, "nothing in our country is more insidious than affirmative action."

Nor when some of those judges may turn out to be Hispanic, do you describe Spanish-speaking immigrants as "schnorrers, schnooks, shlubs, pishers, putzers, shlemiels, and, yes. schmucks."

Deeming Felder's humor "crude, biased, vulgar and otherwise demeaning," his colleagues on the 11-member commission rendered a unanimous vote of no confidence in him, stripped him of his authority to speak for the panel and are studying whether they have the power to remove him as chairman altogether.

Gov. Spitzer wants Felder gone.

Felder has said he would step aside from any proceeding in which a judge raised an issue about his fairness.

But there should never be a reason to question the fairness of the chairman of the Judicial Conduct Commission.

Having made a joke of himself, Felder should make his punch line: I quit.

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2007/0...o_know_one.html

"Injured workers find no relief in reform - Higher payments in workers' compensation system not retroactive"

By RICK KARLIN, Capitol bureau, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Friday, April 20, 2007

When Frederick Curtis heard New York had reformed its workers' compensation system, he thought he had reason to celebrate.

Curtis has collected $215 a week for almost three decades after receiving a concussion while working as a guard at New York City's Rikers Island jail.

But when he called the Workers' Compensation Board on Wednesday to ask about his increase, Curtis got the same answer that thousands of other people have heard in recent weeks: all those much-ballyhooed changes apply only to those injured after July 1, which is when the reforms are scheduled to take effect.

"I am not entitled to any increase at all," Curtis said, adding that he has difficulty making ends meet on his workers' comp payment, augmented by a $960-a-month Social Security disability check.

"I can't afford this," said Curtis, who now lives in Norfolk, Va.

"I can't afford living."

Workers' compensation reform was one of Gov. Eliot Spitzer's first major achievements.

Businesses and unions had been at loggerheads over the issue for years, though both agreed the system was outmoded, costly, and inefficient.

As a result, industry and labor alike cheered last month when Spitzer signed a bill overhauling the system.

The law increases the maximum payout from $400 to $500 in the first year.

Those payments rise to about $600 in two years and after that, top payments will be two-thirds of the state's average weekly wage (currently about $997).

The new law also limits to 10 years the amount of time a beneficiary can collect payments for a partial disability such as a bad back.

But it also provides added resources to retrain people with such injuries.

"This is a winner for business," Spitzer said at the time, adding

"This is a win for labor."

"This is a win for every citizen in the state."

Not, though, for those already receiving payments.

There are about 150,000 people in New York's workers' comp system at any given time, said Mario Cilento, spokesman for the state AFL-CIO, a major labor organization.

Cilento said his office got a several dozen calls by recipients in the days following the law's passage.

Likewise, the Workers' Compensation Board was getting between 100 and 200 calls a day, according to a source there.

Spitzer spokeswoman Jennifer Givner said making the changes retroactive was never the intention.

"The Workers' compensation legislation represents reforms to the system moving forward," she said.

The lack of retroactivity isn't the first time people have been caught unaware following a major change in New York's social safety net.

Last year, for example, former Gov. George Pataki and lawmakers passed Timothy's Law, which forces health insurers to cover mental illness as they do other medical problems.

But that law didn't extend to subsidized programs like Child Health Plus or Family Health Plus, which are designed for people who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but who nonetheless would struggle to pay health premiums.

The bottom line for people like Curtis is there will be no increase.

"It won't be discussed and there won't be any changes," he said he was told.

Karlin can be reached at 454-5758 or by e-mail at rkarlin@timesunion.com.

"Campaign finance stirs opposition - Spitzer proposals to limit flow of money facing skepticism from wide range of political players"

By JAMES M. ODATO, Capitol bureau, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Friday, April 20, 2007

ALBANY - As he tries to accomplish one of his last top priorities for this year, Gov. Eliot Spitzer faces resistance to proposed campaign finance reforms that some lawmakers say favor the rich and diminish the power of political parties.

The governor plans a major announcement on election reform on Monday during Reform New York Day 2007 and is pushing legislative leaders to join him on a bill to change the way campaigns are financed.

Spitzer is trying to drastically lower the limits on contributions to candidates and committees, an idea that is not going over well with legislative representatives, according to interviews with people close to the negotiations the governor and his staff have been having for weeks.

As a result, insiders say, the governor has been pressed to compromise on some of the terms, and has begun bending as he did to get a state budget passed on time.

A deal with the Assembly may be at hand, insiders say.

Spitzer declined this week to discuss details or the status of talks.

His plan, according to legislative insiders, would set the amount that could be donated by individuals and political action committees at $2,300 per general election, the same as in federal elections.

Limits now are $3,800 for Assembly, $9,500 for Senate and $37,800 for statewide candidates.

He also wants lawmakers to agree to ban contributions from corporations, partnerships and limited liability corporations, and Senate Republicans are pushing for compromise.

LLCs are considered individuals, so people can set up many of them and use them to far exceed the maximum for one person.

Spitzer has also talked about eliminating direct donations from unions, striking a nerve with Assembly Democrats.

On still another front, Spitzer wants to reduce the amount of "soft money" now without any cap that can be donated to political parties to help them pay for costs that aren't candidate-specific, such as registration drives or the electricity bill at party headquarters.

Party leaders see soft money, also known as housekeeping funds, as important revenues to sustain and grow their organizations.

The governor also wants to sharply reduce the amounts of "hard" money donated to state parties funds the party leaders can and do transfer to specific candidates.

Currently, individual and PACs can contribute a maximum of $94,200.

Hard money helps fund a system that assures party leaders can wield power.

The governor and negotiators haven't resolved the issue of party contributions.

Beyond that, one of his most unpopular proposals involves adding a fifth commissioner to the Board of Election.

The board had four slots, two from each major party.

Spitzer's fifth commissioner idea is aimed at reducing logjams on investigations by the board.

Detractors complain that even with five commissioners, three can still work out deals so that neither party's candidates get investigated.

Some lawmakers say they're concerned that the changes would make it tough to run against wealthy people like Spitzer and billionaire New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

"I and some of my colleagues are concerned that there are proposals out there that would make it an exclusive club to run for office," said Assembly Majority Leader Ron Canestrari, D-Cohoes.

Canestrari, chairman of the Democratic Assembly Campaign Committee the past decade, is one of several lawmakers briefed in recent days on the talks and opposed to across-the-board reduction of donation levels.

"I'm a firm believer of the two party system in our state and nation; it's shown to be a model for the world," Canestrari said.

Despite concerns raised by Canestrari and other Assembly members, the Democrat-led chamber appears to be closer to striking a deal with Spitzer than Republican-controlled Senate.

Officials familiar with talks say the Senate GOP particularly dislikes banning donations from businesses, which now can give up to $5,000 per year.

Limiting soft money donations is also seen as a way to cripple the Republican Party.

The proposal to reduce PAC contributions also angered several Assembly majority members who see it as a way to nearly ban union donations.

"He's making it more difficult for individuals from poorer districts to raise funds, by banning contributions from unions," said Assemblyman Gary Pretlow, D-Mount Vernon.

M. Odato can be reached at 454-5083 or by e-mail at jodato@timesunion.com.

"State worker accused of embezzlement - Guilderland woman charged with stealing $50,000 while treasurer of training group"

By CAROL DeMARE, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Saturday, April 21, 2007

ALBANY -- A state employee was charged Friday with embezzling more than $50,000 from an organization she served as treasurer.

Karen M. Bradley, 42, of Carman Road, Guilderland, was arrested by State Police in connection with the theft from the New York State Training Council, a nonprofit organization of government human resources professionals.

Bradley is employed in the Governor's Office of Employee Relations as an employee program assistant.

She was suspended Friday without pay, Office of Employee Relations spokesman Craig Dickinson said.

Bradley was the part-time, non-paid treasurer for the council, which advocates and supports training within the state work force.

After being booked on counts of second-degree grand larceny and first-degree falsifying business records, Bradley was arraigned in Albany City Court and released on her own recognizance.

Senior Investigator Tom Peters said the thefts from 1999 to September 2006 were "brought to our attention by the chairman of the training council, who had received information from individuals regarding" unpaid bills.

The probe began in October and "basically was a matter of waiting for subpoenas on bank records to come back," he said.

Investigators allege that Bradley repeatedly filed false financial reports with the council's executive committee to hide the thefts.

Carol DeMare can be reached at 454-5431 or by e-mail at cdemare@timesunion.com.

"Legislature should make pork-barrel spending illegal in New York state"

Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Thursday, April 19, 2007

It was with fascination that I read about the effort to secure more pork-barrel spending for the minority parties in each house.

If the Senate had any sense, they would grant the full participation of the minority party in all the perks of office, because when they pass into minority status next year, they (the Republicans) will be its chief beneficiaries.

Ours is now a Democratic state and will be for the next 20 years, thanks in part to the feckless leadership of Joseph Bruno and George Pataki and the de-population of upstate that resulted.

But as to the question of pork, a story is brewing in Westchester that could end the practice once and for all.

The Journal News reports that the Yonkers Chamber took a $175,000 "member item" courtesy of former-Sen. Nick Spano, and used it to pay a $100,000 consulting contract with Zehy Jereis (a former assistant to Spano and the Yonkers GOP chief).

Spano, who once sponsored a business tax at the request of hospital union 1199 SEIU, is now self-dealing with a business group.

Greed has no ideology.

Just as appalling is the $500,000 in pork that Sen. Bruno delivered to a high-tech business partly owned by a friend which, coincidentally, reportedly hired Bruno as a consultant.

For that budgeting-ledger act, Bruno is the subject of an FBI investigation that could end badly for him.

The whole matter of pork is under examination.

The attorney general's office is trying to fix the problem by disclosing who is responsible for each member item.

But mere transparency won't make the practice less morally wrong, because pork is always the use of public money for personal gain.

Any time a politician directs money to his district via pork he is doing so to burnish his image and enhance his chance for re-election -- a personal use of public money.

In a worst-case scenario, the money ends up in the hands of a friend, but sometimes it circles back to the politician who secured it in the first place.

That just can't be right.

Raw pork smells pretty foul when exposed to sunlight.

We ought to make it illegal.

MARK ALESSE

Delmar

The writer was a small business lobbyist in Albany for 20 years and served on the Assembly and Senate staff in policymaking positions.

http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp...sdate=4/21/2007

"Bruno supporters just say 'thank you' - Window stickers, ads offer encouragement to veteran Senate majority leader"

By RICK KARLIN and JAMES ODATO, Capitol bureau, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Saturday, April 14, 2007

First there were bobbleheads, now there are car stickers: for state Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno that is.

