Evers wages war against Engineer

The manner in which naval veteran and licensed professional engineer Ranson Caola was "fired" by the Town Supervisor was nothing short of disgraceful. After insisting publicly he wanted a PE rather than a Building Director in order to get rid of one Board appointed office supervisor, Evers then waged a war against the engineer position as well. When Mr. Caola was hired, he went through a competitive process which began by answering an ad in the newspaper.

Once an agreement to retain him was reached, he gave his company two weeks notice, after which he began his first day working for the town. During that two week period, the Supervisor failed to submit any paperwork to the county Civil Service to have the appointee approved. He waited until Caola began work and then sent down the paperwork absent his resume.

A clerk who works for the county disproved of the paperwork, in part with the excuse that he lacked qualifications to be an engineer, via a 30 year old out dated job description they had on file. So much for a New York State License.

Evers took the rejection notice and ordered Mr. Caola out of the building. The set up, obviously with the collusion of the county, had allowed Evers the excuse to fire Caola with no attempt to correct the "mistake" of failing to send the man’s resume to the county so that the rejection would be corrected. Imagine that Caola left his job to work for the town and Evers did this to him, a distinguised veteran and graduate of Anapolis.

In the time that has passed, Evers has made disparaging comments about Caola's professional qualifications which subject both he and the town of North Greenbush to potential civil damages. The reckless comments continued most recently when Evers appeared again this month before a meeting of the Civil Service Commission and for a second time argued against righting the wrong committed so that he can keep Caola out of the building department. Evers cannot argue against correcting the “mistake” on grounds relating to civil service law, but rather argues simply that the town doesn’t need the position. That argument belongs at a town board meeting, which he lost, NOT before the Civil Service Commission.

It's quite a contradiction from months ago when he argued against the Building Director because we needed a PE. But like any good hypocrite, he is for something before he is against it. As for the town, it desperately needs the services of an engineer like Caola. Evers knows it and just about anyone who works in town hall or comes before a planning or zoning board knows it.

But making sure that the Building Department employees remain unsupervised is a top priority for the Conservative Supervisor who wants to get those check rolling again to his political pals in Casale Excavating. A department supervisor might have sopped those $740,000 in overpayments in Water District 14 and that $83,000 check Evers personally had cut to satisfy the Conservative Party Chairman’s company, Casale Excavating.

The town is apparently had enough of the stalling and is ready to file a lawsuit that will put Civil Service and Evers in check and Caola on the job. That may happen as soon as this week if the county fails to agree to correct the "mistake".
So welcome to the Town of North Greenbush, a Division of Casale Excavating and the Conservative Party. Professionals need not apply.

Divided Majority May Prevent Restructuring of Employees

We knew it would not take long for the newly elected board members to find out what their predecessors learned before Day 1 in 2006, that Mark Evers cannot work with people and trusts no one in a world governed by paranoia.

The Board has quickly evolved into a 2-2-1 split. Evers and his sidekick Ernie Kern remain bound at the mouth, meaning they speak with the same vote. Desso and Spain tend to stay together with Desso looking to Spain for direction and Michaels remains outside looking in which is probably the best place to be right now.

There has been a behind the scenes move to take care of several loyalists in the majority's warring coalition of Casale Conservatives, Germano "Democrats" and the County GOP all of which are tugging on the 4 man majority for different paybacks. The hiring of controversial attorneys, Conservative stalwart Judy Wos, Germano Democrat's Vice Chair Ed Cassino, the appointment of Germano's son to the Planning Board are cases in point. But a new move is afoot to get Ed Cassino even more money and apparently at the expense of employee Larry Bonesteel.

Word is there is an effort to change Bonsteel's responsibilities and ultimately force him to take a civil service test to keep his job. That's how Evers, Connolly and their friends at Civil Service did it to put the screws to two former employees they had on their hit list and to the former town engineer, a US Navy veteran who was eminently qualified for the job. Evers fired the navy man 6 days after he was appointed and after he had given notice to his former employer. He was left without health insurance and a job. He also had to wait a year to get paid for the 6 days he worked. That check was issued just recently and only after it was made clear to Evers that steps would be taken to compel the payment if he did not order the check's release.

