The Hayseeds blog, No. 189 for the week starting December 30, 2006.
December 9, 2006
Hayseeds No. 188
December 30, 2006
Hayseeds No. 189
January 6, 2007
Hayseeds No. 189
Visit the Hayseeds Index
to see all previous entries.
It looks like it might not have a lot of teeth, particularly in light of the fact that there might be a deal lurking under the cover that essentially says resign after January 1st and let Spitzer pick your successor and then we will drop the charges.
At most he could be indicted for a Class E felony—the weakest form of state felony (essentially for stealing state services), and even that's unlikely. That said, a successful prosecution is almost impossible in light of the fact that the facts are rather confusing and convoluted to say the least.
The issue at fact is that a standard security guard was given to Alan Hevesi, and his wife ask him to drive her around, which was not in his task list. Regardless of whether or not that security guard had driven or not it would have cost the state the same amount of money for him to have ridden in the privately owned car.
Essentially, the driver preformed a task that he wasn't paid for by the state but had no real cost to the state. It's the same thing as a legislative aide getting his Assemblyman a cup of coffee at the Coffee Shop at the basement of the Legislative Office Building during his state hours. Not exactly a class 'E' felony.
In other words, this a case of dirty political campaigns spinning the issue and David Soares trying to look tough on political corruption. Of course Alan Hevesi's personality doesn't seem to help him out much, and ultimately he will probably have to resign to avoid getting clobbered by competing egos in the Democratic Party.
It looks like the last County for Chuck Schumer to be in will be Rensselaer County, in which he will be in today to give a speech. Good for him.
On January 1st it will be costing New York State $50 million dollars for failing to purchase modern voting machines in compliance with the HAVA law. Counties now have the responsibility to do as such under state law, though most have not done it as they don't have the money or the whereabouts to do such a thing.
It's a bad situation that the state has been putting off for too many years. It's been nearly three-quarters of a decade since that infamous Florida election with the hanging chads. That said, the state has been able to stay it off long enough by using accessible electronic machines, one per county for handicapped people and busing those people to the headquarters of the County Board of Elections.
Clinton County (ie. Plattsburgh and all those beautiful outlaying towns) looks like they will be buying optical-scan or scantron machines for voting on next year. Democratic Elections Commissioner John Burnell, the man with the green Ford F-150 long bed pickup, likes the idea of scantron machines. And Republican Commissioner Judy Lafayette probably couldn't care either way on what kind of machine the county gets, as long as they are cheap and people continue to vote Republican.
It looks like Joe is finally getting in a little bit of trouble for making money outside of his official job and giving member items to people that are personally enriching himself through investments that he has. It's pretty bad stuff:
Abbruzzese, a horse owner, is involved in numerous ventures, including at least one that has received $500,000 in discretionary grants, called member items, directed by Bruno. The two have several ties, including land development, plane rides and thoroughbred horses.
Abbruzzese is part of a group called Empire Racing Associates, which bid on the state's racing franchise that officials, including Bruno, plan to award within the next year. Abbruzzese led the effort to raise $3 million to fund the organization this spring.
Bruno owns or has interests in several businesses, including Capital Business Consultants, a firm he started at his Brunswick home after he sold his telecommunications company in 1990. Bruno has refused to name any of his various business partners or clients.
It's rather amazing the whole scandal over land development and him either changing laws or stopping the passage of bills to personally benefit him. The case of him stopping the Wetlands Bill that would essentially require that isolated wetlands less then 12 acres to be mitigated when development, is pretty infamous. Many of his parcels that he owns would lose value of wetland development is limited.
Public service should not be personally enriching, at least not in a financial sense, regardless of the model that Governor Pataki has set for the state. It's one thing to be in office, then serve as a lobbyist two years after your term in public service done (which possibility is a bit excessive but the reform people wanted it), it's another thing to do things to enhance your pockets when your in office.
It looks like David Soares is starting to think that it's too hard to prove that Hevesi did anything wrong for repeatly giving his wife's security guard additional tasks that he was not assigned to do, despite being warned against doing that in New York City as their Comptroller before becoming State Comptroller.
