Payback Time Coming

When Lou Desso and Al Spain hatched their plan to fire Youth Director Jerry Sickles, it was rumored they intended to use some of the money to give extra cash to Conservative Party Committeeman and Building Inspector Mike Miner. The rumor was $10,000 would go to Miner, paid in of all things OVERTIME, which in his case would be a whopping $47.00 an hour.

Miner is the highest paid employee in town hall at $64,000 a year. Paying him time and a half to do some of Sickle's job is at best financially irresponsible and at worst, mismanagement of the highest order.

First you have to consider that Miner is a FULL TIME employee who is supposed to work the regular business hours of 9 to 5. Overtime, which has been strictly eliminated because of the $171,000 deficit, requires the approval of the Supervisor in advance, and would have to take place after regular work hours. Trouble is, any critical responsibilities that might need to be filled by Sickles firing would take place during the same business hours which Miner already works as a Building Inspector. The most critical part of the Youth Director's summer responsibilities involved his presence at the summer camp. Further, why would you think of paying the highest paid employee in town hall time and a half for overtime to do this work when you could either keep Sickles part time or hire someone for regular pay at a rate considerably lower than Miner's overtime rate? The reason seems clear. It's a corrupt political bargain.So stay tuned for this one as the great payoff is attempted.

Incidentally, Conservative Committee persons are supposed to be out getting designating petition signatures for Lou Desso town board run. We're sure Miner is not circulating a petition for himself to run as he did with former Supervisor Mark Evers, beating him in the primary and costing him the election. And were "sure" this little bone they are trying to throw his way has nothing to do with keeping a Miner designating petition for town board from hitting the streets in addition to the Desso one. Really, we're sure of it!

Special Board Meeting Friday at 4PM

The financial problems and the like may be the topic of the special meeting of the town board set for Friday at 4PM June 18th. We'll see if the cuts were personal as expected or whether the majority is capable of eliminating the jobs in town hall that should have been erased months before Jerry Sickles.

Tom Connolly Rides again!

We knew when word of the Manhattan District Attorney's investigation into the State Independence Party broke, that Party Vice Chair Tom Connolly's name would surface. Well it did. Here's a link to the NY Post story. Tom managed to get at least $5,000 of Mayor Bloomberg's money as "expenses". Gee, what a surprise! We bet there's more to come and a Grand Jury Subpoena into banking records to see if any big checks were cashed by those involved. Looks like it's time for Andrew Cuomo to reject the endorsement of the Independence Party for Governor. The last thing a great candidate needs is the endorsement of people up to their necks in a criminal investigation who run around singing his praises. Cuomo can and will win without such endorsements. He's that good a candidate.

Incidentally Andrew Cuomo's campaign might like to see some of the background of Mr. Connolly which is posted on this blog here. Oh, and there's plenty more to read. Just do a blog search of Tom Connolly on our home page and see if his endorsement is something to covet.