DAY 6 NO ANSWER FROM MIKE THE CHAIR BUT DICK SPIT OUT AN EMAIL

Before I address Mike the chair’s continuing failure to give an answer to the simple question of DID THE COMMISSION CHANGE THE WAY IT CALCULATES DUE DATES (heard from some readers that I wasn’t clear on who Mike is – he’s commission chairman Michael Cherkasky known on this blog as Mike the chair) I want to commend the head of education Dick for sending me an email about how hard he is working

It appears Dick is the only employee willing to give a straight answer nowadays. Here’s what happened I spoke with one of my former hires Howard about the lifetime bar and special counsel Ralph’s clearly retaliatory interpretation of it I thought since Howard has been teaching training sessions for a while I would ask him to teach me and a few of my friends in the media about the lifetime bar – surely he would know how special counsel Ralph found this imaginary application of the bar Howard said they do schedule small training sessions and he would find out when it could be done By the way since I know how busy Howard is and his previous issues with the application of manlaw I thought this especially gracious of him I didn’t hear back from Howard instead I got an email from Dick who had a mouthful of information to spit out It goes as follows:

Point 1 they don’t have any training scheduled on lifetime bars and since one of the trainers is out for an extended period of time they can’t say when any training will be scheduled TRANSLATION You are on your own like every other former state worker and you don’t actually expect us to do any work do you

Point 2 Read what’s available on our website TRANSLATION we where just kidding when we say on our website that you should contact us to answer your questions

Point 3 The commission is preparing an opinion for me on Ralphs retaliatory lifetime bar threat TRANSLATION in case the other jesters are afraid to tell you we think Ralph is doing god’s work This one is interesting because I asked Mike the chair for a formal commission opinion only if he thought Ralph’s threat had any merit Mike still hasn’t responded to me so how does Dick know Hmmm

Point 4 You got training along with the rest of the lobby commission in 2007 and nothing has changed since that training TRANSLATION stop bugging us

While Dick had the time to send the email its clear that the training unit isn’t doing any real work so lets save the state some more money and downsize Dick and the rest of this unit I figure that’s worth at least $400K between the auditors and Dicks staff I’ve saved the state over $550000

And for the record its day 6 and still no answer from Mike the chair If no one at the commission will tell you the answer Mike are you really in charge You are way too smart not to see how this is going to turn out

PEOPLE ARE PAYING LATE FEES AND THE COMMISSION KNOWS THEY ARE NOT LEGITIMATE

SHAME ON YOU MIKE

To quote your executive director you should be setting an example for the rest of the State unfortunately the example is one we have seen repeatedly from your commission and it’s an embarrassment

DAY 5 STILL NO ANSWER BUT THEY WERE BUSY IN THE STAR CHAMBER

I just got back from the commission’s star chamber hearing on the governor’s Yankee ticket problems Although I’m not sure how it’s the governor’s problem you see I didn’t hear one piece of evidence that the governor solicited the tickets just a lot of hearsay that had no business being admitted but your lawyers don’t show and it’s déjà dopp all over again


I counted no fewer than 10 commission jesters oops employees in the room including the guy dressed like an undertaker and manning the door Did the state taxpayers really need to pay Scott Clark to wear his wedding suit and stand guard at the door? Who was he guarding it from the folks that stole the chairs last week? Chairs which by the way were back in their rightful locations in the reception area Anyway with all those folks in the star chamber if Mike had tried calling today to get an answer to my question all he was getting was voice mail


Let’s look at Mike’s call log for today:


Call Ralph – he’s out today (and with the track dark that’s strange) he will be in next Tuesday though before taking Wednesday Thursday and Friday off next week

Call Barry - nope he’s watching the hearing but you better leave a message because he leaves on a one week vacation shortly

Call Deb the commission’s secretary – nope she’s watching the hearing

Call the other special counsel Terri (my bet on the jester that actually planned the great chair heist) - nope she’s watching the hearing too


Well since I probably have a better idea than Mike about who actually knows the answer to my question and not to make mountains out of mole hills but I would call Christina You know her Mike she’s the program supervisor who took over both supervisor jobs last year when the other supervisor quit