During the past few weeks, you might have noticed some cars across the Capital Region sporting window stickers that say: "Thank You Senator Bruno."

Those who received the stickers also got an information sheet citing some of the reasons that Bruno, R-Brunswick, should be thanked.

It cites the numerous projects that Bruno, in his role as a top Republican, has helped fund in the Capital Region, including incentives to bring a planned computer chip factory to Saratoga County, equipment for local firehouses, a new airport and Amtrak terminal, as well as funds to create a new Tech Valley High School.

The window stickers have gone out to some Republican political leaders, as well as union members and business owners, said Joe Dalton, president of the Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce.

Dalton said he got a bunch of people together during the past few weeks to print and distribute the stickers, which he said number between 500 and 1,000.

Dalton stressed that the effort was not a chamber initiative and he had no prompting from Bruno or his office.

"I didn't have a clue who did it," Bruno said last week when asked about the stickers, as well as a newspaper ad.

Dalton said the mini-campaign was a reaction to what he termed negative publicity that has surrounded the veteran politician, who in December announced that he was under investigation by the FBI for his outside business dealings.

Bruno, who created and then sold a telecommunications company, runs a consulting firm in addition to his duties as Senate majority leader.

He has long insisted that the firm is his private affair and hasn't revealed who his clients are.

News stories in the Times Union and other papers, however, have chronicled how federal authorities may be probing pork barrel economic development money that Bruno helped provide to businesses with which he had possible personal ties.

"We saw the media going after Joe Bruno for whatever reasons they had, and we didn't see members of the media doing very much and saying 'Thank you,' " Dalton said.

"It's just that we got a little upset with the media."

The stickers came as Bruno celebrated his 78th birthday last weekend, which also came with some laudatory ads in the Times Union newspaper and on Siena College's WVCR radio show.

The half-page ad, which thanks Bruno for promoting Tech Valley, was placed by Schenectady resident Michelle Desrosiers.

She did not return a call for comment.

And the Siena radio ads stemmed out of a conversation some people had at the school when they realized Bruno's birthday was coming up, said General Manager Darren Scott Kibbey, who added that Bruno has provided money for the school.

The spate of support isn't the first time Bruno's been in such public view.

Last summer, the Troy baseball stadium that bears Bruno's name handed out bobbleheads with his likeness during a Tri-City Valley Cats baseball game.

Karlin can be reached at 454-5758 or by e-mail at rkarlin@timesunion.com.

Greater Binghamton, N.Y. Press & Sun-Bulletin

Friday April 20, 2007 NEWS

"Capozzi pleads guilty to gambling charge"

The chairman of the Broome County Republican Committee today admitted to a felony count of promoting gambling, Broome County District Attorney Gerald F. Mollen said.

Anthony J. Capozzi, 41, of 11 Matthews St., Binghamton, was also sentenced today in Broome County Court to a three-year conditional discharge and a $5,000 fine, Mollen said.

The charge was the result of a year-long gambling investigation by the state police and the state Inspector General’s office.

The investigation is continuing and may result in further prosecutions, the district attorney said.

— Nancy Dooling

http://www.pressconnects.com/apps/pbcs.dll...WS01%2F70420025

"Senate serves $78M plate of pork - List of projects includes $3M given by Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno"

By RICK KARLIN, Capitol bureau, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Saturday, April 21, 2007

ALBANY -- The state Senate on Friday made public a list of $78 million in pork barrel projects, with a few million dollars left to go.

Another $7 million in Senate spending will be allocated through supplemental budget bills later this year, according to Mark Hansen, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno, R-Brunswick.

Overall, Bruno handed out just over $3 million for dozens of member items to groups ranging from the Alzheimer's Association, which got $50,000 to fund programs and services; to the Ballston Area Community Center, which got $25,000 for a new gym ventilation system and playground equipment; to Literacy Volunteers, for recruitment and training; and the Schodack Landing Fire Company, which got $15,000 for hoses.

The list, like one released earlier by the Assembly, was in a .pdf computer file, similar to text.

That means that people who want to perform a spreadsheet analysis would need specialized software or a program to convert it.

But observers noted that the information is better than it has been in the past, since each spending item is listed with the recipient, the purpose, and senator who sponsored it, as well as a line item for reference in the state budget.

"It looks like a vast improvement over what they did in the past," remarked Liam Arbetman, a research associate for Common Cause, New York.

Until last year, neither the Assembly or Senate itemized their member items, but the Times Union successfully sued Bruno and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a Manhattan Democrat, to release the full information on member items, including sponsors' names.

Even after the legal action, there were obstacles.

After losing the lawsuit, the Senate and Assembly last fall, for example, released the data but they did so in a form that made it almost impossible to search.

The Assembly improved the data after complaints, and Friday's release by the Senate was searchable as well.

Rick Karlin can be reached at 454-5758 or by e-mail at rkarlin@timesunion.com.

"Spitzer orders IG probe into threat allegations"

By MARC HUMBERT, Associated Press

Last updated: 5:44 p.m., Friday, April 20, 2007

ALBANY -- Gov. Eliot Spitzer called Friday for the state's inspector general to investigate allegations by a Republican member of the utility-regulating Public Service Commission that she was threatened by a top aide to the Democratic governor.

The governor's move came just two days after Cheryl Buley charged during a PSC meeting that Spitzer energy adviser Steven Mitnick had threatened her in an effort to get her to back off efforts to investigate Consolidated Edison over last summer's major blackout in New York City.

The Spitzer camp had, at the time, been dismissive of Buley's charge, arguing that the administration favored a PSC investigation of the blackout.

The PSC on Wednesday ordered the Con Ed investigation to move forward.

"We're not sure what happened."

"It appears to be a misunderstanding between two people," Spitzer spokesman Darren Dopp said Friday.

"But given the concerns that have been raised, we will refer the matter to the IG for an independent review of the facts."

The Spitzer-appointed inspector general, Kristine Hamann, is a former aide to Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau.

Spitzer's request for the investigation into Buley's allegations came after the state Legislature's top Republican, Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, told an Albany radio station Friday that if the governor didn't pursue the matter, the Legislature would.

"We've got to get to the truth of the matter," Bruno told WROW-AM radio, adding that he personally knows Buley and considers her "as honest as this day is long."

Assemblyman Richard Brodsky said he sought a transcript of the PSC meeting Friday as he considered starting an investigation, but said he will now wait for the inspector general's report.

"I think the governor took the right step," said Brodsky, a Westchester Democrat.

Buley is the estranged wife of Albany attorney-lobbyist Jeffrey Buley, a longtime top election law adviser to the state GOP.

"Now that that has been initiated, I am not in a position to comment," Mrs. Buley said Friday when asked about Spitzer's action.

She was appointed to the PSC last year by then-Republican Gov. George Pataki.

During Wednesday's PSC meeting, Buley said Mitnick had threatened her career five or six times since the governor took office Jan. 1.

THE NEW YORK POST

"NY BUDGET: BETTER LUCK NEXT YEAR"

By DIANA FORTUNA

April 19, 2007 -- THIS year's state budget didn't bring about nearly enough change.

Setting the priorities for next year should start now.

Yes, the budget included some modest reforms - a more equitable formula to divide up substantially greater funding for public schools; partial containment of the state's Medicaid costs, which are the highest in the nation, without reducing services to the poor; some relief for homeowners from high local taxes.

But Albany's ingrained political culture remains highly dysfunctional; the budget process is still too secretive and convoluted, and the state's fiscal practices are still far out of line with those of other states - leaving New Yorkers the nation's most heavily taxed people.

It takes time and effort to change Albany's decades-old practices and culture; we need to establish public expectations as early as possible.

Top priorities for elected officials in Albany should include:

Fix the broken budget process: This year's budget negotiations were a throwback to earlier days of Albany's old-fashioned behind-closed-doors decision-making.

The newly established process for reaching agreement on revenue levels quickly broke down.

Functioning conference committees - a recent reform that had allowed participation by rank-and-file legislators - were marginalized to the point of insignificance.

Secret talks continued to the last minute, giving legislators less than two hours to review a $121 billion budget - less than a minute for every billion dollars approved.

To correct this, the state should close the loopholes in this year's new budget-reform law - after all, it failed to prevent a breakdown in the budget process.

Improvements should ensure 1) an active role for conference committees, 2) sufficient time for lawmakers to review the budget before voting on it and 3) timely public release of a document that summarizes the fiscal impacts of the multiple, complex appropriation bills.

The state should also move the start of its fiscal year from April 1 to July 1.

This would allow more accurate estimates of revenue, since the April 15 tax-filing deadline would have passed, and it would provide more time for budget negotiations and review.

Reduce spending growth to a sustainable rate: This year's budget inflated spending by an alarming 9 percent - more than three times the rate of inflation.

As a result, the state now has to close a budget gap of about $5 billion in just 18 months.

To curb spending, the state should reduce the size of its workforce through productivity gains.

Contracts with the state's major labor unions expired on March 31.

Negotiations that result in a smaller, better-paid workforce will best serve the public interest - not least by allowing for an easier time closing the coming multibillion-dollar budget gaps.

It's also past time to fix the state's broken debt limit.

New York's debt load will soon exceed $60 billion - about $10 billion more than is affordable under reasonable standards.

The excess borrowing drives up annual debt-service costs and is a significant cause of those yawning budget woes.

Bring Medicaid costs under control: New York's spending per beneficiary is the highest in the nation, and nearly twice the national average.

One of the biggest problems is the extension of long-term-care benefits to middle- and upper-middle-class New Yorkers - when the program's true purpose is to assist the poor.

Reimbursement rates for hospitals and nursing homes are also too high - well above the national average, even when adjusted for the cost of living and patient need.

To control these costs, the state should tighten the eligibility rules for long-term care and take measures to stimulate the market for private long-term-care insurance among the middle class.

It should reduce hospital and nursing-home rates more than it did this year, to more competitive levels.

New Yorkers should be prepared next year for another blizzard of TV ads sponsored by special interests fighting to retain their excessive subsidies.

We should remember that the taxpayers pay the bill for those excesses.

Curtailing these costs would provide opportunities to expand primary-care coverage for more uninsured New Yorkers, building on this year's gains.

Continue education-funding reform: To achieve this year's changes in the school-funding formula, state leaders allocated too much money to wealthy school districts that don't need it.

Also watered down were the accountability improvements sought by Gov. Spitzer.

Next year, the new funding formula should operate only on the basis of need, not be distorted by last-minute political deal-making that disproportionately benefits narrow and wealthy constituencies.

To maximize the impact of every dollar, New York needs tighter accountability standards.

