And You Thought It Was Bad In North Greenbush

Remember the $21,000 of taxpayer money paid to C.B. Smith by the A.S.S. Team administration, without any proof of work product?   Well it looks like the same game is being played in East Greenbush, only worse!!!!!

In East Greenbush, if you’re the tax collector you get extra money to “deposit” the taxes you collected,  and the Town Supervisor gets “overtime”.

It appears some members of the  East Greenbush Democratic Committee, who also hold appointed and elected positions  have been getting “bonuses” cleverly disguised as “stipends”.   At a time when town workers are going without raises, and the town is $2 million in debt, these people rewarded themselves with extra pay, and did it without town board approval.

Considering these are the same people who joined together with the North Greenbush Dems, and filed a lawsuit to remove Lou Desso, Mike Cristo and Phil Danaher from office,  we can only speculate where that $1 million surplus North Greenbush had went when.

Anyway, here is a recording of the Al Roney show (click Al Roney to listen) where Mike Cristo and Ann Taylor talked about what is going on.  I’ve also attached a piece from The Record.

Considering all that’s going on with the Troy Dems, and now this, I suspect it won’t be long before the A.S.S. is facing charges.

McCabe calls stipend controversy ‘a political witch hunt’

Sunday, September 19, 2010

By Cecelia Martinez
The Record

EAST GREENBUSH – A former Town Board member and members of the East Greenbush Finance Committee have raised concerns over stipends given to town employees between 2006 and 2009 totaling more than $145,000. Town Supervisor Rick McCabe said the giving of stipends has been going on for decades, and that he “takes full responsibility,” saying he believed the employees deserved “extra money for extra work.”

Former Town Board member Mike Cristo, along with current Board Member Rick Matters and Finance Committee members Don Johnson and Ann Taylor first became aware of the stipends after Cristo was approached by a town employee who he claims told Cristo that he had “taken away my $6,000.” During the 2010 budget process, the board removed a $60,000 budget line for “miscellaneous expenses” after they were unable to get answers from the town about how the money was used.

“That raised a definite red flag because miscellaneous budget lines are never over $10,000,” said Taylor. Johnson filed a Freedom of Information Law request for documents regarding the stipends, which show that 14 former and current employees, including Supervisor McCabe and his daughter Lauren, received annual stipends ranging from just over $100 to $7,500.

The stipends were dispersed as part of the employees’ biweekly pay, boosting the salaries in a way that Cristo, Matters, Johnson and Taylor feel may constitute pension padding. Matters also pointed out that, in addition to the monies paid directly to the employees, the town also would have been required to pay payroll taxes and retirement contributions for that additional income.

Matters, who said he gave up his Town Board salary two years in a row to the tune of nearly $30,000, felt that, given the fiscal difficulties of the town, the notion of specific employees receiving stipends in a “stealth manner” offended him.

“The monies were essentially buried in the budget,” said Matters. Johnson pointed to Article 3, Section 5 of town law that states salaries must be set during the budget and cannot be altered without a resolution by the Town Board. He explained that, because the board approves the specific employee salaries and the overall department salary budgets separately, it would be difficult to catch the discrepancy.

McCabe said that the money for the stipend was included in the budget, but not the specific amounts each individual would get. He said stipends were awarded for a variety of reasons, such as employees taking on extra duties to make up for reduced staff or, in his own case, to go towards phone and mileage expenses. He said the amounts were decided at the beginning of each year, but some of the reasons on the documents include “extra hours” and “nights and weekends”.

“This is a political witch hunt by the opposition,” said McCabe, who claimed that Cristo was upset after losing his Town Board position last year after it was determined Cristo could not hold simultaneous political seats. “If I wanted to hide anything, why would I keep the documents on the record as part of the FOIL-able file?”

McCabe said they stopped the giving of stipends after a report by the State Comptroller’s Office earlier this year recommended the practice be discontinued.

“They said it was legal but that it was frowned upon, so we don’t do it anymore,” he said. McCabe could not immediately produce the report Saturday, but said there was a copy at Town Hall. When asked if he felt it was appropriate to take $10,000 in stipend money over two years while the town is over $2.5 million in debt, McCabe said his expenses add up to “much more” than what he received.

Regarding stipends given to other employees, he added: “The town has to function. These people who are crying about ‘taxpayer dollars’ and the stipends, I guarantee that the first time their water stops running, or the roads aren’t paved, they’re the first ones on the phone complaining. We don’t [give stipends] anymore, so that’s that.”

Based on a resolution approved by the Town Board, an official opinion on the propriety and legality of the stipends and the manner in which they were issued has been requested by the State Comptroller’s Office, and the matter has been forwarded to the Public Integrity Bureau of the Attorney General’s Office.

“The wheels of government turn very slowly,” said Taylor, who noted that nearly all of the employees receiving stipends are Democrats, and some are also Democratic Committee members. She and Cristo also claimed that the recent action of placing Department of Public Works Commissioner Christopher DeFruscio on administrative leave was political retribution for the stipend controversy coming to light.

“I cannot talk about the issue regarding DeFruscio as it’s a personnel matter, but it is absolutely, positively not political,” said McCabe.

Matters said that he hopes the town receives the opinion from the Comptroller’s Office in a timely manner, and said that, if suspicions were confirmed that the stipends practice was improper or illegal, appropriate ramifications would take place. He declined to speculate what those ramifications may be.

Cecelia Martinez can be contacted at 270-1294 or by e-mail at cmartinez@troyrecord.com.

Never Forget

North Greenbush Candidate Misses Court Date Over Fraudulant Petition

WOW!!!!! All the work the A.S.S. team put into making Delores Celeste their “CHOICE” candidate on the Taxpayers First line, and she doesn’t even show up for her own court date. No candidate, no attorney and from what we heard, no notice to the court (good thing justice is blind).

