Evers Plan for Water 14 ?

What plan, seems to the only answer for Supervisor Mark Evers when it comes to coming up with an alternative plan to pay for the mess on his watch regarding Water District 14. His initial plan amounted to bailing out the over spent contract for his Conservative Party benefactors with an $830,000 bond which the entire town would pay for. The idea met with a voter petition that postponed the payday for Casale Excavating by requiring a public referendum now scheduled pursuant to State Law for October 16th.

Evers, fearing the voter backlash on his sponsored proposal, is now trying to scrap his proposal fearing he and his Casale slate will be sent packing with his bad tasting bath water. But when Evers blasted fellow Board members in a recent supervisor’s report, he failed to mention that he is in charge and must find the alternative, if there is one, to the absurd borrowing proposal that makes the entire town pay for his mismanagement of Water 14.

Evers has scrambled for money from Senator Bruno who says he has a hundred grand somewhere in the closet for the project. But that’s a drop in the bucket to what Casale claims he should get to finish the project, even though he agreed to complete it for 6.4 million in a signed contract.

Now that Casale runs the Conservative Party and has buddied up with the so called reform Democrats and the Connolly’s who run the Independence Party AND the county and State Republicans, he probably can’t figure out why Evers hasn’t found a way to pay him what he thinks he’s owed. Never mind that the State Comptroller is auditing the mess and his contract. Evers has shown no ability to work out alternatives and that can’t sit well with his political benefactors who haven’t seen a pay check since Evers gave them an illegal $83,000 check last December, just one day after the town board meeting in which no payments were approved. At the next meeting the board voted 3-2 to disapprove the payment leaving Evers hanging on a legal cliff for the money.

Tonight's Board meeting with it’s discussion of the Supervisor’s Plan to pay for and finish Water 14 should be a scream. So far the plan has consisted of an illegal payment, make the whole town pay for the boondoggle, beg for cash from Senator Bruno, cancel that vote and of course, blame everyone else for the cost over runs of his stellar employees in the Building Department who approved the payments without generating change orders or telling the elected board they were overspending the ol’ contract.

Hopefully, the State Comptroller's audit will offer the possibility of legal remedies against the company to in effect enforce the stipulated bid price, but don't hold your breath on that one. People who admiistered the contract without ever consulting a town attorney on their interpretations and decisions to approve payments and changes that were likely improper, may have made legal action against them a lost cause.

Late Financial Disclosure Count:

Today is Day 25 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.