Christina knows the answer just ask her

DAY 4 AND COUNTING

Well it’s day 4 and still no answer from the king his court or the court jesters Give them time you say last time when the question involved one of their own they sent me an answer in ONE day Of course they where clearing him from wrong doing no need to actually check the facts then BY THE WAY I still haven’t heard a response to my request to investigate Barry Ginsberg for sending me a legal opinion of the commission based on facts he never bothered to establish while at the same time letting the target of my question know of his opinion - shades of Teitelbaum leaking to the target of an investigation I won’t hold my breath waiting for the king and his court to look into Patrick the starfish’s activity on that one

Anyway in the hope that the reason I haven’t received an answer this time is because the chair or ottoman or whatever title they insist upon nowadays – its Michael as far as I’m concerned – doesn’t know let me assist you Michael by providing written instructions on how to get an answer to the question of DID THE COMMISSION CHANGE THE WAY IT CALCULATES DUE DATES

Step 1 pick up phone
Step 2 dial special counsels Ralphs number – do it on a Tuesday the track is dark then
Step 3 ask him

Hope that helps

HEY CASEY YOU EVER PLAY CHESS?

Casey Seiler of the Times Union has a column in today about our shared experience with the Public Integrity Commission. He does a far better job than I did in “LET THEM EAT CAKE” posted below, at capturing the texture of the moment, (notice the commas Casey) and uses better punctuation than I do (in fact I’m thinking of writing the blog in the future sans punctuation as kind of a signature style) But at the end of the column he states that I was grinning like a schoolboy and he was correct so now let me explain why

Anyone that has ever played chess knows that feeling the moment your opponent makes a move and you know for certain that checkmate is the only possible outcome Well that’s what happened when commission chair Mike Cherkasky said that he would answer my question You see it was a simple question requiring a yes or a no answer Either answer has very serious ramifications for the king and the court jesters Putting aside for the moment that the chairman could not answer the simplest of questions lets give Mike the benefit of the doubt and assume any question I asked was getting that “perfunctory brush-off” as Casey Seiler wrote

If the answer is yes the jesters have changed how they calculate due dates since the last batch of late fees then they are going to have to go back and review every single one to see if it was valid or if a refund is in order Big job for a bunch of shall we say less than ambitious jesters especially during track season (a special place in August for the special counsel) Doing all that work is not nearly as easy as moving chairs into locked rooms and having lunch delivered Plus they’ve got to admit I caught them trying to mislead the lobbying community In addition it will further establish that the special counsel was retaliating against me when he threatened me with a lifetime bar violation – if he changed “the program” he’s the one with a lifetime bar issue as he well knows to go along with what might very well be some official misconduct issues violation of my free speech rights and who knows how many Public Officer Law violations Come to think of it I never got an answer to the question of was Ralph authorized by his boss to threaten me the more the merrier

If the answer is no . . . well lets just say the first thing you learn in law school is don’t ask a question you don’t know the answer to I KNOW THE ANSWER The second thing you learn is in your official position tell the truth because someone always has the documents to prove if you are lying DON”T SAY I DIDN”T WARN YOU

CHECKMATE

Now how long will the King and the court jesters take to answer the question I’d set an over/under but that wouldn’t be fair I may have inside info So lets just keep track it’s day 3 and the king hasn’t answered the simplest question yet

What comes after an ethical lynching? A rigged trial of course!

Anyone else going to the David Patterson - Yankee ticket hearing Tuesday at the PIC? I’ll be there with my box of popcorn, there is nothing I like more than watching a good show trial after the defendant has been ethically lynched.


What ever happened to waiting and deferring to Judge Kaye’s investigation to be completed before moving ahead with a hearing? My guess is the King and his court jesters read the first Kaye report and decided they could not afford to wait. After all if Judge Kaye were to report that no violation occurred the court jesters might be forced to explain why they ethically lynched the governor back in February.