It should be interesting to watch this one unfold to see if Evers does Germano's bidding without the consent of the town board, just as he did so often to the prior majority by appointing people to jobs without the vote or consent of the town board as required by law. Of course with the help of his buddies in Civil Service, Evers got away with it and no enforcement action was taken by the county GOP crew that runs the Civil Service Commission. Of course, Evers does not like Cassino so maybe those behind the move will have to find the three votes otherwise needed to make the moves.

It's nice to remember what Evers and company did to Ranson Caola as we approach Memorial Day and pause to honor our veterans. Evers and Civil Service sure honored the service of Ranson Caola, Annapolis graduate and veteran. They really screwed him.

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.

Town Fined by DEC

It’s hard to imagine how Mark Evers could have allowed the town to be in a position of being fined by the State for failing to comply with the Storm Water Management requirements he was repeatedly warned about during 2007. Warned by the man he could not wait to fire, the PE hired by the Board to supervise the unionized employees in the Building Department and bring a degree of professional expertise to the department. That gentleman was Ranson Caola, a US Navy veteran, graduate of Annapolis and holder of a Masters Degree in Engineering as well as a State licensed Professional Engineer. That wasn’t good enough for Mark Evers and his buddies in the county Civil Service who used an outdated 30 year old job description to ice Caola after just 6 days on the job.

His impact however, was not unnoticed with a sterling report to the Board during that week that warned of the Town’s failure to begin the Storm Water Management process to comply with the State. After Evers fired him, without pay, Caola returned to a Board meeting and gave a slide show on the Storm Water Management issues and warned of the stiff fined the town would face if they did not act. Evers did not heed the warnings and when the work was submitted late to ENCON, the town was hit with a consent order, and purportedly a $5,000 or more fine. Last night the Board was forced to pay. Thanks Mark and those sterling folks in the Building Department he tries to protect.

Germano Returns!

Jimmy is back from Florida and we could not believe he attended a Board meeting last nght. Most likely to join in support of his Conservative buddies from Casale Excavating who still want more money from their never ending contract in Water 14. At issue is the retainage fees which are held back from each payment as an insurance that the work is done and done right. Trouble is the money appears to be spent on overpayments and the town has no more authority to pay him any more. With the work unfinished, looks like Casale will go to court and try to force the town to borrow more from taxpayers to continue to pay him. Then again the town could go to court and try to enforce the contract in a way that benefits taxpayers.

While Germano did not speak, the minions of his supporters did including Lou Cotrona, chair of the old Citizens Club which morphed into the Reformed Democrats who narrowly took control of the Democratic Party turning into a division of the County GOP.

Judge Issues Restraining Order

Well, it finally happened. The Town Board’s Majority has finally had enough of Mark Evers and the interference of the politically charged Rensselaer County Civil Service Commission with their apparent ties to the union attempting to run town hall. After going to court to have a judge look at this particular travesty engineered by Evers with the help of friends who work for the commission, a judge has issued a TRO, temporary restraining order against them which will prevent them from taking the engineer position off the town payroll.

It’s something they should have done long ago when the Commission ignored the clearly stated powers of a town in Town Law to establish “Director” I each department, appointed by the Board who “shall be in the unclassified service”. The Commission, however, decided it was more important to help Evers keep a supervisor out of the Building Department, and ignored the Town Law, stating they could not create the Director position, even though the town has for example a Youth Director in charge of that department all ready.

In fact every time the town board as attempted to create positions Evers and the Union did not like, the Commission managed to go right along with their requests. This time, they went too far and the town on behalf of the newly hired Town Engineer who holds a license issued by the State, and went to court to stop the Commission and Evers from continuing to put the proverbial screws to this navy veteran and Annapolis graduate who left his private sector job in good faith to work for the town.

We visited this issue once before which you can review here, but what really smacks their previous action is an email from the State Civil Service Commission which basically makes a fool of the county Commission’s action in declaring Ranson Caola unqualified to be the town engineer.