The law must hold school officials responsible for student performance - and remove officials who fail consistently.

Review the effectiveness of STAR: This program, enacted in 1997, was supposed to reduce local school taxes.

It has proven to be fundamentally flawed and shouldn't have been expanded this year.

It sends the most relief to the wealthiest homeowners, rather than to the neediest, and leaves out renters and business owners.

It should be restructured to deliver property-tax relief where it's needed most.

Next year's budget will be crucial.

New Yorkers should start now to let their elected officials know that they want their state government to be more efficient and effective, not just more expensive.

Diana Fortuna is president of the Citizens Budget Commission, a nonpartisan, nonprofit civic organization.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/04192007/posto...tuna.htm?page=1

METROLAND

"Furthering the Charges - Former staffer expands on her allegations of widespread abuse within the Rennselaer County Legislature"

Last month, Colleen Regan, a former staffer with the Republican majority in the Rensselaer County Legislature, filed a complaint with the state Division of Human Rights accusing her superiors of sexual misconduct and the abuse of government resources.

This triggered a chain of events that led to Albany County District Attorney David Soares agreeing to act as a special prosecutor and investigate the charges.

Last week, in a second affidavit delivered to the Albany DA’s office, Regan expanded upon her allegations, claiming that members of the legislative majority routinely abused county resources for their political campaigns.

“Basically Republican headquarters was not down in the Atrium [in downtown Troy],” she said, “it was in the Rensselaer County Legislature.”

In the affidavit dated April 11, Regan details her accusation that Majority Leader Robert Mirch (R-Troy) and Republican liaison Richard Crist were in large part running their personal consulting business, Victory Lanes, LLC, out of their legislative offices.

“I and my coworkers witnessed various candidates, which were running for an elected office,” Regan deposed, “frequently visit the legislature on a regular basis during their election campaign season to consult with Mr. Crist."

". . . These candidates were clients of Victory Lanes, LLC, and were seeking out Mr. Crist’s expertise regarding their election campaign strategy, while Mr. Crist was on the job at the county.”

She goes on to list the 11 candidates who consulted with Crist at the Legislature, and for whose campaigns many of the staffers were used.

Troy City Councilman Mark Wojcik, Nassau Supervisor Carol Sanford, and Troy City Council President Henry Bauer are a few of the elected officials that she fingers.

Earlier in the document, Regan claims that Crist and Mirch were charging “upwards of $5,000 a race, depending on the individual and work involved.”

Crist flatly denied the allegations.

“I look forward to speaking with the special prosecutor, to clear up these charges,” Crist said.

“These accusations are completely false.”

(Mirch did not return calls for comment.)

The campaign work went beyond what was done for Victory Lanes, Regan said.

Staffers were used on every incumbent legislative Republican’s campaign, not only on weekends and evenings, as would be expected, but during office hours as well.

“Most of our work there [at the Legislature] was of a political nature,” Regan said.

“I always said we were overstaffed."

"If you wanted to go by just mere work that needed to be done, other than political, you wouldn’t need all that staff.”

At the time, there were four full-time legislative assistants on the payroll, she said.

Regan was getting paid $21 an hour.

“Some of the political campaign work staff carries out,” Regan’s affidavit continues, “includes but is not limited to: prepare fundraising mailers, solicitation letters asking for support from committee members of various organizations, letters to residents introducing the candidate and their platform, reminder cards to vote on primary day, do me a favor cards . . .” and so on.

“People understand when you come on board, you are going to have to do some work for some people’s campaigns,” she said.

“But there is a difference."

"When somebody is running their business out of a place of business, when they are getting paid to do a job, but they are working their own personal business, using county employees for their own personal gain—how do you feel about that as a taxpayer?”

—Chet Hardin

chardin@metroland.net

http://www.metroland.net/newsfront.html#1

"Agency let slide parole failures - Documents confirm Times Union report that felons remained free despite violations; instead of disciplining those responsible, investigators searched for leaks"

By BRENDAN J. LYONS, Senior writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Sunday, April 22, 2007

ALBANY -- An internal investigation by state parole officials found that parole managers incorrectly allowed convicted felons to remain free and commit new crimes, but the state agency's leaders took no action against those found responsible.

Instead, the Division of Parole, then under the control of Gov. George Pataki, kept the results of their inquiry private and pursued charges against the people they suspected of leaking information to the Times Union.

The whole affair unfolded after a July 2005 Times Union report revealed how parolees who violated the terms of their release remained free and went on to commit crimes such as rape and murder.

Internal affairs investigators confirmed the newspaper's account, according to documents the Times Union has since obtained.

Dozens of pages of internal parole documents described how policies were violated and the advice of many parole officers was ignored by supervisors who rewrote reports and manipulated hearings to let rogue parolees go free.

Internal affairs investigators recommended varying degrees of discipline for the managers and some parole officers deemed responsible, but nothing was done.

Meanwhile, a confidential source who was involved with the case says the agency's Office of Professional Responsibility, which served as an internal affairs unit and was recently disbanded, may have used investigative subpoenas to sift through the personal phone records of parole officers and attached global positioning satellite devices to their personal vehicles to track their movements.

In response to a Freedom of Information Law request, state officials acknowledged that those subpoenas may exist, but they declined to release the records.

The Times Union is appealing the decision.

On Saturday, the agency issued a written statement acknowledging subpoenas were used to access the telephone records of parole officers.

Officials said the subpoenas were used in "personnel" investigations and not as part of the hunt for people who may have leaked information to the newspaper.

In addition, the statement said, "the Division of Parole has not attached a GPS device to the vehicle of any parole officer to monitor their activity."

The subpoenas and satellite devices are used by the agency to keep tabs on parolees, including sex offenders.

Agency officials were not available to answer questions about their policies on the use of subpoenas and the satellite devices.

It's not clear under what authority the subpoenas were used.

Normally, only judges and prosecutors have the ability to issue subpoenas involving criminal investigations.

"The type of subpoenas used were Division of Parole agency subpoenas which have been issued after July 31, 2005, but unrelated to your story of that day," the agency's statement said.

In 2005, parole officers alleged that dangerous felons who were breaking the rules and committing criminal acts were being released by supervisors who sought to limit the number of parolees being returned to prison.

One case involved a parolee who, despite being suspected of dealing drugs and breaking curfew and driving restrictions, raped and killed the teenage daughter of his former girlfriend in Gloversville.

The murder took place in Gloversville, where the Albany man had been found driving without permission weeks before the incident.

In another incident involving a murder, documents obtained by the Times Union show that top parole officials were warned in 2005 -- in the wake of the Times Union stories -- that two ex-convicts in Albany had remained on parole even after being named as suspects in the unsolved murder of a government witness in Albany eight years ago.

One of those parolees, a convicted drug dealer, has worked as an informant for the Albany Police Department.

He allegedly had identified the victim's location to the shooter and then witnessed the murder, according to internal memorandums at the Division of Parole.

The Times Union is withholding the name of the informant at the request of Albany police.

The second parolee, John VanHosen, who is the suspected shooter but has never been charged, had a slew of documented parole violations in 1998 leading up to the murder.

The alleged violations included: felony assault charges; a suspicion that he was tampering with his electronic monitoring device; curfew violations; failure to keep a job; and an arrest on felony drug charges, according to a copy of a parole memorandum written in late 2005.

The murder took place Jan. 2, 1999, in a now-closed bar on North Swan Street, which at the time was one of Albany's more crime-ridden blocks.

Okema Curtis was playing darts in the bar that night when a masked man walked into the bar, lifted a gun and pulled the trigger at close range, shooting her in the head.

Days later, VanHosen was identified as a suspect in the murder.

Detectives at the time said they believed Curtis was killed to prevent her from testifying at the murder trial of VanHosen's cousin, Jermaine VanHoesen, who was accused of killing Curtis' boyfriend during a South End shootout.

Without Curtis' testimony, Jermaine VanHoesen was later acquitted of murder charges by an Albany County jury.

No one has been arrested in connection with the murder of Okema Curtis.

But looking back, parole officials who re-examined the circumstances of her death acknowledged that mistakes were made.

"The Division of Parole's liability in this case is overwhelming," an internal affairs officer wrote in a memorandum in late 2005, regarding their oversight of John VanHosen in the months leading up to the murder.

"The parole officer of record failed to meet even minimal standards of supervision ..."

"It is with significant luck that our handling of this case was not one of those detailed in the Times Union."

The Times Union's stories -- under the headline "Danger roams the streets" -- were published July 31, 2005.

The stories led to a series of hearings by the state Assembly's Committee on Correction.

The Democratic-led panel, which took no action, investigated allegations that parolees caught breaking the rules were being set free under a secret quota system to prevent too many ex-convicts from being returned to prison.

The Division of Parole assigned one internal affairs officer to investigate the allegations.

About 10 other internal affairs officers, many of them summoned to Albany from around the state, were assigned to track down the newspaper's confidential sources, according to people familiar with the probe.

That internal investigation was unfolding when the personal telephone records of at least one parole officer were subpoenaed, according to a person involved in the investigation who asked not to be identified.

Ultimately, the agency determined there was no proof supporting the assertions by parole officers that there was a secret quota system.

But internal documents did outline serious mishandling of the cases cited by the newspaper, including a finding that parole supervisors had failed to follow procedures and manipulated violation hearings in order to release parolees.

In a memorandum in August 2005, an internal affairs officer recommended "administrative action" or counseling for several officers and supervisors.

However, there was no action taken by parole officials, according to a person familiar with the investigation.

Despite the findings, the internal probe was problematic.

For instance, when internal affairs officers tried to access computer files of certain parolees that had been cited in the Times Union's report, they found that computer files had been "inexplicably erased," according to a Aug. 15, 2005, memorandum drafted by Senior Parole Officer Lois Fairchild, a former internal affairs investigator.

The memo was addressed to Theodore A. Cook III, the former director of the agency's internal affairs unit.

Cook was "separated from state service" on Feb. 25, and the Office of Professional Responsibility has been disbanded, according to state parole officials.

Now, two senior parole officers -- down from about a dozen under the previous administration -- serve as internal affairs investigators and report to the Office of Human Resource Management, officials added.

Fairchild, who authored the internal report, did not respond to a request for comment.

Cook also did not respond to a request for comment left on his home answering machine.

He retired from the State Police in 2002 after a 37-year career that included commendations for his leadership and professionalism.

He was tapped to head the Division of Parole's internal affairs unit during the time when the subpoenas and tracking devices were allegedly used to investigate parole officers.

