Highway Babe’s Mentor

It didn’t take long before the North Greenbush Pipeline received reliable information as to whose idea it was to get a 19 year old gas station attendant to agree to have himself propped up as a candidate for town Highway Superintendent. The award goes to businessman, owner of a beverage store in Wynantskill and strip mall developer, defeated GOP county legislature candidate and good citizen Leon Fiacco.

It was Fiacco who went to his neighbor on Geneva Boulevard to get the 19 year old to agree to put his name on a Working Families Party petition to run against Mark Premo who interviewed with and received the party’s endorsement. One has 20 years of experience and a CDL (Commercial Driver’s License) while the other is barely out of high school, holds a regular driver’s license that wouldn’t let him near a 40,000 pound town truck.

We’d love to hear Leon Fiacco’s explanation as to why he would engage is such an irresponsible and childish act, but we suspect he’s staying undercover hoping that the Special Prosecutor investigating his friends at Victory Lane in the county legislature won’t come knocking at his door asking questions about all those absentee ballots he handled during the 2005 town primaries. By now, much evidence has been obtained by the investigators from Albany County District Attorney David Soares’ Office and it’s only a matter of time before he and his cohorts in the scheme, Lou Desso, Bob Ashe, Richard Crist and others are questioned in the matter.

It’s truly remarkable when more people vote absentee in a primary than at the ballot box and Fiacco and others engineered the scheme to harvest votes from people who were never out of town and therefore ineligible to vote absentee. One of those absentees was then Conservative and now Democrat F. James Germano. His ballot was opened after it and more than 100 others were challenged in court. Each of the ballots challenged were personally handled by one of these candidates or operatives. EVERY ballot 100% of them when opened were voted for the GOP team for town board and county legislature. Remarkable coincidence they didn’t mirror the voting machines which went the other way.

So it should not surprise anyone that Fiacco would participate in a scheme to screw up North Greenbush by engaging a 19 year old kid to run against a highly competent highway supervisor. Once again it’s a case of putting politics ahead of what is good for the town while stabbing someone in the back who treated him as a friend.We think Crist and the GOP should run him again, and again, and again. He's a perfect fit for their idea of a quality candidate.

Late Financial Disclosure Count:

Today is Day 15 for the North Greenbush Democratic and Conservative Committee violations of State Election Law requiring the filing of a Financial Disclosure Report due July 15, 2007. Laws apparently don’t apply to the “reformed” democrats under Jeff Spain and his Treasurer, Tax Collector Kyran Devery. Nor under Michael Casale and his Treasurer, J. David Wos.