Be that as it may I had a thought for Ted Wells, the gov’s counsel in this matter (and another reason I’m going Tuesday is to watch Mr. Wells dissect the jesters in front of an audience.) And Mr. Wells is far more talented and experienced than I could ever hope to be but I may know a fact or two about these clowns that he doesn’t. Here’s the thought I had, over a year ago special counsel Ralph issued a late fee to a lobbyist based on the fact that the lobbyist received a check from a client dated over 15 days prior to the lobbyist’s registration. (There are those dang due dates and late fees again Ralph, I did warn you). Now special counsel Ralph was told that the check was not deposited till some later date (a fact he should have known if he turned the check over and looked at the deposit date stamped on the back of the check by the bank) but special counsel Ralph said it doesn’t matter the date written on the front is what the court jesters use to determine when the lobbyist was paid. I don’t know where, when or how special counsel Ralph came up with this legal conclusion but he did and he collected his late fee based upon it. But wouldn’t it be special for Mr. Wells to call special counsel Ralph as an expert witness to testify about how the king and the court jesters determine when an item is paid for by using the date WRITTEN on the check. Based on that legal analysis I gotta believe special counsel Ralph would testify under oath that the gov paid for those Yankee tickets on the day of the date written on the check no matter when it was written.


As I said I’m sure Mr. Wells will cut the jesters case to pieces without my assistance, I just needed to remind the special counsel that consistency is a virtue, one he appears to lack!

LET THEM EAT CAKE

Just got back from the Public Integrity Commission’s meeting. I’ve got enough material to do 3 or 4 blog posts just from that one meeting. But since Casey from the TU was there and subjected to the same conditions as the rest of those attending the meeting I wanted to beat him to the post. This being part of the media is turning into an addiction but it did have a bright side and some perks as you will read below.

OK the public part of the meeting lasts about 20 minutes and nothing of much interest is discussed. Then comes the executive session when those of us in the general public and the media have to leave the room (I haven’t decided at this point which group I’m in, public or media). Out to the reception area we go where lo and behold all the furniture is gone. No chairs to sit in and wait. Hmmm could the budget crisis be that bad that the PIC sold their furniture? Oh well we will all just go sit in one of the two conference rooms out front plenty of chairs in there. But no the doors are locked. Must be a lot of sensitive documents related to all the cases the PIC is working on.

After another 30 minutes here comes a food delivery from Lunch. (A great sandwich joint around the corner) and there it goes into the conference room where the king and his court also known as the commissioners and staff must be hard at work on executive session matters. Another 30 minutes and lo and behold out strides commission flak Walter Ayers, well fed no doubt. At this point I decide I am part of the brethren of the ink and ask Walter “Hey Walter can you open the rooms so the press can sit down? (And the ladies that are part of the general public). Walter says “I will look into it” but miracle of miracles 5 minutes later the receptionist unlocks the door for us and we are allowed behind the magic door and what do we see?

You guessed it all the furniture from the reception area. Why would the commission lock away the furniture? Probably the same reason they have lunch during executive session in the hope that everyone leaves before the question and answer session that occurs after the meeting is adjourned.

Not only did it not work, we all hung in there till the bitter end, but I took the big comfy chair. To make up for it, next meeting anyone that waits in the furniture less reception area while the royalty has lunch will be treated by me to our own lunch Jeff Spicoli style. Just let me know what you want on the pizza I’m going to have delivered to the reception area, bring a blanket and a folding chair we will have a picnic.

SAVE THE STATE MONEY TELL THE PIC YOU DON’T HAVE TIME TO BE AUDITED

We’ve all heard about the State budget crisis and the need for belt tightening and doing more with less. And we all know how annoying and time consuming those PIC audits can be. I’ve got a solution.
Just tell the PIC auditor, Mike, Amy or Maria that you are too busy to be audited. Saves you time and if those three have no one to audit they become superfluous and the PIC can let a couple of them go should save the state about $150k annually.
But wait, what will the PIC and its special counsel do to you? Surely there must be late fees or fines that can be imposed if you just tell them you’re too busy to be audited right now?
Nope and before the special counsel sends me another letter threatening me with the lifetime bar because I was executive director when the audit provisions where enacted into law I learned this information when the special counsel discussed proposed legislation at a commission meeting and pointed out that there is no penalty for failing to cooperate with an audit.
Now don’t let me talk you into frustrating the commission, if you’ve got the time and don’t mind being audited give them everything they ask for BUT if you don’t like the audit process or you just want to save the state some money by eliminating the auditors ask them what the penalty is if you decline to be audited. Then decide.