State Police Col. Anthony G. Ellis II, who was director of the Division of Parole under Pataki until last year, was on vacation last week and unavailable for comment, according to a State Police spokesman.

Ellis testified last year before the state Assembly's committee that there was no quota system in place.

He attributed the allegations to "disgruntled" parole officers but pledged to investigate anyway.

In February, the Times Union filed a Freedom of Information request with the Division of Parole seeking copies of any subpoenas issued by the agency in connection with internal investigations of parole officers.

The newspaper, in its request, suggested that the names of any individual parole officers could be redacted in order to prevent a denial on the basis of privacy provisions.

State parole officials responded on March 23, denying the newspaper's request for redacted copies of the subpoenas:

"The division considers such documents to be personnel records that are confidential ... (and) their disclosure would constitute an unwarranted invasion of their personal privacy."

State officials said the disbanding of their internal affairs unit was part of a reorganization, and they did not elaborate.

The president of the Public Employees Federation, an umbrella union representing state parole officers, described that unit as out of control in its handling of investigations involving parole officers.

The dismantling of the unit "says to us that the agency understood the many problems and abuses within OPR under the prior administration," said Ken Brynien, PEF's president.

Brendan J. Lyons can be reached at 454-5547 or by e-mail at blyons@timesunion.com.

Investigation summary

Highlights of a Times Union report, published July 31, 2005, on four predator parolees and the results of an internal investigation into each case by the state Division of Parole:

Mazene Lacy

Lacy worked as an informant while allegedly committing other crimes and violating terms of his parole from prison for a drug conviction.

In September 2004, Quantica Patterson, a 19-year-old pregnant woman, told police and parole officers she was severely beaten by Lacy and approximately 10 others who broke into her Albany apartment.

Lacy already faced charges for parole violations that included selling cocaine to an undercover police informant.

Parole officers recommended Lacy be arrested and jailed on four parole violation charges, not including the assault.

Two days after the attack on Patterson, who was hospitalized, a parole supervisor rewrote the analysis of a parole officer who wanted Lacy locked up.

"It is recommended that no delinquency action be taken pending court action," the supervisor, John Lowery, wrote in an analysis in which he left blank a line that was supposed to be signed by Lacy's parole officer.

Division of Parole findings:

No evidence appeared showing parole officers obtained approval for Lacy to work as an undercover informant.

A parole supervisor voided an arrest warrant for Lacy in connection with Patterson's beating.

Computer files of violations for Lacy have been inexplicably erased.

Lacy's parole officer "failed to investigate" the gang assault and "lied about the assault when questioned."

A parole supervisor "wrote an analysis and processed (Lacy's) case based on inaccurate or incomplete information."

Jamall K. Sanchez

Sanchez's criminal history began at age 15 when he was arrested on first-degree robbery charges in Albany.

Over the next decade, he was in and out of prison and jail for arrests on charges that included car theft, larceny, criminal possession of a firearm, burglary, robbery, possession of contraband in a prison, criminal trespass, assault and drug possession.

In September 2004, three months after Sanchez was paroled from state prison for a drug conviction, he was arrested for allegedly slashing his uncle across the face with a 12-inch butcher knife.

Sanchez, 30, was later cleared of a parole violation in connection with the assault after a parole supervisor intervened in the hearing process.

In handwritten notes to a co-worker, John Lowrey, a parole chief in the Albany office, ordered a preliminary hearing in the case canceled.

In another note, Lowery instructed a co-worker to notify Albany police who arrested Sanchez that the hearing had been canceled.

Lowery then wrote a notation on a parole officer's report criticizing the decision to issue a parole violation warrant in the case.

"We issued a warrant for an assault without ever interviewing the victim," Lowery wrote.

"Even the arresting officer failed to appear at the preliminary hearing."

"This cannot happen."

Yet, Lowery's notes indicate he notified both the parole officer and Albany police that the hearing was canceled.

In a report documenting his reasons for rescinding the arrest warrant, Lowery wrote, "The division (of parole) presented no evidence or testimony to sustain the violation charges."

Division of Parole findings:

No entries in Sanchez's file support the assertion by parole officials that attempts were made to interview the victim of the assault.

No evidence appears in the case file indicating witnesses or arresting officers were subpoenaed or notified of a parole violation hearing.

The parole supervisor acted as a preliminary hearing officer in the case, which "is not a sound practice from a legal perspective and could lead to sustained conflict of interest arguments."

Robert Pratt

Pratt, an admitted drug addict, drifted in and out of prison and drug programs over several years, logging arrests in New York, Texas and Delaware on charges that included robbery, grand larceny, forgery, drug possession and making a terroristic threat.

He was arrested in early 2004 by Saratoga County sheriff's investigators, accused of stealing, forging and cashing three checks from his employer in late 2003.

He also was charged with robbing a bank in Colonie in January 2004, telling police he was high on crack when he did it.

Pratt was later paroled from state prison on the convictions for robbery and forgery.

He enrolled in a drug-rehab house in Albany, but his drug problems almost immediately resurfaced.

In May 2005, Pratt called home and threatened to kill his family members if they didn't give him $200.

His mother called his parole officer and authorities went to the drug rehab house, where they found two crack pipes in Pratt's pockets.

Parole officers brought Pratt to their office, where they allege he again threatened to kill his family members.

Officers prepared to return Pratt to jail on parole violation charges but were stopped by a supervisor who ordered his release.

The supervisor gave Pratt money for a cab to get to a homeless shelter.

Pratt took the taxi to an M&T Bank in Clifton Park, police said, and handed a note to a teller claiming he had a gun.

The teller gave Pratt $1,000 and he was arrested minutes later.

Anthony G. Ellis II, former executive director of the state Division of Parole, questioned the parole supervisor's decision to release Pratt that day.

"You know, hindsight is 20-20," Ellis said.

But, "This guy is what, 4 (feet) 11 (inches) and crippled?"

"There are questions I have about this case, though, I'm not going to kid you there."

"We're also looking into the manner in which it was done, but not necessarily the overall decision he was supposed to make (to release Pratt)."

Division of Parole findings:

"None of the parole staff in this case disputes the details as reported in the article."

"Area Supervisor Lowery ... stands by his unilateral decision in this case."

Lowery overruled a senior parole officer's decision without holding a conference in the case.

"He also disregarded the validity of Pratt's mother's report of threats without speaking to her ... did not review the police report on the incident ... nor did he speak to (witnesses)."

Orlando Alvarez

Alvarez raped and murdered a 14-year-old girl in Gloversville.

At the time, his criminal history included nearly a dozen convictions for crimes ranging from robbery to drug dealing.

Alvarez attacked the teenager, Shauna Beekman, when she arrived home from school, sexually assaulting her before slashing her throat.

He was captured hours later as he transferred his bloody clothes from one car to another in a parking lot on the outskirts of Albany.

Alvarez, an Albany resident, had been on parole for six months.

The killing occurred less than a month after he was caught driving a car without a license, after his curfew and in an area -- Gloversville -- where he was not allowed to be without permission.

Alvarez had failed to notify his parole officer that he had been fired from a job selling vacuums.

His termination came after workers at the Latham company filed a complaint with Colonie police alleging Alvarez had stolen merchandise.

Before the traffic stop in Gloversville, Alvarez's parole officer was contacted by police in South Glens Falls, Saratoga County, who reported that he had been frequenting their village -- again, without permission -- and selling drugs from a local motel.

Alvarez was never arrested.

A parole officer familiar with the case claimed Alvarez's parole officer ignored the problems because of an informal directive from supervisors that parolees are not to be locked up for selling drugs, doing drugs, domestic disputes or curfew violations.

In August 2004, Alvarez was sentenced to 50 years to life in state prison for murder.

Division of Parole findings:

"The parolee had exhibited no recent propensity for violence and his (Youthful Offender) adjudications for armed robberies were six years prior."

"Alvarez had no convictions or even arrests for sex crimes or assaultive behavior."

"The only indicators of violative behavior were those pertaining to Alvarez's affinity for dealing drugs."

No action initiated by supervisor to deal with parolee's violative behavior.

Sources: NYS Division of Parole; Albany Police Department; NYS court records; law enforcement sources

"Pollution sensors remain uninstalled at river plant - GE agreed to put in testing equipment at its former facility four years ago"

By BRIAN NEARING, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Monday, April 23, 2007

WATERFORD -- Like a cat agreeing to bell itself, General Electric promised nearly four years ago to install state-controlled pollution sensors where its sprawling silicones plant dumps waste into the Hudson River.

The state wanted to look over GE's shoulder after accusing the company of delaying the reporting of toxic spills into the river, if at all.

The move came in response to a litany of violations by GE that involved the improper handling of waste.

But to date the cat has yet to put on the bell -- and may not have to for another two years, under terms of a new deal worked out between the sides.

In the meantime, two pipelines from the 800-acre plant that discharge wastewater into the Hudson -- upriver from Waterford's drinking water intakes -- will remain without the sensors ordered by the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

Last October, GE agreed to pay up to $250,000 in state fines for spills since 2003 and delays in the sensor project.

Under this latest pact, the company has promised to finish sensor plans within six months.

The fine was the third agreed to or paid by GE in the past five years for illegal discharges and handling of industrial waste at the plant.

Since 2001, more than $1.4 million has been paid under consent orders with DEC in 2001, 2003 and 2006.

The sensor plant was included in the 2003 order.

But two months after once again promising to comply with the state-required testing plant, GE sold the plant as part of a $3.8 billion deal with Apollo Management, a Manhattan-based buyout firm.

The plant is now owned by Momentive Performance Materials, which is working with the DEC to meet the terms of the agreement.

Despite the delays from change of ownership, state DEC officials said they are confident progress toward compliance is being made, and called the installation of a remote-controlled testing station -- that DEC would run -- something that's pretty new.

"This is a fairly unique situation, at least unique to this region," said department spokeswoman Maureen Wren.

"This would enable us to get immediate information about a spill if something were to happen."

Wren said the building for the Hudson River testing station has been constructed, but plans for the equipment are not yet done.

She said the goal now is to have the station running by 2009 -- six years after it was first ordered.

Under GE ownership, the plant was part of General Electric Advanced Materials, a global network involved in the making of silicone and quartz products.

Last year, the unit reported about $2.5 billion in annual sales.

The plant is listed as the largest polluter of the Hudson River in the four-county Capital Region, according to the federal Toxic Release Inventory.

Those figures are reported by the polluters to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

General Electric has apparently all but washed its hands of the Waterford plant, which it ran for some four decades.

Calls to the company this month were passed through three different spokesmen before being referred back to Momentive Performance Materials, the new owners created by Apollo Management.

