Cotrona Serves Crist

It was a site to behold. All the gossip aside at the swearing in ceremony at town hall yesterday couldn’t match the sight of Republican legislative aide Richard Crist being served lunch by “Reformed Democrats” boss Lou Cotrona in the hallway outside of the court room. Apparently Crist was trying hard not to be seen at the ceremony, just as he stayed in the background assisting Cotrona prepare Democratic nominating petitions for the slate of Democrats who opposed Dan Ashley’s committee choices in 2006.

As predicted Crist showed up at the ceremony which saw Democratic Chair Jeff’s Spain’s slate of GOP backed town board candidates, save one, get sworn in. Here was the guy who ran the GOP campaign against Evers, Kern and Michaels in 2005 basking in their corrupt cross endorsement victory. We can only imagine what Alan Michaels thought as he saw this fellow in the halls. Congressman McNulty and Assemblyman Canestrari were present as well. Neither got in the middle of the on going Democratic party fight.

Apparently none of the so called “reformed” Dems care either about Crist's past campaign against the Democrats, whose activities with Victory Lane, a company he and Robert Mirch created to run political campaigns, or the Grand Jury investigation by Albany County D.A. David Soares into Crist's activities. That investigation which is moving as slow as molasses, will determine whether Crist ran the company out of the legislative office building using county staffers and resources. This was the same M.O. used to run the 2005 GOP campaign against Evers and company and which now finds Evers in its embrace. Ahh, that infamous vote fraud in the write in campaign which saw Evers loose to Bob Ashe with more absentee votes cast for Ashe than votes on the machines that September Primary Day. And our new councilman, Lou Desso is right in the thick of this one having personally gathered a good number of those absentees, most of whom were ineligible to vote absentee since they were right here on primary day. Mr. Soares, we do hope you are reading the Pipeline upon a regular Google search of your name.

Of course the gossip was flying as the date for the organizational meeting was placed on the town web site yesterday for Tuesday January 2nd at 7PM. Apparently one clerk currently in the Building Department will be moving back to the Comptroller’s Office at the suggestion of Tyler Sawyer, the former comptroller who is being pushed by the GOP side for reappointment. That should make the town clerk happy since Sawyer was the man behind the copying of her oath of office while she stood outside smoking a cigarette. Whether he gets the nod is still debatable as far as we are concerned because there is just so much rumor flying about.

But what we are certain of is that another secretary will depart the Comptroller’s Office to become Evers secretary or Confidential Assistant. This title is exempt from his buddies at the county Civil Service Building who have become a part of his town board governance. And his current assistant, well she is incredibly going to Rensselaer County Civil Service with no exam or qualifications we are aware of except good connections. We don’t mean to imply there is anything wrong with connections. It’s just that when Evers pulls strings for people, Civil Service seems more than accommodating. And when Evers wants Civil Service to put the screws to people, they seem to put the screws to people.

No official gossip on the Town Attorney except that Rensselaer’s John Hicks seems to be on the short list on one of the appointments. There has been absolutely no effort to have a smooth transition with the incumbent town attorney since no one has informed him of who his successor might be. That will leave a new appointee with lots of case files and absolutely no knowledge of the cases. We can’t wait to the see the effect on town court next Tuesday night!

We’ll be back with the list of appointments from the January 2nd Organizational Meeting. Gee, we can only hope they give Richard Crist another job on top of his $80,000 annually salary at the GOP county legislature. He held a job under Ashe in company in 2005 while a full time legislative staffer. And was he also on the payroll of Bonded Concrete? Talk about waste!

McNally is sworn in January 1st.

The ceremony is open to the public and is at the Troy Atrium at 11AM.