I liked the Clintons, in part because they were so smart. After a while I got to worrying whether they might be using those smarts against us or in self-interest. Just a thought.
Very early in my long career of writing about local politics I would get advice from politicians. Since I didn’t know much about politics then, I listened. One of the most valuable lessons came from future mayor Peter Mancuso, then an alderman.
“You write pretty good, Hughie”, Pete said one night over beers at the Shamrock Tavern on what we used to call Broadway. “It’s tough to try to figure things out when you’re not there (in the room) but you make it pretty interesting. But let me tell you something. Those guys aren’t as smart as you think they are. Sometimes things just turn out the way they do.”
“Sometimes those guys aren’t as smart as you think they are.” But sometimes they are.
Flash forward many decades to a sharply-worded email on reapportionment from senior assemblyman Kevin Cahill. I always pay strict attention to Cahill pronouncements on state issues because he is, literally, in the room where decisions by Democrats are made.
In this press release Cahill was railing – and I mean railing – against a legislatively-appointed special commission on reapportionment that was supposed to reapportion state and congressional districts by this week.
Failing to do so, by rule it was left to the state legislature to do it, this week. Oh, the collective incompetency! Cahill didn’t say that, but he did, in my view, protest a bit too much. After all, reapportionment was now back in the hands of the legislature, and to a legislature with supermajorities in both houses, what could possibly be bad about that? They, and not some faceless citizen group, would decide their fate. For the next ten years.
I channeled my long-gone friend Pete Mancuso. Were these guys (now with women) really that smart? Did they rig this whole process from the get-go by appointing reapportionment recalcitrant commissioners from both sides whom they knew could never come to fair compromises, and thus throw the process back to the legislature?
Alas, Mancuso never said, “Don’t overthink this stuff, Hughie.”
In defense, let me add that one of the other things I learned early on from many different sages, is that politics is the art of the possible. The people behind those closed doors are capable of almost anything.
Maybe the legislature didn’t create an elaborate subterfuge to rig the system to its own advantage, even if it usually does. Maybe leopards do change their spots.
***
POLY-BIZ – Now that we’re on the cusp of reapportionment a year after final census figures which determine population came out, rumors about district lines run rampant.
One that keeps popping up from both sides is that Ulster County will be made whole, at least on the senate side, after being the dumping ground for reapportionment for decades. Reapportionment being the ultimate political strategy, this is not being considered out of consideration of county residents. The 2010 census, under which we now live, gave Ulster eight state legislators. Count ’em: four state senators and four assembly members, only two of whom live in the county.
The primary aim being bandied about Albany is to reduce Ulster to one state senator, freshman Democrat Michelle Hinchey of Saugerties. Republican Mike Martucci (Denning, Gardiner, New Paltz, Rosendale, Shawangunk and Wawarsing) and Democrat James Skoufis (Marlborough and Plattekill) could pick up the slack in the faster growing south. Hinchey would need to secure another 120,000 residents outside of Ulster, but would be left with an impregnable home base.
Politically it makes sense. Democrats, in effect, would be reinforcing victory (an old military axiom) for one of its fast-rising young new stars.
***
NOTES – I’m not a math person, as teachers and former editors could attest. “Don’t let Reynolds near a budget,” editors would warn. Ergo, I stand amazed at the hundreds of residents in Ulster and Orange (and probably in other places, too) who have volunteered to work on local reapportionment plans.
Taking the politics out of the process, which this “citizen system” is designed to do, leaves one poring over maps and moving people around to satisfy tight dictated formulas. There should be no more than a differenation of five between districts, and they must be contiguous, for instance.
I do not envy the map makers their tasks, but am grateful there are people in our community willing to volunteer.
***
QUESTIONS OF CONFLICTS – The resolution of the conflict-of-interest judgment by a city ethics board against Kingston alderman Steve Schabot raises more questions than it addressed.
Schabot, a long-time alderman and before that Recreations Commissioner, is a part-time employee of Herzog’s in Kingston Plaza, one of the prime developers of the proposed Kingstonian adjacent to the Plaza. As an alderman, Schabot recused himself from voting on that issue once in committee, and voted once on the floor of a council session.
A citizen action group brought him up on conflict-of-interest charges last December. The ethics board, after interviewing both sides, found no evidence of conflict and dismissed the charges last week, according to the alderman.
“I was actually concerned about possible conflicts of interest when it first came to committee,” Schabot said in an interview. “You know, my working at Herzog’s (12 hours a week) and they being involved in this project.” So, he recused himself from voting.
When the proposal moved to the full council, Schabot said he gave it some more thought. “It’s not like I have any influence with Herzog’s or they might consider me their alderman,” he said. “As far as I could see, there was no influence either way.”
Either way, Schabot said he went to then-city corporation counsel Kevin Bryant for advice. (Bryant, a Democrat, was elected to a 14-year term in state supreme court last November.)
As Bryant explained to Schabot, the city ethics law requires that to be found in violation, one must be the beneficiary of something. “They (Kingston Plaza) have never offered me anything and I’ve never asked for anything. Where’s the benefit?”, Schabot said.
Schabot voted in favor of the Kingstonian in council. His vote was not decisive in his colleagues’ decision to approve the project.
The ethics board apparently concurred with the future high judge’s advice. Thus, it’s no-finding of conflict. But in a curious twist, the board refused to release its findings last week. Under its own rules, it only notifies the parties, which it has done. (I don’t have a contact for the petitioners.)
His name apparently cleared, Schabot said he thinks the mayor “should think about changing some of the rules and procedures of the ethics board. “After all,” he said. “The mayor appoints its members.”
Ah, but the common council makes policy; the mayor executes it. It is for the common council to act.
Two thoughts: Schabot, a decent, honest man, was right in his first instinct. If it looks like a conflict of interest, it probably is.
Secondly, any public body like a board of ethics, that investigates a public official on a public issue has a duty to inform the public as soon as a finding is made.
Hugh Reynolds Blog 