Momentive's CEO is Wayne Hewett, the former president of GE Silicones, who signed both the 2003 and 2006 consent orders for the Waterford plant.

GE owns 10 percent of the new company, said Momentive spokeswoman Marina Moreno.

Wren said the state decided to demand the testing station because of GE's "record of violations," although she said there appeared to be no new violations since GE sold the plant.

She said the station was also demanded because of concerns about numerous GE-provided pollution test results given to DEC, some of which ultimately turned out to be inaccurate and were done by an outside company under contract.

Wren could not immediately characterize the number or extent of the errors.

Among 168 violations cited between 1998 and 2005 were three 4,000-pound discharges of toluene -- a chemical that, according to the EPA, has caused tumor growth in lab animals.

There have also been emissions of harmful chemicals such as hydrogen chloride, methyl chloride and hydrochloric acid.

Other violations have included untreated combustion gases released into the air from an incinerator, overflows of polluted water into ground soil and leaky drums of toxic waste covered in plastic.

Dave Roberts, the plant's environmental health and safety manager since 2004 who now works for Momentive, said the sensor station was delayed because "the design was changed to make it better."

"We are just making it easier for DEC to get samples."

He downplayed the six-month deadline imposed last fall by DEC which, if not met, will cost Momentive a $129,000 fine.

"That's just (DEC) protecting itself."

"Everything is being resolved to DEC's satisfaction," Roberts said.

"We have built a lot of credibility with the DEC over the years."

Roberts pointed to the state-mandated requirements, which came under an agreement in which GE neither admitted or denied the violations, as proof that past and current plant owners are committed to environmental safety.

Momentive, he said, has spent about $31 million to upgrade the treatment plant that discharges wastewater in the Hudson, and to improve manufacturing processes so less wastewater is produced.

Another $27 million in safety improvements are planned.

Still, chemicals in the river remain a special concern of Jack Lawler, supervisor of the town of Waterford, whose drinking water treatment plant is downriver.

He said town officials rely on GE to inform them of chemical spills so they can turn to a backup drinking water system that taps into Troy municipal water.

Lawler said he had not seen either the 2003 or 2006 consent decrees between GE and the state.

"I assume that GE has been reporting these spills to us."

"They are supposed to be reporting," he said.

"I'm led to believe that spills were kept on the plant, and had little effect outside the plant."

The state Health Department, which regulates drinking water safety, has not issued any "do not drink" orders to the town dating back to the early 1990s, according to a department spokesman.

That period would include all the toxic spills listed in the GE consent decrees.

Lawler said the town relied on GE sharing spill information because it was "too complicated" to wait for state Health Department notification because of potential delays after a spill occurs.

A reporter gave the supervisor a list of all spill dates -- which ranged from February 1998 to July 2005.

Lawler was not immediately able to say whether GE had advised town officials of the spills.

A logbook of incident reports made by GE to the town, maintained at the town police office, was made available to the Times Union late last week for inspection, but contained no records prior to 2006.

Earlier records could not immediately be located.

Nearing can be reached at 454-5094 or by e-mail at bnearing@timesunion.com.

History of violations

Fined $1.4 million and cited three times by the state since 2001 for improper discharges and handling of toxic waste, the former General Electric Silicones plant in Waterford was ordered in 2003 to build a state-controlled pollution sampling station at its discharge point into the Hudson River.

GE sold the plant late last year with plans still in the works for the station, which will not be in place until 2009.

A sampling of 168 pollution violations at the plant under state consent orders in 2003 and 2006 includes unreported chemical discharges into the river, escapes of combustion fumes from the plant incinerator and improper storage of barrels of toxic waste.

Some examples:

Feb. 20, 2002: A 4,000-pound spill of toluene into the Hudson was not reported to the state.

It was the third toluene spill since 1998.

The chemical is classified as a possible human carcinogen, according to The International Agency for Research on Cancer.

Sept. 30, 2005: Untreated gases from a rotary kiln incinerator escaped into the air through an emergency vent.

Nov. 29 and Nov. 21, 2004: Methyl chloride and hydrochloric acid are discharged into the Hudson.

May 27, 2004: Bulging and leaking drums of hazardous waste were taped over with plastic sheeting.

Sources: 2003 and 2006 consent orders, Department of Environmental Conservation

"State 'test batteries' begin to lose power"

Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Monday, April 2, 2007

The Spitzer administration has suspended a civil service procedure that was designed to make the promotion process in state government more objective.

Some worry the action is a prelude to opening the system to a more subjective process, in which favoritism and connections would play a greater role.

The Civil Service Department said no permanent decision has been made on the "promotion test batteries.''

The tests, implemented under former Gov. George Pataki, were essentially generic exams employees at specific grades could take toward a future promotion.

The exams tested people on core supervisory skills and abilities, so they could be applied across agencies.

If more specific things needed to be tested for a particular job, the state would have people take a second exam.

Although the department is looking at its options, the elimination of the promotion test batteries could mean a greater use of oral exams, which had largely been eliminated from the testing process over the years.

"We will be using a variety of tools including written and oral examinations to evaluate candidates for promotion,'' said Civil Service spokeswoman Erin Barlow.

There is some concern in unions like the Public Employees Federation that oral exams are less objective than written tests.

"Some of our members feel that the oral exams are more subjective,'' said PEF spokeswoman Darcy Wells.

Barlow, however, said oral tests "if well-crafted can provide an objective evaluation.''

All candidates taking such tests get the same questions, she noted, and the proceedings are tape-recorded in case someone later charges bias.

Contributors: Capitol bureau reporters Elizabeth Benjamin, Rick Karlin and James M. Odato. Got a tip? Call 454-5424 or e-mail jjochnowitz@timesunion.com.

"Spitzer: I want the Legislature to overhaul campaign finance laws"

By MARC HUMBERT, Associated Press

Last updated: 6:04 p.m., Monday, April 23, 2007

ALBANY -- Gov. Eliot Spitzer declared war Monday on the state Senate's Republican majority after its leader rejected the Democratic governor's plans for overhauling New York's notoriously lax campaign finance laws as "elitist."

"The Republican members of the state Senate were unwilling to break their addiction to the free flow of money," said Spitzer.

"It is a narcotic to which they are beholden."

With that, Spitzer announced plans to visit Senate districts represented by "members of the temporary majority of the Senate" to berate them for their position and seek their eventual ouster if they didn't back an overhaul.

The developments came just a few hours after Spitzer drew a standing ovation from several hundred government reform activists when he said he was closing in on a possible agreement with the state Legislature to overhaul New York's campaign finance laws.

"Today is the day the Legislature will reveal its true colors," Spitzer had said during a lunchtime speech to members of Common Cause, the League of Women Voters and other groups.

Spitzer said he had been negotiating with legislative leaders for weeks over the issue, and the Republican majority of the state Senate and the Democratic majority of the state Assembly were each discussing behind closed doors on Monday where things stood.

But after meeting with his troops, state Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno said there was no deal, at least not yet.

"We've been close for a month, but close, you know, you don't get a cigar," the Republican leader said.

Bruno also said that under Spitzer's proposals for sharply more restrictive campaign donation limits, wealthy candidates who can self-finance their own campaigns -- he included millionaire Spitzer in that category -- would gain an advantage.

That, said Bruno, was "a sort of elitist approach."

Nonetheless, Bruno said he and his Republican Senate colleagues were willing to continue negotiating.

Spitzer said later that the time to talk was over and that he would soon be hitting the road to attack Senate Republicans.

And, Spitzer said his plan included provisions that would allow candidates facing self-funded millionaires to exceed the proposed new campaign contribution limits in order to level the playing field.

The new Democratic governor has said he wants to sharply lower the amount of contributions allowed in New York for statewide and legislative candidates, put restraints on what entities can give money and limit the amount of soft money that can be given to state political party committees.

Currently, individuals can give more than $50,000 each to candidates for governor in New York while they can give only $4,600 to presidential candidates.

Unlimited donations can be given to New York political parties for "housekeeping" expenses which can include everything from paying the electric bills to signing up new voters.

Among other things, Spitzer wants to ban contributions from limited liability corporations.

In New York, corporations faced with $5,000 annual contribution limits routinely set up LLCs that can then each give as much as an individual, or more than $50,000 to a candidate for governor.

It is not unusual for corporations in New York to set up multiple LLCs.

Spitzer has already unilaterally limited campaign contributions to his own campaign committee to $10,000.

He said Monday he would not accept legislation overhauling New York's laws that allowed anything higher than that.

"Special interests hold too much sway," Spitzer said.

Bruno said a major stumbling block for the Senate GOP was Spitzer's desire to sharply limit what various groups could give.

That, said Bruno, was an assault on "freedom of speech."

"This is America, this is the Empire State -- there is freedom, liberty, justice for all," Bruno said.

Spitzer told the government reform activists that he would also soon introduce proposed state constitutional amendments that would provide for same-day voter registration in New York and would create an independent commission to redraw voting district lines for congressional and state legislative seats after each census.

That redistricting is currently done by state lawmakers.

"Spitzer creates commission to shrink local governments, tax bills"

By MICHAEL GORMLEY, Associated Press

Last updated: 4:54 p.m., Monday, April 23, 2007

ALBANY -- Gov. Eliot Spitzer has a plan to shrink more than 4,200 local government entities and New Yorkers' property tax bills in the process.

Spitzer's commission is expected to recommend how fire, library, sewer and other special districts can be combined.

Many of these special districts levy taxes even though many New Yorkers don't know they exist.

The commission will also study how services in villages, cities, towns and counties could be shared or consolidated.

"Taxes will go down because of the hard work of this group," Spitzer said.

He said it's not inevitable that public jobs would be cut, but "you would hope that we can do that."

He said a local entity targeted for consolidation wouldn't always be able to veto the change.

The New York Conference of Mayors, which represents much of local government, said the "number one barrier to governmental efficiency" is Albany and the services it requires of local government without providing state aid to pay for it.

The group's executive director, Peter Baynes, said villages can already dissolve into towns if residents petition for a vote.

The commission's review won't include school districts, which account for more than half of a New Yorker's property tax bill.

E.J. McMahon of the fiscally conservative Empire Center for New York State Policy said the "overwhelming reason" for high tax bills are school districts.

"It's going to be an important and worthwhile effort, but what you could save by merging every village in the state to the closest town would be a drop in the bucket compared to what school districts cost and spend."

And although local political turf wars are often blamed for duplicative services, McMahon said there's another obstacle to consolidation of public services, even if it means lower tax bills.

"People do want a level of government that is as close as possible to them," he said.

"That's why this needs to be approached very carefully ... they need to sell this."

