IT’S BEEN A FULL YEAR
It's hard to believe but it’s been a full year since Barry
Ginsberg and his PIC gang that couldn’t shoot straight were put to sleep and
the new JJOKE watchdog oops attack dog was born.
And like any new puppy JJOKE needed time to establish
whether they were better or worse than the last watchdog.
Now I would have bet big money that they would have been
better. It was almost impossible to do
worse.
But this is Albany and you should never underestimate how
badly the people in charge of ethics can perform.
But I should be fair Ellen Biben has only been in charge
since February so it’s not a full year.
DiFiore and the other commissioners have to take the credit/blame for
the first two months.
Let’s make a list of all they have accomplished.
Ellen got to hire all her friends from the Inspector
General’s office. Has anyone been
impressed by Monica, Milgram, Uncle Vinny’s family, the Chief Economist, and
all the lawyers that walk into closets?
And I know they didn’t all come from the IG some had connections to
Commissioner’s and their spouses. Compared
to PIC this bunch has better resumes and are more arrogant but I don’t see any
improvement. For anyone that watches
Duck Dynasty its like Jessie 3 and Jessie 4 (dogs on the show).
Ellen was able to open offices in New York City and
Buffalo. Of course there are no
employees in Buffalo but the commissioners from out west no longer have to
travel to Albany they can video teleconference from the Buffalo office. And the Buffalo office provides excellent
cover for the fact that the NYC office was opened solely because Ellen and her
posse live in NYC. It got a little dicey
from February to May when we were paying all those people full time salaries to
work from undisclosed NYC locations when JJOKE’s official work station was
Albany. I can’t wait for the first time
JJOKE investigates a state employee for trying to collect expenses related to
being away from their official work station.
Even Teitelbaum moved to Albany although he did use a state car to
travel home to NYC on the weekends (he even went hunting and killed a deer with
the state car).
Ellen got her orders and opened high profile investigations
into Senator Tom Libous and Assemblyman Vito Lopez/Sheldon Silver. And maybe someday we will read all about them
in the media.
Ellen drafted new regulations to implement source of funding
disclosure requirements. They are 6
months late and ripe for a legal challenge.
Ellen drafted new rules for disclosable business
relationships. They are 12 months late
and so poorly drafted I doubt anyone actually will be reporting any
relationships.
Ellen is now starting to address gift ban rules. And believe it or not is using the old cup of
coffee explanation. One problem though the
law was amended to exempt any food or beverage under $15 so why are we
still talking about cups of coffee?
Ellen also got a new backdrop for meetings and pictures for
the website.
Now that’s not what I would call a productive year.
It pains me to admit I was wrong. But Ellen Biben is the wrong person to be in
charge of JCOPE, perfect for JJOKE but wrong for JCOPE.
At this time it would be a giant step forward if Ms. Biben,
Ms. DiFiore and the rest of the JJOKE commissioners resigned.
It’s a new year and we need new people at JCOPE.
In other words if the puppy can’t learn to pee outside it’s
time for a new puppy.
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