Imagine a Civil Service bureaucrat telling a licensed engineer he isn’t qualified to be an engineer. The State smacks them by asking how in the world can you enforce a 30 year old out dated job description that fails even to state what kind of degree in civil engineering one needs to be qualified?

Time to update your job descriptions boys and girls and a State judge is about to help you. So an engineer will be permitted on the payroll despite Evers best efforts to stop it. Taxpayers will finally have a chance to have professionalism and supervision in the Building Department. Who knows, maybe we’ll get a contract administrator that interprets contracts to favor taxpayers instead of contractors!

Evers and Spain Join Space Cadet Corp

It appears the pressure is really getting to Mark Evers and his turncoat Democratic Chair Jeff Spain. Yesterday during their morning training class in Remedial English, they decided to leave early and take to writing press releases for their newly formed North Greenbush Space Cadet Corp. Each issued a remarkable expose attacking County Legislator Kevin Harrington, not for demanding answers on behalf of constituents after Evers and Kern's claims of massive contamination on Main Avenue, but rather, the all important question of Harrington's residency. That's right, they are worried about his residency and not the contamination claims made by the Supervisor on Main Avenue.

You don't believe it right? Here is Evers press release in which he assigns new meaning to a Harrington statement from his press release Monday asking Evers and Kern to answer serious health and safety issues they raised alleging contamination on Main Avenue that could shutdown businesses and force the evacuation of homes. Here also is today's story about Ever's discovery in the Record which apparently felt Spain's shot was not worth the ink.

Instead, Evers issued this remarkable press release in which he took part of a sentence from the Harrington release and turned it into a bizarre account of being dishonest about where he lives. "As a long time town resident" was turned into proof Harrington was lying about his residence.

The full sentence read, "As a long time town resident, who is a cancer survivor, I am aware of no unreported contamination in this corridor, the clean up of which would require such a serious response by agencies as that suggested by these town officials." Last time we checked the lexicon, the words, "As a long time town resident..." do not imply a current state, but easily are assigned the meaning he intended which was that he has lived here a long time. Yes Mark and Jeff, he has lived here a very long time and we hope of course you will not hold against him the 4 years he left town to serve his country in the United States Navy. But we remember how Evers treats veterans having fired Navy Veteran and Annapolis graduate Ranson Caola as Town Engineer so he wouldn't get in the way of all those over payments Evers made to the Conservative contractor in Water 14. With Memorial Day coming it should be quite a site to see Evers showing respect for those who served their country.

Harrington recently moved to Poestenkill which is part of the legislative district which includes his home town of North Greenbush. Evers displaying his usual paranoia, describes Harrington's relocation as "having quietly moved to Poestenkill several months ago". Gee, perhaps Harrington should have hired a Marching Band to parade down Main Avenue through all the contamination Evers claims is present. We wonder if Harrington informed his mother and father whom he left behind to deal with the effects of all that "contamination" Evers claims is on Main Avenue?

Harrington goes on to note in that release, "As a cancer survivor, I want answers. If contamination exists in this area of the magnitude they suggest, requiring a shutdown of Main Avenue businesses and evacuation of homes, these officials must back up their claims. Surely, if their claims were true, the matter should have been rectified many years ago in the interests of protecting public health and safety as well as obvious environmental concerns which we all share." Instead of answering the questions about health and safety, Evers instead questions Harrington's residency. My my, the things they teach you in Space Cadet Class!

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It gets better. Evers mentor, Democratic Chair Jeff Spain joins in with his own rocket science inspired release joining Evers demand for a Harrington explanation of residency and never once demands answers from the Republican endorsed candidate Spain sold out to as the Democratic Chairman by endorsing him. Evers of course criticized Harrington for not attending the meeting in which Evers made the specious claims of contamination, but that didn't stop Spain, who had an excused absence from the same meeting to attend coloring class, from criticising Harrington as well. If their purpose was to keep the contamination claims in the papers another day, they sure succeded. That's a page right out of the Jerimiah Wright school of politics! "Open wide"!

Metroland Details Contamination Claims, No Sign of Evers

You can read today's embarrassing expose of Mark Evers and Ernie Kern in Metroland here.