The new Commission on Local Government Efficiency and Competitiveness will have a Web site to receive public comment ( http://www.nyslocalgov.org ).

In January 1995 the last new governor, Republican George Pataki, also argued for government consolidation as common-sense approach to lower costs for taxpayers.

But efforts to regionalize public services have often been stopped by political considerations.

Spitzer, however, said the time is right for the old issue to be addressed.

He is relying on what he considers a mandate from voters to push reform

And his popularity is rising again.

After a dip in his approval rating during a contentious budget session, Spitzer was rated good or excellent in his job by 55 percent of New Yorkers polled by the Siena Research Institute.

That's up from 47 percent in March and near his high of 58 percent in February.

NEWSDAY

Politics

"SPIN CYCLE - Partisan blogs target other bloggers' sites"

Dan Janison

dan.janison@newsday.com

April 23, 2007

Say it five times fast.

Partisan bloggers are blogging on the bloggings of other bloggers - and Long Island is the battlefield.

"Urban Elephants" is a New York City Republican-oriented Web site.

A recent post expresses concern about "energetic liberal bloggers setting up space online targeting specific Republican elected leaders," that is, "blogs dedicated solely to one person."

As examples, Elephants' Scott Scala cites Democratic-oriented sites that target Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford), Nassau Legislature Minority Leader Peter Schmitt (R-Massapequa), the Nassau GOP - all of a piece.

Another such site, called "Veto Vito," whacks Staten Island Rep. Vito Fossella, the five boroughs' only Republican congressman.

"Now this does not necessarily mean such easily-set up sites can make an impact," Scala writes, but "the larger media loves fights."

"... A one-person crusade against one politician has the potential to become Cindy Sheehan-ized in the wrong hands."

"Readers should consider proper defenses," he adds.

"Pro-candidate blogs?"

"Anti-Dem elected officials blogs?"

"Counter posts?"

"Etc."

"We cannot lose the blog war in New York."

At his "Peter Schmitt Watch," John Rennhack of North Massapequa blogged:

"I guess this post from Urban Elephants is flattering."

"... Urban Elephants is well-written (not that we agree with the writing) and thoughtful."

Rennhack also does "Nassau GOP Watch" and "Peter King Watch."

One-time candidate Rennhack even responded last year to a "Watch" site targeting King's challenger, Legis. David Mejias, by creating "Mejias Watch Watch."

Recent fare on the "Nassau GOP Watch" included a link to the New York Observer "Politicker" site video of GOP state and county leader Joseph Mondello saying of Gov. Eliot Spitzer:

"He will self-destruct."

"You give it a little bit of time."

"GOP Watch" snaps:

"So the plan is to wait patiently for Governor Spitzer to 'self-destruct,'."

"... Brilliant strategist."

One recent "Urban Elephants" link raps Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-Mineola) as having been unable in an interview to define a key term in her own anti-gun bill.

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longisla...itics-headlines

NY TIMES EMPIRE ZONE

April 23, 2007, 6:57 pm

"Spitzerisms: ‘Outcome-determinative’"

By Nicholas Confessore

In which your correspondents track the unusual verbiage of Gov. Eliot Spitzer, a highly precise public speaker who often uses words or phrases that rarely alight upon the ears in normal conversation.

Today’s Spitzerism: “Outcome-determinative”

Usage: Asked whether any political candidate had ever been defeated for refusing to support lower limits on campaign contributions, Mr. Spitzer replied, “I don’t know whether historically this has been an outcome-determinative issue in any particular race, but I can tell you right now that there is a thirst for reform in the state of New York.”

Comments so far...

April 24th, 2007 5:59 am

Yes, there is indeed, as this “STEAMROLLER” says, a real powerful “thirst for reform in the state of New York”, and as an older NY-er, I would say that this “thirst for reform” stems from too many years of Mario Cuomo as NYS governor, followed by too many more years of George Pataki as NYS governor, and now, too much Eliot “STEAMROLLER” Spitzer as NYS governor, with him being seen as the most lawless-seeming of the pack, at least so far as the last budget-go-round went, anyway, where “STEAMROLLER” Spitzer took ART. VII of our state Constitution and he wadded it up like it was nothing more than some used tissue and then, he tossed it right out the window of the cab of his fast-moving steamroller, right in our faces, in contempt of us and everything that our constitution stands for, which is our constitutional democracy, here in NYS!

And yesterday, in Albany, at what is known up here as the “SHILL-DOM SCENE”, or “Reform Day” as it was laughingly and mockingly called up here by the “STEAMROLLER’S” bloated press corps and the assembled “Shill-dom”, “STEAMROLLER” Spitzer was given a thunderous standing ovation by his assembled followers and admirers and sycophants because he did trash our state Constitution, for them, of course, and blatantly so, in my opinion, at least.

“Tear down the old, replace it with the new, and the Cult of Eliot shall sing praises to his name to the massses and multitudes!”

Which, of course, they did in Albany, just yesterday!

So, whether or not that thunderous standing ovation given to “STEAMROLLER” Spitzer in Albany yesterday by his followers because he did trash our state Constitution will prove to be an “outcome-determinative” issue in any particular race that is yet to be run here in NYS, remains to be seen!

However, that thunderous standing ovation sure is seen by us older folks up here in the countryside outside of NYC as a harbinger of what is yet to come, here in NYS, as the “CULT OF ELIOT” rallies itself to now spread out across NYS, to spread the “GOSPEL OF ELIOT” as the new “organic law” or “law of the land” here in New York, in the place of our fomer state Constitution and its Bill of Rights, while it seeks out, for neutralization or removal from office, any who would stand in their way - resistance to the “STEAMROLLER CULT” being futile, afterall.

And so ….

— Posted by Livyjr

http://empirezone.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/0...native/#respond

"A fight looms over reform - As lawmakers reject calls to alter campaign finance rules, the governor vows he'll take the battle to GOP home districts"

By RICK KARLIN, Capitol bureau, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Tuesday, April 24, 2007

ALBANY -- Gov. Eliot Spitzer, aka "The Steamroller," hit a speed bump Monday in his push to reform state government when he was rebuffed by lawmakers who say they won't adopt his call to overhaul campaign finance rules.

Spitzer nonetheless vowed to plow ahead, saying he would take the fight to Republican senators in their home districts, where he would characterize them as standing in the way of change for the better.

"We will continue to work ... vigorously, even more vigorously throughout the state before every citizens group, before every community board, in every Senate district, let me repeat that, in every Senate district, to reveal to the state of New York who is and who is not for reform."

Speaking at a late afternoon news conference, Spitzer said, "Senators should be forced to answer the question of 'Why did you not support this bill?' "

The governor's remarks came after Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno said his conference has a "fundamental, basic problem," with limiting campaign contributions.

Such limits, Bruno contends, would violate constitutional free speech provisions.

"Freedom of expression, freedom of speech" would be trampled on with finance limits, said Bruno.

He later complained that Spitzer was "stuck in campaign mode and appears ready to fly around the state to attack members of the Legislature."

Monday's confrontation between Spitzer, a Democrat, and Bruno, the state's top Republican, ended weeks of negotiating by the governor, who has made overhauling campaign finance one of his top priorities.

Just before lawmakers went into session on Monday, Spitzer threw down the gauntlet, saying their approval or disapproval of revamping finance rules would be a telling moment.

"Today is the day that the Legislature will show its true colors," he told a group of government reform advocates who traveled to Albany in support of the governor's bill.

With finance overhaul off the table for now, Spitzer didn't say when he would travel to the senators' home districts or which ones he might target in particular, or whether he would wait until the Legislative session ends in late June.

While stressing that he didn't see Monday's lack of a bill as a defeat, the threat to travel to Republican Senate districts echoed his earlier battle with lawmakers over selection of a new state comptroller -- a battle he lost.

In that episode last winter, lawmakers, including most Assembly Democrats, ignored the governor's choice and instead chose Tom DiNapoli, an assemblyman at the time.

Following that, Spitzer traveled to some legislative districts and harshly criticized lawmakers who voted against him.

Campaign finance overhaul is arguably more momentous than a vote for comptroller, since it could change elections for years to come.

Spitzer wanted legislation that would lower the amount that office-seekers can accept from a single donor and curb donations by political action committees.

The largest PACs, he said, now give more than $1 million a year to candidates.

He also wanted to cut down on "soft money," which Spitzer said was a massive loophole allowing political parties to amass and spend enormous sums.

One of the main stumbling points with the Republicans, Spitzer said, came over limits on Limited Liability Corporations, or LLCs, which are each counted as separate entities and are used by wealthy individuals to far exceed their limits.

Bruno also raised the prospect that rich candidates, who wouldn't need campaign funds, could gain an unfair advantage.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver raised that issue as well, although Spitzer said his bill included a mechanism that would allow higher limits for those running against self-funded candidates who spend more than a certain amount.

Bruno came out squarely against Spitzer's changes, and Silver, when speaking with reporters, also was cool to the idea.

Despite that, Spitzer placed the blame for Monday's failure on the Republicans.

Spitzer contends that without finance changes New York would continue to be hobbled by cash-wielding special interests.

"Our state government is an obstacle to change in a rapidly evolving and increasingly competitive world," he said, adding that "we struggle mightily with even baby steps toward reform."

Rick Karlin can be reached at 454-5758 or by e-mail at rkarlin@timesunion.com.

What Spitzer wants

Here are the key points Gov. Eliot Spitzer has been pushing on campaign finance reform:

Lower caps on contributions to candidates.

Limits to statewide candidates such as governor, for example, would fall to $15,000 from $55,800.

Overall contributions to individuals would drop 25 percent to 80 percent, depending on the race.

Limit to $5,000 the amount corporations can give within a year.

Ban corporate subsidiaries and Limited Liability Corporations from making contributions.

Currently, companies and wealthy individuals can set up numerous subsidiaries and LLCs, each subject to its own limits.

A $50,000 cap on soft money.

Political parties can use this "housekeeping" money to support candidates in various ways, which Spitzer contends is a large loophole.

A limit of $350,000 per year on political action committees.

The largest PACs, such as those for teacher unions or the state medical society, typically give more than $1 million a year, and there are currently no limits.

Adding a fifth member to the state Board of Elections, which could break the 2-2 gridlock that now results from having two Democrats and two Republicans.

NY TIMES EMPIRE ZONE

April 24, 2007, 1:16 pm

"Spitzer on the Warpath"

By Danny Hakim

Wasting no time after his campaign finance reform proposal blew up yesterday, Gov. Eliot Spitzer started his promised Senate-bashing tour in the upstate district of Senate majority leader Joseph L. Bruno this morning, meeting with the editorial board of The Troy Record.

