Ethics, Wiley and Road Runner

The Town Board passed, but barely, additions to its Ethics Law which were largely an affirmation of the new governor’s ethical guidelines act. It appears to set reasonable parameters for the private use of town phones, computers and so on which permit employees to use taxpayer resources in a reasonable way making clear that such use has limits. For example you might make and receives personal calls as needed, but you can’t stay on the phone all day and not do your job and you can send and receive personal e-mails, but lets not get into spending the day browsing the Land’s End catalogue. Of course you should not do what the folks running the Rensselaer County Legislature are accused of doing and use the staff and equipment to run a private business enterprise and if you are a political party officer, you shouldn’t be doing party work, party meetings, etc on town time. (Those long talks outside the town hall door between the party chairman and the party secretary are a no no!)
Of course, Councilman Kern voted against the reforms in part because he appears to fear that those e-mails may undermine that indispensable invention of Alexander Graham Bell, the telephone. Mr. Kern does not appear to like or own a computer. God knows where his town e-mail account goes to, but it certainly isn’t downloaded from his home terminal. Yes, Road Runner is in fact a crafty bird that outwits Wiley Coyote on those famous Looney Tunes Cartoons at least when it comes to our own version of Wiley Coyote, Councilman Ernie Kern.
Mr. Kern expressed his concern about employees being allowed to send and receive e-mails as a threat to town security. He claimed data was taken from the town clerk and comptroller’s office although he didn’t say what data. (Ironically if it was taken by email, we would have a record of the culprit on the town’s servers.)
Ethics, yes, we did say there was some discussion on Ethics and weighing in we’re told were the Town’s two Ethical Icons, Louis Cotrona and Louis Desso. Lou I and Lou II filled the airwaves, (we are broadcast on Time Warner Cable) with innuendo about people being maligned and “you three guys” which at one point, caused Councilman Alan Michaels to bristle at Lou I .
Remember that the two Lous' have had their own past ethical entanglements beginning with Lou I getting himself sued and removed from the East Greenbush School Board for living outside the district and not telling anyone and Lou II had some issues way back when that were handled by the legal system in local police courts. It’s always a treat, however to watch the ethically challenged complain about people’s ethics and there’s no place like North Greenbush when it comes to Looney Tune characters to entertain you.

Whispers of the Betrothed
The North Greenbush Pipeline has heard that a town employee is betrothed. Our best wishes to the couple.