Follow The Money

If you really want to know what’s going on in politics, they say all you need to do is “follow the money”, and with campaign finance records being available on-line, it’s pretty easy to do. But as with anything, where there’s a will, there’s a way to defeat the systems, and as you know I’m always looking for anything strange.

Take for instance an expenditure of $500 by Josh Sabo to the North Greenbush Democratic Committee(C.B. Smith Treasurer) on October 3rd for 1/7th the cost of advertising (see below). At first glance nothing really appears to be wrong, some committees and candidates can share campaign costs. With 7 candidates running on the Dem/GBP ticket, at first glance it appears to be legit. But they is SABO/NGDC/GBP/DAN/C.B. Smith, so I dig a little deeper. Now if $500 = 1/7th then the NGDC should have a $3,500 expenditure for advertising, as well as 6 other reimbursements in their financial disclosure reports. The other six would be Ray Elliott, Jan Liberty, Josephine Ashworth, Rich Fennelly, Trish Noel and Mark Premo.

(click on image to expand)

Below are the two recent expenditure reports for the NGDC, keep in mind Sabo did not become a candidate until August 27th, so the expenditure would have to be after that date.

When we added ALL the advertising expenses paid by the NGDC it only totaled $2,253.27, that’s for everything that may have to do with advertising, USPS, The Advertiser and One Call, so where is the $3,500 advertising expense?

As a judicial candidate Sabo is restricted from making certain contributions, and the Judicial Ethics rules are VERY clear, stating ” A candidate for judicial office, whether a sitting judge or a non-judge, may not make a payment to a political party’s campaign committee that is supporting all candidates being endorsed by the party, nor make any payment to the party in order to be considered for its endorsement, but may only reimburse the committee for his or her proportionate share of the campaign costs.”,
Opinion 01-21. Meaning, if the NGDC didn’t have a $3,500 advertising expense which included advertisements for Sabo, then Sabo’s payment is illegal, and he or C.B. Smith has some questions to answer.

Since we didn’t see a $3,500 expense in the NGDC reports, we decided to look at the other seven candidates to see if any had reimbursed the NGDC their 1/7th of the “advertising” expense, guess what, we didn’t find any. Ray Elliott had no such expenditure, but did have several large advertising bills for signs and palm cards etc., so it appears he paid his own way. Jan Liberty is registered, but has not submitted a single disclosure report, same for Ashworth, she’s registered but no reports on file. Fennelly and Noel are not registered so there’ no reports at all for them, and Premo lists no advertising expense paid back to the NGDC. So where’s the $3,500 bill, and where’s the other 6/7ths of reimbursement?

If you go back and look at Sabo’s expenses you’ll see that he paid for his own palm cards as well as his own lawn signs, so the advertising expense didn’t come from that. If you add up all the NGDC advertising expenses it only totals $1,745.27, of which Sabo would be responsible for 1/7th or $249.32.

It appears one of two things happened, either Josh Sabo tried to sneak money to the NGDC, or C.B. Smith scammed Josh Sabo. Now we do know that the NGDC is having trouble raising money this year. In 2007 the NGDC had raised $21,452 for the year by the time the filed their 11-day Pre General Report, this year they’ve only raised $7,988.65 for the same point in time, which is about a 63% loss compared to 2007. So when we say there are money issues that could force them to shift money, it’s not speculation. Consider this invitation.

In my opinion “send your contribution as early as possible” so we can “utilize this revenue” is a statement of desperation and shows the NGDC is hurting for money. With only $1,799 left in their coffers tat the time of their 11 day Pre General report, they’re broke by now considering what they spent in the advertiser this week.

So again we sit and wait to see if either C.B. Smith or Josh Sabo will address the issues, but considering last post was answered by Doug Sauer the CEO of NYCON not Sabo, I suspect we may see either Gov. Paterson of the President answer this one, who knows.

If these people can’t be honest and transparent while campaigning for office, how can we expect them to be honest and transparent if they’re elected to office.

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MORE PROBLEMS FOR HARRINGTON, WHAT STORY WILL C.B. SMITH CREATE FOR THIS

We have another charity story for you, and this one doesn’t have a happy ending either. We picked up on it this morning reading the blog over on northgreenbushvertias, where someone commented about a post on the troypolitics blog, which references the story we’ve posted below. In a nutshell, it has to do with the raises that the county legislatures received back in ’05. You remember the ones the dems have been flapping their gums about for four years, but seem to have a case of amnesia when it comes to remembering that voted for it to. In all fairness there were two dems who didn’t, or sjhould I say couldn’t, because they had been voted into office, but their terms had not started, Kevin Harrington and Brian Zweig.

Now being freshmen legislators they didn’t want to miss a Kodak moment, and soon they were firing off press releases denouncing the raises. In a gesture I’m sure they thought would win them the Nobel Prize, they each pledged to donate their raises to charity. Considering the raises were worth $5,000 a year, at four years each, that was a $40,000 gift to charity. And of course James Franco from the Record didn’t miss the Kodak moment either, and wrote all about it, HERE’S what he had to say, and I included an excerpt below.

