Politics 101

Caucus Wrap Up

Apparently the Democrats from the dark side were quite surprised by the extraordinary turnout generated by their political opponents at Wednesday's caucus. They clearly lost control of the crucial votes for town supervisor and council to a crowd of the unaligned and unknown motivated by their effort to oust Mark Premo. Only two votes separated Evers from Sabo and only two votes separated a council seat for Ashworth verses Desso.

But the real surprise comes from the races for clerk and tax collector. Connolly, a so called popular incumbent won by only 50 votes against Jann Liberty, 159-109. Kyran Devery, another long time incumbent held on against an unknown, Dennis Bonesteel, 159-108. That’s too close for comfort in your own party and each better smell the coffee since they too should have held a margin similar to Mark Premo.

All Eyes on the GOP

With Evers and his blank check development slate sitting on three of the four party lines, all eyes focus on the fourth and final prize for November, the Republican Party Primary. Here, town Republicans will be able to vote all day at the polling places to decide whether to back the Democratic endorsed candidates, Evers and Desso or Republicans like Cleary, Marshall and Piel.

It’s easy to understand why the big bosses latched on the Evers and Desso. They will do as they are told and turn the town over to the development community that spends big bucks donating to State and County GOP coffers. But the Pipeline has learned that Supervisor candidate Jeff Cleary will demonstrate some amazing strength on soon to be filed financial disclosures estimated to show some $12,000 contributed for his primary campaign. The money is coming from some respected players in the GOP including Ed Cox, son in law to former President Richard Nixon and Tom Doherty, a Pataki top dog, and former Comptroller candidate Chris Callahan.

Cleary is no amateur to politics and has strong backing from prominent town Republicans who feel strongly about the integrity of their local Republican slate. They are also resentful of the interference of County Chair Jack Casey and operative Richard Crist who with Robert Mirch and Jim Germano, engineered the GOP endorsement of the Germano Democratic-Conservative slate.

Cleary may demand debates with Evers before the Primary which can only cause major headaches for Evers since he’d have trouble remembering which lies were told for each of his mis steps for the past 20 months.
How did his announced 3% tax increase for 2007 actually turn out to be a 30% increase?
Who authorized a purchase of an unbudgeted truck in the building department?
How did Evers arrange the payment of an $83,000 check behind the back of the town board to his political benefactors in Casale Excavating who run the Conservative Party and have endorsed Evers?
How does Evers explain the appointment of a Senior Clerk with no vote of appointment by the Town Board?
Why is he now trying to fire two secretaries using Civil Service rules while ignoring the illegal hiring and appointment of a political friend as a Senior Clerk?
Why did he sign a contract for an engineering firm without first having it reviewed by legal staff and sent to the town board for approval as required by law?
Why does he continue to refuse to permit the appointment of a Supervisor in the Building Department to supervise all those employees in the new union shop?
Why did he fire the highly qualified Town Engineer, Ranson Caola instead of standing up to the idiots in Civil Service who said the licensed engineer wasn’t qualified? (Answer: He conspired with Civil Service staff to get the man fired.)
Why did he stall signing a contract for an $80,000 grant from the County IDA to fund the master plan?
Why did he unilaterally appoint a bunch of political flunkies to the master plan committee without required town board approval of the appointments? (Answer: to screw things up on behalf of his friends in the development community.)

Bring on the Debate! What a show it would be.

Late Financial Disclosure Count:

Kyran Devery
Today is Day 56 for the North Greenbush Democratic Committee violation of State Election Law requiring the on line 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.