Basically the plea deal would not be all that nice for Hevesi, requiring him to step down and take a misdemeanor charge of some sort. That wouldn't be a Class 'E' Felony like he most likely be indicted on if Soares could convince a grand jury that he did something wrong behind closed doors, but still not a great deal.
The worst that could happen to Hevesi is he could be found guilty of the felony and probably would be sentenced to 5-years probation and have to give up his office under state public officers law. He would be a convicted felon and wouldn't be able to own firearms and do certain state jobs, but I doubt he'd have trouble finding work as a lobbyist or some other similar position.
That's unlikely to happen though. He very much could win this case as no actual money or services were stolen from the state. The driver simply preformed services while on state payroll to Hevesi's wife beyond what he was paid for doing but in no way compromising or limiting his state service. Still, Hevesi must be getting enormous pressure from other Democrats to step down.
It looks like New York State may have lost around 9,538 people or something like that, depending how you like to calculate this year community census numbers versus the revised numbers of last year.
Some argue that those revised numbers from last year are too high, and that this year's numbers are too low. Or that population is stable—9,538 is not much of a drop in state with 19.3 million.
We can assume that most of that population lost is from upstate cities. We don't see that from the story, but the trend has been downstate population is growing while upstate population is declining according to past surveys. Likewise, while upstate cities are continuing their slow decline, their suburbs are booming as people escape the drug infested centers that our politicians are too afraid to confront community groups preventing their redevelopment.
The TU seems to think that Joe Bruno might have to deal with a revolt within his conference with growing scandal over the FBI investigation into his business deals and member items he's given to his little special projects.
However, insiders say senators were taken aback by Bruno's sudden disclosure this week that there has been an FBI investigation under way since at least March, and Wednesday's revelation that a grand jury has been convened. Some felt cheated that he didn't reveal the inquiry into his affairs when senators gathered Nov. 30 in the Capitol to unanimously nominate him for another tour of duty.
"The key is who is going to strengthen the conference," one Republican veteran said. In two years, the person said, the conference will be dealing with another tough re-election effort, and much more than the $17 million Bruno helped raise for the 2006 campaigns may be necessary to keep the GOP majority in the Senate.
It should be very interesting to watch. A lot can change between now and January 3rd, and many Republican Senators fear that this will be their last 2 years in the majority.
It looks like Alan Hevesi has decided that after January 1st to step down and let Governor Spitzer pick his replacement. Assemblyman Bill Parment of Jamestown, the man known as the the conservative Democrat from out in Western New York says he wants Spitzer to pick some body independent of him. Others seem to think that New York needs a spotless candidate for Comptroller, one who can quickly put Hevesi's scandals behind him.
Some of the candidates noted as possibilities by an Associated Press article include: Assemblyman Richard Brodsky of the Corporations and Authority Committee, Bill Mulrow who was a Democratic primary candidate who at one time ran against Hevesi (talk about winning it back :), Assemblyman Pete Grannis of the Insurance Committee, Assemblyman Mike Gianaris who ran for AG for a while last spring, Assemblyman Tom Dinappoli the Nassau County Democrat whose the often funny leader of Assembly EnCon, Assemblyman Joe Morrelle who chairs Transportation, Denise O'Donnell who ran for AG last year, and New York City Comptroller Bill Thompson Jr.
My bet is none of the Assembly people will get named as none of them have particularly untarnished reputations. You could easily name some wrong doing by all of those people. Assembly people are always lining up at the trough for something bigger then being Shelly's lackies.
On the other hand, people Mulrow and Thompson probably are pretty good choices, depending on what Spitzer's vetting process finds out about them. The former AG candidates are also good possibilities as some of them probably deserve payback from the party for stepping out of the way of Andy Cuomo and his men.
It looks like effective December 22, 2006, Alan Hevesi is stepping down as comptroller as part of a plea deal with David Soares. He got off pretty easily—just a $5,000 fine plus a resignation from this term and the 2007 term he was elected to—and pleaing to a class E felony.
Then again, if he had gone to trial and loss, he would have been found guilty of the same felony (which somehow looks worst), and probably would have gotten 5 years probation. While his probation probably wouldn't be a big deal and would probably be done at his convince, this was still a better deal. It's not like he's a gun nut or anything—and it's unlikely he'll do anything but retire now.
See the DA's press release and the Times Union Blog coverage.