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.

The Commission: A Description of Ineptitude or Worse

There are only a couple of explanations, bureaucratic ineptitude or willful interference.
Let’s look at a recent decision by the staff of the Rensselaer County Civil Service Commission to reject an applicant as “unqualified” to be and hold the job title of “Town Engineer”.
First, some background: When the Town Board of North Greenbush cited Suburban Town Law, Section 52 to create the title of Building Director, The Rensselaer County Civil Service Commission said no. It disallowed the title and imposed its will over the body of State Law called Suburban Town Law.
That left the town without a Town Board appointed manager and supervisor of the unionized employees in the Building Department. The Commission is composed entirely of three persons appointed by County Republicans, with no Commissioner's name submitted by County Democrats who are in the minority in County government.
The Town Board apparently chose not to battle the Commission in Court and instead decided to utilize a job title already approved by the Commission, albeit 30 years ago. That title was Town Engineer.
When the Town Board appointed a man licensed by New York State as a Professional Engineer, no one would have imagined anyone arguing with his qualifications. He was a graduate of the United States Naval Academy, holding a Bachelors Degree in engineering. He held a Masters Degree in engineering from Union College and had passed the test to become a licensed Professional Engineer in New York State more than 5 years ago.
Yet, despite the resume, despite the degrees and the PE License, the politically appointed Rensselaer County Civil Service Commission allowed its staff to disapprove this man’s qualifications to serve as a town engineer. They ignored his license from the State of New York, they ignored his status as a veteran of the United States Navy and service in two Gulf Wars and sent the one page denial notice to the Town Supervisor who rather than fight for what is right, rushed to his computer to write a letter demanding his keys to the building. The Town Supervisor has done everything possible to keep the Building Department unsupervised and many believe may have “encouraged” the Commission staff by omitting the applicant’s resume in the papers faxed for review.
We invite you to click on the official thirty year old job description used to deny this man his professional reputation. It is so seriously flawed as to be both unenforceable and laughable.
Under “Examples of Work”, it requires functions which by law are prohibited with changes in the law over three decades.
Under “Required Knowledges, Skills and Abilities” (their spelling not ours) it states one be in “good physical condition”, a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Under “Acceptable Experience and Training” it states “Four years of professional civil engineering experience and graduation from a recognized college or university with a degree in civil engineering; or any equivalent combination of experience and training”. This is the most absurd section since it fails to state what kind of degree; ie, Associates, Bachelors, Masters, PHD. So which “degree” did the Commission staff use to decide he lacked a degree and the combination of experience and training equivalent to which degree?
Then there's the last sentence: “Eligibility for a License to practice as a professional engineer in New York State”. That’s right, to qualify you don’t need the license but only be eligible to take the test to acquire one. Yet the Commission denied the applicant his title despite being a step above being eligible for the license. He already has one and has for the past five years.
We mentioned the missing resume. It appears the Supervisor neglected to fax his resume to the Commission. When it was sent to them later, they did nothing to undo the injustice. Apparently Mr. Evers is upset that Board members and staff called the Commission and the County Attorney expressing disbelief. Mr. Evers accused them of harassing the Commission staff. That’s one more call than Mr. Evers made to stand up for what is right. He, as we mentioned, rushed to his computer to write a letter dismissing the applicant from the town after just six days on the job.
Wonder why three Board members were mad enough to call a special meeting to sue the Commission at a potential cost of $5,000 to taxpayers? That’s right, only three Board members are angry about this. Mr. Evers and Mr. Kern voted NOT to stand up for what’s right and against suing this Commission. In the mean time, the applicant left his prior job in good faith and has not been paid a dime since coming to work in North Greenbush, not even for the six days he worked.
It has been said that when justice is denied for one man, it is denied for all men. What former naval officer Ranson Caola did was not the easy thing, but it was the right thing. He refused to accept a different, watered down job title and decide to fight the injustice. In part to protect his own profession and reputation and in part to demand accountability on those whose actions have diminished their own professional reputations by assailing the professional reputation of others.
Now you decide, incompetence or willful misconduct in pursuit of an agenda?