“It was close to my office and just happened to be a Senate district where the senator has not been in favor of the bill,” the governor quipped after the meeting.

While he sounded somewhat conciliatory after the meeting, even holding out some an agreement could still be worked out, his annoyance flared at an event later in Schenectady when he was told of some of the comments Mr. Bruno made during a press conference this morning.

Told that Mr. Bruno had essentially called him a spoiled rich kid, he said “once again Joe Bruno’s arguments are right on point.”

“I would say it’s time for Joe Bruno to answer a simple question,” he added.

“Mr. Bruno, why did you say directly to me, we cannot survive without L.L.C. money?"

"Answer that question, Senator.”

Mr. Spitzer had sought to ban donations through limited liability companies, or L.L.C.s, which have been routinely used by wealthy donors to exceed contribution limits.

Told that Mr. Bruno had offered to debate him anywhere, anytime on campaign finance reform, the governor said, “We’ll get back to him on that one.”

The event in Schenectady was in the district of another Senate Republican, Hugh Farley.

The governor spoke on the steps of City Hall, with representatives of various government watchdog organizations lining one side and local Republicans lining another.

Oddly, Schenectady Mayor Brian Stratton was not present, even though Spitzer’s camp has been looking at supporting him in a potential bid to unseat Mr. Farley.

The governor said he would continue his tour tomorrow in Nassau County, home to Deputy Majority Leader Dean G. Skelos.

Comments so far...

April 24th, 2007 7:24 pm

I was born in Rensselaer County at the end of WWII, and I hate to burst any of the “STEAMROLLER’S” bubbles for him, but the Troy Record has absolutely no credibility at all in Rensselaer County, so he can waste all the wind he wants to, talking to that rag, and it won’t do him a lick of good in trying to convince us countryfolks with long memories out here in Rensselaer County that he is not as big a part of what is wrong in Albany, and maybe even more so than “IRON DUKE” Joe Bruno, who only has the power in Albany that people like “STEAMROLLER” Spitzer and the Troy Record cede to him, despite our state Constitution, which interestingly, you never hear “STEAMROLLER” Spitzer talking about, unless it is in terms of altering its present provisions to “gut” it, which would render it absolutely worthless to us countryfolks who are sick and tired of self-serving career politicians like “STEAMROLLER” Spitzer and “IRON DUKLE” Joe Bruno!

Had “STEAMROLLER” Spitzer not been state AG, and had he not taken the positions on issues of importance to us in Rensselaer County, on behalf of “IRON DUKE” Joe Bruno in his capacity as Joe Bruno’s “state lawyer”, that he did, perhaps “STEAMROLLER” Spitzer might have a shred of credibility over here in Rensselaer County today!

But he was Joe Bruno’s lawyer, and his words and deeds on behalf of Joe Bruno and against our interests are a matter of record up here, in hundreds of pages of court records, as well as in the pages of the upstate Albany Times Union.

And so …

Our thought up here today is that by beginning this latest “ATTACKING TOUR” of his over here in Rensselaer County, “STEAMROLLER” Spitzer has gone into the initial stages of that “burn-out” and “melt-down” which that Mr. Mondello predicted for him, some time back …

And with respect to Joe Bruno calling the “STEAMROLLER” a “spoiled rich kid”, if you were to come up here into the country, and take a poll at the various convenience stores and coffee shops and such where the local people go, you would hear a lot of agreement with Joe Bruno on that, even from people who can’t stand Joe Bruno, since he has gotten rich and spoiled, himself …

And so …

— Posted by Livyjr

http://empirezone.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/0...on-the-warpath/

"Albany principal charged with larceny"

By MICHELE MORGAN BOLTON, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

Last updated: 1:11 p.m., Wednesday, April 25, 2007

ALBANY - The principal of the city school district's Abrookin Vocational Tech Center was just arraigned on charges he stole about $40,000 from the Rensselaerville Library, where he is a board member with check-writing authority.

David Bryan, 52, of Rensselaerville, is also being investigated for a possible connection to another $8,000 missing from the Rensselaerville Trinity Church, where he is a member and also holds a leadership position, sheriff's officials said.

Bryan, who ran unsuccessfully for town supervisor in 2005, pleaded not guilty to charges of third-degree grand larceny during an appearance before state Supreme Court Justice Joseph C. Teresi.

He returns to Town Court on Monday

"Blog: Assemblyman charged with DWI"

Albany, New York Times Union

Last updated: 11:53 a.m., Wednesday, April 25, 2007

ALBANY - State Assemblyman Karim Camara, D-Brooklyn, was charged early Wednesday morning with driving while intoxicated and speeding while driving along Central Avenue, Albany police said today.

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

"GOPers greedy & gutless, sez Spitz"

BY JOE MAHONEY

DAILY NEWS ALBANY BUREAU CHIEF

Wednesday, April 25th 2007, 4:00 AM

SCHENECTADY, N.Y. - Gov. Spitzer lashed out at state Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno and his Republican colleagues yesterday, saying they're so covetous of campaign cash they're blocking his efforts to reform how state elections are financed.

Taking his fight to the home districts of GOP senators as promised, Spitzer asked Schenectady County voters yesterday to question their representative, state Sen. Hugh Farley, about why he didn't have the "courage" to end the flow of campaign cash.

"Things will change only when citizens ... ask their elected representatives, 'Whose side are you on?'" Spitzer said.

"It's a simple question."

"Are you on the side of big money ... or are you on the side of democracy and transparency?"

Bruno said the reforms would make the election process affordable to only the wealthiest candidates.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/04/25..._sez_spitz.html

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS DAILY POLITICS

In the NEW YORK DAILY NEWS article "GOPers greedy & gutless, sez Spitz" by JOE MAHONEY, DAILY NEWS ALBANY BUREAU CHIEF, Wednesday, April 25th 2007, 4:00 AM, "STEAMROLLER" Spitzer was quoted as follows:

"It's a simple question."

"Are you on the side of big money ... or are you on the side of democracy and transparency?"

Well, quess what, "STEAMROLLER", that question applies to you, as well, and WE, THE PEOPLE would like to hear your own answer to that question, Eliot!

So tell us, Mr. Governor "STEAMROLLER", what side are you on?

And before you make a hasty answer, Mr. "STEAMROLLER", and get yourself all caught up in a great big lie, let me help you refresh your own memory here, by quoting to you from an informative news article on the subject of your own addiction to big money that was the subject of a Friday, December 12, 2003 story by Matthew Cox, Bloomberg News, entitled "Fund-raiser nets Spitzer $2 million - luncheon for likely gubernatorial candidate attracts hedge fund managers, lawyers" wherein is stated:

New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer collected more than $2 million at a political fund-raiser, with hedge fund managers and lawyers among the big donors, and said HE COULD ACCEPT CAMPAIGN FUNDS FROM THE INVESTMENT COMMUNITY WITHOUT COMPROMISING HIS ENFORCEMENT ROLE.

Spitzer, the leader of investigations into Wall Street conflicts of interest and mutual fund trading, has said he is interested in running for governor in 2006.

Though he hasn't officially declared his candidacy, Thursday's fund-raiser was Spitzer's biggest ever.

His investigations of "certain aspects of the securities market doesn't mean there can't be or shouldn't be contributions from anybody within that sector, any more than it would mean because we bring consumer-type cases, no consumer manufacturer could contribute," Spitzer told reporters.

He said his campaign committee has "a very careful vetting process" to avoid accepting gifts from donors under scrutiny by his office.

A Spitzer campaign aide who declined to be identified said hedge funds, lawyers AND THE REAL ESTATE INDUSTRY were among his LEADING SOURCES of campaign MONEY.

The luncheon at the Sheraton New York Hotel drew hedge fund manager Daniel Nir of Gracie Capital LP, who with his wife, Jill Braufman, donated $50,000 in June; Cablevision President James Dolan; Miramax Film Corp. co-chairman Harvey Weinstein, and Melvyn Weiss, one of several lawyer donors who has sued securities firms for investors based on Spitzer's investigations.

"There are a lot of hedge funds that have not been trading the way the naughty ones have," said Roy Smith, a professor of finance at New York University.

"THEY WOULD LOVE TO HAVE MR. SPITZER INVESTIGATE ALL THEIR COMPETITION that's been too aggressive."

Spitzer's investigative work "gives investors a sense that someone's keeping an eye on what's in their best interest," said donor George Fox, founder of Titan Advisors, a hedge fund consultant.

Cynthia Darrison, managing director of the Spitzer campaign committee, said that the event attended by nearly 700 people generated more than $2 million.

"This is meant as a preemptive strike" with 35 months to go until the election, said Douglas Muzzio, professor of public affairs at Baruch College in New York.

"He's saying 'I can raise huge amounts of money.'"

end quotes

Now, Mr. Governor "STEAMROLLER", that is indeed you that this Douglas Muzzio is talking about, right above here, and from what he is saying about you, it would appear that YOU are the one on the side of big money, and not the side of transparency and democracy!

So, Mr. Governor "STEAMROLLER", can you help us out here?

Can you clarify this matter for us?

Have YOU changed since that article was written?

Have YOU turned your back on all of these big donors of your own that are listed in this above news story?

Are YOU no longer saying to us that YOU can raise huge amounts of money?

And what was it that made you see the light of day yourself, so that you changed your own ways with regard to BIG MONEY, as you are asking these other politicians to do?

Can you help us out here, Mr. Governor, to understand where YOU really are with respect to this matter of BIG MONEY?

And so ...

Posted by: John Galt | April 25, 2007 7:16 PM

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypoli..._the_day_9.html

NY TIMES

"Spitzer Visits Bruno Turf to Push Campaign Reform"

By DANNY HAKIM and MICHAEL COOPER

Published: April 25, 2007

TROY, N.Y., April 24 — Gov. Eliot Spitzer traveled Tuesday to the district of the Senate majority leader, Joseph L. Bruno, on the first stop of a statewide tour to blast Senate Republicans for scuttling his plan to overhaul campaign finance regulations.

“It was close to my office and just happened to be a Senate district where the senator has not been in favor of the bill,” the governor said, tongue in cheek, after meeting with the editorial board of The Troy Record here, in the heart of Mr. Bruno’s district.

Later in the morning, Mr. Bruno came out swinging at a press conference in the capital, portraying the governor as an out-of-touch rich guy, a hypocrite who raises big bucks while trying to limit contributions, the head of an administration beset by “alleged corruption” and someone who is failing to bring jobs to upstate New York.

And that was in a news conference that lasted less than 15 minutes.

