Decisions, decisions

Two court decisions this week have some interest to town and county government. The Appellate Division unanimously overturned GOP Acting Supreme Court Judge Henry Zwack’s effort to stop a competitive election for the County Legislative seat in District 4. The Democrat Robert Zinzow had been ordered off the ballot by Zwack after Zwack again refused to recuse himself in a case involving Democratic Chairman Thomas Wade who testified against the beleaguered judge when he was on trial for perjury in the no show job scandal. This was a rematch between attorneys Josh Ehrlich and Josh Sabo, the later a North Greenbush resident and current town attorney and Supervisor candidate.

The decision puts Zinzow back on the ballot and ensures a competitive election where a Democrat actually opposes a Republican! Gee, if only Jeff Spain and his reformed Democrats could understand that concept, we could really have a chance to have a debate and dialogue about the record and intentions of the Republicans Spain endorsed as Democrats in North Greenbush.

The second decision is actually bizarre in its logic and apparent failure to read a job description more than 30 years old for the post of town engineer. Briefly, the town board hired a retired naval officer and Annapolis graduate, Ranson Caola to be town engineer and provide supervision to the still unsupervised employees in the Building Department whose folks administered the overspent contract of Casale Excavating in Water District 14.

Supervisor Evers waited to send the paperwork to Civil Service until Caola gave notice to his employer and began working for the town. He left his job and started this one in good faith. Evers has refused to pay the veteran for the week of work he performed.Once on the job for a week, Evers sent down some, not all of the paperwork, and received back an incredible rejection from a clerk at Civil Service who is now a regular at Board meetings and who signed Conservative Party petitions for the Evers slate.

A State Civil Service official told the County Civil Service Chairman, Dan Moran, that the 30 year old job description the clerk was using to disqualify Caola was at best outdated and full of discrepancies. The most glaring was the requirement that the applicant have a “degree” in Civil Engineering or equivalent experience. The State official, Dan Glisson, pointed out in his memo that the description failed to state what kind of degree, ie, Associates, Bachelors, etc and that the equivalent experiences became a question of “to which degree”. You can read the job description and our prior post here.

For this and other reasons the town board voted to take the matter to court believing the Civil Service Commission was being arbitrary and capricious in trying to enforce a document so vague as to be outdated and unenforceable. GOP Acting Supreme Court Justice Christian Hummel may have simply overlooked the obvious in deciding against the Town and for the Commission when he wrote “It is not unreasonable for the Commission to adhere to the requirement that Petitioner have a four year degree in civil engineering or an equivalent combination of experience and training”. Yep, that sounds reasonable all right, except the whole problem with the Commission’s rejection was that the job description failed to state which degree or equivalent experience was required, Associates, (2 years) Bachelor’s (4 year) etc. Hence the State official wrote, “no equivalency is possible”.

So now we have a court decision that rests on the incorrect assumption that the job description stated a requirement for a 4 year degree in Civil Engineering or equivalent experience, when in fact it failed to state that a 4 year degree was required which was the issue of arbitrariness the court was asked to remedy in the first place. No one could possibly be approved or disapproved for this position based upon holding a degree the description FAILED to identify. That was the whole point of seeking relief from the court; to require the commission to identify the qualifications and not to approve or disapprove an applicant based upon a job description that fails to inform which degree must be held. Makes you wonder.One thing is for sure, Caola, a veteran has been screwed and should file suit against the Commission in his own right. Here is another related posting.

Late Financial Disclosure Reports
Kyran Devery
Today is Day 97 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. They are also 14 days late on a 32 Day Pre General filing due October 5th.Laws apparently don’t apply to the “reformed” democrats under Jeff Spain and his Treasurer, Tax Collector Kyran Devery.