Today’s court appearance was to hear arguments over the validity of 37 signatures on a petition to put Ms. Celeste on the Taxpayers First line this November. If the Court finds those 37 signatures invalid,the petition would also become invalid and the Taxpayers First Party would be finished. Should that happen, the only remaining chance Delores Celeste has of appearing November Ballot would to win this Tuesdays Primary for the Working Families Party line. Now it’s kind of hard to win a primary when you haven’t been out campaigning, and nobody knows you’re running!!!!! Unless of course you you the “Troy Method” and have all your democratic friends get together and have an absentee ballot party, just remember wear gloves and don’t lick the envelope.

Now we’ve also heard that Delores is having second thoughts about her association with the A.S.S. team, and that she has spoken with some key members of the GOP about her political future. So could it be that today’s no-show could have anything to do with her declining the Taxpayers First endorsement? Now wouldn’t that wouldn’t that be the ultimate “knot” in C.B.’s panties. There isn’t enough proctologists on the face of the earth to work that knot out.

On the subject of fraudulent ballots, Troy, C.B. Smith, proctologists and Attorneys, we’ve also heard that C.B. has a new attorney, and it’s the same attorney representing those implicated in the Great Troy Ballot Malfunction. Could it be that C.B. is now being drawn into that investigation? Could you imagine how hard it would be to find a jury of his “peers” if he was indicted, they ‘d have to move the trial to Zimbabwe.

The Missing Candidate In North Greenbush

CHOICE, that’s supposedly what Dan Ashley and the members of his  A.S.S. team claim they’re fighting for, or so they want you to believe.  They also want to convince you that Lou Desso is so afraid of voters having that “choice”, that he’s trying to block Delores Celeste from getting a line on the November ballot.

What we want to know is, WHERE THE HELL IS DELORES CELESTE?  Why hasn’t she publicly stated how she feels about any of this?  Does she have other plans?  How does she feel about the lawsuit over the questionable signatures on her petition?  Does she have a agenda, if so, when will she share it with the voters?  How does she feel about “Supervisor Jo’s” plan to abolish the overnight police patrols considering the rash of overnight crimes that have been hitting the area?  What does she plan on doing to help relieve the property tax burden?

O.K., we could go on and on with the questions but we think you get our point.  With less than 60 days until Election Day we haven’t heard “diddly squat” from Delores Celeste, however we have heard a lot hype from the A.S.S. team, that alone speaks volumes about Delores Celeste and who she’ll serve if elected.  Even the members of her own party complained that she is an “unknown”, and that those who nominated her at the caucus hadn’t provided any background on her experience or qualifications.

As we see it, If the A.S.S. team really wants to give the voters a “choice”,  then it’s time for the candidate to come out of hiding.  It’s time she let the voters know who she is and what she stands for.  Otherwise she’s not a “choice”, she’s only a name taking up space on the ballot, a name with the potential of being another  A.S.S. team puppet like Josephine Ashworth.

A Closer Examination Of Politics In North Greenbush

I needed a good laugh today, and boy did I ever get one when I read C.B.’s blog.

I have to admit, I just love it when C.B. gets his “panties in a knot”, and right now his panties are so twisted, it would take a team of proctologists a month to get the current knot out of the crack in his ass (or the crack in his head).  So needless to say I’m a happy person.

You see, things aren’t looking good for the A.S.S. team, and right now C.B. is spending every waking moment doing damage control.  He’s trying hard to turn things around for the A.S.S. team, but the fall of the A.S.S. team is inevitable.

As we said back in January, the A.S.S. team lawsuit to remove Lou Desso from office was going to backfire, and boy did it ever. They failed to realize that most people are honest,  and they know Desso won the election fair and square. Therefore any move to remove Desso would be seen as a disenfranchisement of all voters, not just those who supported Lou.  Basically they felt if it could be done to Desso, then it could be done to their candidate.  It’s a matter of what goes around, could come around (and it usually does).

Further proof that most voters believe Desso is entitled hold the seat he was elected to can be found in the results of this year’s Dem caucus, where Desso won by a 2-1 margin.

So here we are nine months after the A.S.S. team went to court to remove Desso.  The A.S.S. team was heard, the case was decided, the law was corrected, Lou was reappointed to the seat he rightfully won, and the “MAJORITY” of the voters and parties support Desso in this Novembers election.  At this point,  anyone with more than two brain cells would let the “sleeping dog lie”.

It appears that the A.S.S. team believes they’re the only ones who have any right to use the courts to “right a wrong”, as they believe that the current lawsuit is nothing more than a play by Desso to block any opposition.  If that’s true, then one could say that the only reason the A.S.S. team sued to remove Desso, was because they couldn’t/didn’t win the election.

For some reason the A.S.S. team believes that Desso is afraid of his challenger Delores Celeste, nothing could be further from the truth.  Desso has a proven history of “serving the people”, he’s experienced and a very popular candidate.  Celeste on the other hand is at a disadvantage from that start simply because she’s an A.S.S. team candidate.  Add in the fact that she has no political experience, she’s virtually unknown to the people in town and she’s running on a newly formed line, a line most voters see as a sham.

As I see it, the lawsuit will once again show the voters in North Greenbush how low the A.S.S. team will go to manipulate an election, and I have no doubt that the court will find that the “Taxpayers First” petition is permeated with fraud and errors, as were most of the past petitions associated with the A.S.S. team.

So what made me laugh, well it was the quote by Dan Ashley where he said “The only way for (him) to win is to hold an election in which he is the only candidate. It kind of reminded me of Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf, the Iraqi Information Minister who went on  TV and said,  ”I triple guarantee you, there are no American soldiers in Baghdad.”,  as American soldiers could be seen and heard in the background.