Raise game played very well

By: James Franco, The Record
12/29/2005

Two newly elected Democrats who had no vote on the pay raise, Kevin Harrington and Brian Zweig, are giving their extra $5,000 to charity, but so far they are the only ones to step up and do the right thing.The GOP also gave two popular politicians, County Executive Kathy Jimino and County Clerk Frank Merola, a $12,000 and $10,000 raise, respectfully, so the legislature doesn’t look so bad. Jimino now makes $116,000 and Merola gets $80,000. At least they are pretty much in line with similar positions in the area, and they actually work for their money.

As we said above, when it comes to politicians we believe no one until they prove themselves, so we decided to dig a little further and see if we could ascertain where Messers Harrington and Zweig donated the money, after all $40,000 is a lot of money. We only had one problem, we couldn’t find any record of their donations. Zip, zilch, nada, nothing, not even a press releases on the Legislative Minority web site.

Now I happen to know Kevin, and I know how he operates, so I’m going to speculate that he never intended to make any donation from day one, as for Brian, I don’t know what his intentions were, but as I said I found nothing that shows they donated any money to charity. Now I’m sure if push comes to shove, they may be able to produce a receipt of two for donations, but I’m not talking about $30 or $50 here and there, I’m talking about $40,000 these two pledged to charity, and no DANA doesn’t count.

Now Messers Harrington and Zweig have spent a great deal of time this year ranting about a raise they may not have voted on, but are receiving with each paycheck and have pledged to donate to charity. We ask that they produce the documents showing that this money was donated as pledged and we’ll be happy to post them here.

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OPEN LETTER TO TRISH NOEL

It was with great interest that I read your message in the advertiser this week, after all you’ve been a candidate since the August 27th caucus and this is the first public message I’ve seen from you to the voters of North Greenbush, and it comes only days shy of the election.

While I’m sure you’re “honored” to have won your endorsements at the Democratic Caucus and the WFP Primary, and I congratulate you for that, I have to question what honor can you feel by being endorsed by the Greenbush Party (GBP). Have you considered that the Democratic Party as well as the Working Families Party both operate in the open, and through a democratic process whereby the people of the party choose their candidate, and the Greenbush Party is not? The GBP is a closed door secrete society, only open to select individuals, who’s masters are the sole individuals allowed to select candidates. In the two years the GBP has existed, I have yet to see or hear of any announcement of open meetings promoting their membership or their platform. I have not seen, nor heard of the GBP taking part in any civic functions for the betterment of our community other than elections. In fact you need only to look at their blog and see that it’s been dormant since the elections of 2007, that is until this election season.

The residents of North Greenbush are not that naive to believe that the GBP is not a re-branded Defreestville Area Neighborhoods Association. While it’s their right to call themselves whatever they want, to change your name simply to deceive the voters is wrong. But then again they have a history of doing that, first it was Defreestville Citizens Action Committee, then the Defreestville Area Neighborhoods Association, then the Village Incorporation Committee and now the Greenbush Party. They can change the name all they want, but if the names of the leaders remain the same, they’ll always be DANA

The Greenbush Party was also formed under the pretense of ” choice at the ballot box” because they felt it was wrong for a candidate to be endorsed by four parties, yet you and your fellow D/WFP/GBP candidates are all running with three endorsements, is there really a difference having one less, doesn’t it still take choice away from the voters? When an organization fails to uphold the very principle it was formed under, what does it say about the organization.

Your correct by stating it’s “disheartening to hear outrageous remarks” and see “hateful material being circulated”, but what I guess you fail to realize is most of it is coming from the very people you are running with and supporting. If you as a candidate, expect us the voters, to believe that C.B. Smith is not responsible for the northgreeenbushpipeline blog, and the very material that appears to upset you, then I say you are not in touch with the people of North Greenbush or your own party. Mr. Smith through his pipeline and mailings has spent the past several years personally attacking every candidate and or board member who has served this town, simply because they were not aligned with the North Greenbush Democratic Party.

I’m perplexed by your comment “all the evil in North Greenbush is “our” fault, Please define who you mean by “our”, as you’re using it in a possessive term to include you, and I don’t recall where I or anyone else has specifically blamed you for any “evil”. The same holds true for your statement “we are somehow responsible….”, who is we. As I see it, you’re classifying yourself a part of the North Greenbush Democratic Machine, which if true, you are being very naive about the very information you’re questioning.

As for this being an “opponents blog” I can assure you that I am not running for any office, therefore I am not your opponent or an opponent to any of your fellow candidates. Nor do I hold a position in any political party other than being an enrolled member, and I’m not on any candidates payroll. What I am Trish, is a taxpaying voter who lives in the Town Of North Greenbush, and there’s 8,000 others just like me. I’m a taxpaying voter who is truly upset with the political antics of Dan Ashley, C.B. Smith and Josh Sabo who feel they have a right to attack those who don’t have the same political beliefs. Last but not least, I’m a citizen of the United States who has the right to sit here and express my beliefs without being subject to a C.B. Smith political attack. An attack whereby he’ll search to the depths of hell to find one little piece of information about my past to use against me, and if he can’t find it, he’ll make it up, but you know that, as you were his campaign spokeswoman in 2001.

Constable Warren

northgreenbush@gmail.com