“Does this governor think he’s going to get a result on campaign finance reform by — what, by doing what — by having a tantrum?” Mr. Bruno asked.

The governor, speaking at another press conference in Schenectady shortly after noon, turned icy when told of Mr. Bruno’s comments.

“Once again, Joe Bruno’s arguments are right on point,” he said.

“There is haze and smog surrounding the capital today, and that smog could have been lifted had the members of the Republican majority in the State Senate opted to embrace campaign finance reform,” he said, adding,

“I am embarking today on an effort to go to the public across the state to say we can do better.”

The day reinforced that the volatile relationship between the governor and Mr. Bruno, the state’s top Republican, is on the rocks again, with the governor openly agitating to upend the Republicans’ two-seat majority in the 62-member Senate.

The governor appeared at the news conference with Assemblyman Paul D. Tonko, a Democrat now favored by party officials to run against Senator Hugh T. Farley, a Schenectady Republican, in 2008.

Mr. Tonko was noncommittal when asked if he was considering a run for Senate.

Mr. Spitzer called Mr. Farley “a nice gentleman, a good man, but somebody who is fundamentally wrong on this issue.”

Mr. Farley, in a written statement, said “the Governor’s ‘campaign financing reform’ will ensure that only people with great personal wealth — such as Governor Spitzer and Mayor Bloomberg — can afford to run for public office.”

He and other Republicans continued to try to use the governor’s family fortune against him, accusing him of trying to create a system that would favor rich candidates.

The governor and his aides countered that their proposal included a special amendment that would allow candidates to exceed the regular contribution limits if they are running against a self-financed opponent.

Republicans also accused the governor of trying to trade a legislative pay raise for campaign finance reform.

The governor’s aides denied that, though the governor himself has said for some time that he would reward lawmakers with a pay raise only if they agreed to make many of the changes he has proposed on a number of fronts.

On campaign finance, the governor had proposed lowering contribution limits from $55,800 for statewide candidates to no more than $15,000, which is still much more than is allowed in federal or New York City elections, and also reducing limits for legislative candidates.

He would have put the first limits on total contributions that political action committees could make, holding them to the still lofty sum of $350,000 a year.

The governor and his aides said the sticking point was over banning donations by limited liability companies and corporate subsidiaries, which wealthy donors and corporations routinely use to circumvent contribution limits.

“I would say it’s time for Joe Bruno to answer a simple question,” the governor said today.

“Mr. Bruno, why did you say directly to me, we cannot survive without L.L.C. money?"

"Answer that question, Senator.”

(Asked why he does not support banning contributions from such companies, Mr. Bruno answered, “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”)

Republicans have chafed at the comments because the governor used L.L.C.’s to raise substantial amounts of money, more than $3 million over four years, according to analysis by Common Cause New York, a group that supports the governor’s proposal to ban such donations.

In the Legislature, Senate Republicans have led the way in accepting such donations; the Senate Republican Campaign Committee raised nearly $580,000 last year from such companies.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/25/nyregion...amp;oref=slogin

"Data: Graduation rates low, rising too slowly"

By MICHAEL GORMLEY, Associated Press

Last updated: 5:23 p.m., Wednesday, April 25, 2007

ALBANY -- Nearly a third of New York students aren't graduating on time as it's become increasingly common for pupils to spend five and six years in high school, according to statewide data released Wednesday.

Even after six years, more than a quarter of students who entered high school in 2000 still hadn't graduated.

And 44 percent of students in the big five city districts were still without diplomas after six years.

The latest state Education Department data also raised a new question: Why is it more likely a female will graduate than a male?

Statewide, 71 percent of females graduated in four years, compared to 62 percent of males.

The data is consistent in urban, rural, rich and poor and suburban schools.

Why?

State Education Commissioner Richard Mills said the data doesn't give indications yet, but it's a finding that should lead to further analysis to help overall student performance.

As a whole, improvement in graduation rates "is too low, it's too slow and the range is too great" between wealthier schools and those in poverty, Mills said.

"There is dramatic, urgent need to change these results."

Stronger improvement, however, is seen in New York City.

While just 50 percent of students in the massive system graduate in four years, that's a steady climb from 44 percent three years before.

"I know it's real because I've visited so many schools," Mills said.

"New York City has a systemic approach to raising achievement ... there is just a very determined effort, persistence and focus on the outcome that really makes a difference."

He wouldn't say if he thinks Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg's greater control of the schools has played a role in the improving graduation rates.

But he noted Bloomberg and his schools chancellor, Joel Klein, have "intensity," consistency in their messages, and work as a team.

"Today's results powerfully demonstrate that, as a result of the school reforms New York City has made, more students are graduating from our public schools than at any time in decades," Bloomberg said.

"But we can not be satisfied with this progress, and we will continue working to give every New York City public school student a real chance to graduate and be successful."

But the same progress isn't evident in the state's other big city districts in Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and Yonkers.

After four years, just 45 percent of students who entered high school in 2000 graduated, a decline from 49 percent three years before.

After five years, just 53 percent had graduated, down from 55 percent the year before.

Overall, Mills said the data shows "trouble ahead."

"It's not about numbers," Mills said.

"It's about youngsters becoming adults, adults who are good citizens, prepared to work in a real world global economy, people who can be relied upon by their neighbors, who have the character and knowledge to raise their own children."

"That's what we're doing here."

Also Wednesday, the state's largest teachers' union attended its annual convention in Washington, D.C., and took the opportunity to question the amount of testing and data crunching done by the state and federal education departments.

New York State United Teachers said No Child Left Behind -- the federal education reform act that holds districts, schools and teachers accountable for student performance -- forces them to "teach to the test," rather than using a wider, more effective approach.

The union also said its members feel pressured by principals, administrators, schools boards and news media to raise test scores.

The Board of Regents has said teachers shouldn't "teach to the test," instead, they should creatively teach so students thoroughly understand the subject and by extension meet the state's standards in exams.

"We need to look at the numbers and we need them to drive change," Mills said.

------

Associated Press Writer Sara Kugler contributed to this report from New York.

On the Net:

State Education Department http://www.nysed.gov

http://www.nysut.org

THE NEW YORK POST

"SUPPORTERS BUYING TIME WITH SPITZER"

By KENNETH LOVETT Post Correspondent

April 26, 2007 -- ALBANY - Gov. Spitzer is granting special access to supporters - called "Trustees" - who raise a $1 million for his 2010 campaign, The Post has learned.

Spitzer, who is traveling the state bashing the Republican-controlled Senate for rejecting a campaign-finance reform measure, is at the same time asking prospective donors to join his 2010 re-election finance committee and providing different fund-raising targets.

Someone who pledges to raise $25,000 by Election Day, 2010, is designated a "Friend" and will be invited to quarterly finance-committee meetings with the governor while also receiving periodic conference-call updates with Spitzer and the campaign staff, according to a mailing obtained by The Post.

The levels, and rewards, increase until someone can become a Trustee by pledging to collect $1 million for the Democratic governor.

Trustees are promised a complete package that includes a semiannual lunch with the governor and an annual barbecue with Spitzer and First Lady Silda Wall Spitzer at their upstate farmhouse.

Anyone committing to raise at least $250,000 can attend an annual holiday party with the first couple, while raising at least $100,000 gets a person listed in the honorary program and complimentary admission for all major fund-raising events.

The letter notes the voluntary fund-raising limits that Spitzer has adopted for himself that must be adhered to, including a $10,000 limit on personal contributions and a $5,000 corporate limit that restricts additional donations from subsidiaries and limited-liability corporations.

Republicans called Spitzer a hypocrite for traveling the state attacking them for not backing campaign-finance reform while at the same time asking people to raise millions of dollars for him with the promise of access.

"The Lincoln Bedroom?"

"This is the Lincoln Hotel," Sen. Vincent Leibell (R-Dutchess) fumed in reference to the Clinton administration's offering of stays in the White House to campaign donors.

"This is pay to play, big time," Leibell said.

"New York state deserves better than this."

Having individuals raise large amounts for a candidate - known as bundling - is not uncommon, particularly since federal campaign-finance reform was enacted several years ago.

President Bush in the last cycle deemed anyone who raised at least $200,000 as "Bush Rangers" and at least $100,000 as "Bush Pioneers."

But in Spitzer's case, the fact his target levels dwarf anything seen to date and that he has made campaign-finance reform a top priority has raised the ire of some.

"In my time here, no one has come close to these numbers," Leibell said.

"To go around the state talking about campaign-finance reform and then asking people to raise this type of money for you is the ultimate height of hypocrisy."

Spitzer has already raised eyebrows regarding his June 7 fund-raiser for his 48th birthday in which those who pledged to raise at least $25,000 for the event would attend a VIP reception and a private dinner with the governor.

Those who raise at least $100,000 would receive four seats at the private dinner.

In addition, Spitzer agreed to participate in a fund-raiser for the state Democratic Party that promises those who donate $25,000 entrance to a "VIP" reception with the governor.

Spitzer has said that while he voluntarily will adhere to stricter limits he doesn't expect others to necessarily follow without a new law in place.

"Unfortunately, Governor Spitzer's actions make it clear that he thinks there are two sets of rules: one for him and another for everyone else," state GOP Chairman Joseph Mondello said yesterday.

kenneth.lovett@nypost.com

http://www.nypost.com/seven/04262007/news/...rrespondent.htm

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS DAILY POLITICS BLOG

State GOP Chairman Joseph Mondello has it dead-wrong in his statement in the NEW YORK POST story "SUPPORTERS BUYING TIME WITH SPITZER" by KENNETH LOVETT Post Correspondent that:

"'Unfortunately, Governor Spitzer's actions make it clear that he thinks there are two sets of rules: one for him and another for everyone else,' state GOP Chairman Joseph Mondello said yesterday."

To the contrary, Eliot "STEAMROLLER" Spitzer KNOWS, not thinks, BUT KNOWS that there are indeed two sets of rules, one for him, and one for everyone else!

And to take that one step further, Eliot "STEAMROLLER" Spitzer also knows that the set of rules he has reserved for himself has no actual "rules" in it, at all ....

Rather, it is just a small book full of nothing but empty pages, which means that the "STEAMROLLER" gets to whatever he wants, whenever he wants!

Afterall, he is the "F****** STEAMROLLER", by almost unanimous acclaim from the population of NYS, or 61% of it, anyway, and "STEAMROLLERS" always get what they want, regardless of the consequences to anything or anyone else, or else they roll right over the opposition, and flatten them to the ground ....

And so ...

Posted by: John Galt | April 26, 2007 7:29 AM

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypoli...the_day_10.html