Bringing Home The Bacon - Handing Out The Pork

Two roads diverged in a wood and I - I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference - Robert Frost
 

Bringing home the bacon....

On Tuesday, March 19, 2013 Clarkstown Fleet Manager, Dennis Malone, laid out the substantial financial savings that the Town has obtained since he took over management of the three Clarkstown garages (Police, Highway and MiniTran). Details were given as to how Malone took Highways Superintendent Ballard's 2013 budget of $967K and reduced it to $322K thus saving the taxpayers $645K.  Ballard's 2014 budget of $1.015 million will be reduced by Malone to $575K resulting in a savings of $440K.

The total savings will be $1.085 Million for this two year period.

In three previous articles (The Vote Was No, How No Became Yes and The Whispered Candidate) I expressed suspicion both of the magnitude of the savings that could be obtained by combining the three Town garages and of the Town Board's desire to have the Fleet Manager, Dennis Malone, report not to Ballard, but to Supervisor Gromack and the Town Board.

My initial concerns were that the Fleet Manager position would become a patronage position added to the pile of patronage positions already doled out by the Town of Clarkstown. For example, readers will recall the'explanations' that were provided by the Board for its hiring of the , to conduct the Town of Clarkstown's tax certiorari work. He came to the job with no prior experience and with what Councilwoman Hausner referred to mysteriously as "baggage" when she voted against his appointment.  Equally mysteriously she voted for his re-appointment this year with the "baggage" still intact - but then this is an election year.

The Savino appointment (at least he has some legal knowledge) was overshadowed, however, with the disgraceful appointment by Ballard of County Legislator, Frank Sparaco, to a part time (25 hours per week) patronage position in the Highway Department having the gratuitous title of 'Constituent Services Representative' paying the outrageous sum of $75,000 per year. Sparaco had run unsuccessfully for a seat in the Albany Legislature.

Things did not start smoothly when Malone took over as the Fleet Manager. A lawsuit was filed against the Town claiming that the actions of the Board in removing the service and maintenance functions of the Highway Department from Ballard could render it impossible for him to do his job.

This was a theme Ballard continued at the March 19th Workshop saying that he had "not received a 'fleet management system report' for 29 days, which hinders the functioning of the highway department. I really do need these reports,” he said.

This was a strange complaint given that it is not backed up by Ballard's past actions. A high-level source in the Town told me that Ballard initially refused to attend meetings with Fleet Manager Malone and that Sparaco was trotted out to "represent" Ballard. Sparaco, knowing nothing of the workings of a Highway Department given that his past experience was with a tanning salon and a vending machine business, had nothing useful to provide and Malone subsequently would not attend meetings if Ballard was not prepared to make himself available.

Viewed in this light Ballard's complaint strains credulity at best and smacks of falsehood at worst. Even if he is struggling to find something seemingly useful for Sparaco to do to justify spending $75,000 on him for 25 hours of patronage work, he should reserve fits of pique for matters unrelated to his employment as Superintendent of Highways. 

At the Bardonia Civic Association meeting on October 08, 2012 when he was asked to explain the Sparaco patronage appointment Ballard wandered off into the semantic twilight zone waving the following explanatory flashlight ....

Ballard: The need for this position became apparent when considering that in 2002 .... I eliminated 20 positions .... among those positions eliminated was .... a dispatcher who communicates information from the office to the field during our regular hours and during emergency events ....... as time was going on .... I realized that there were programs suffering through neglect ....

Ballard's strategy with the Highway Department garage prior to the arrival of Malone as Fleet Manager may have been designed to similarly diminish the garage capabilities to such an extent that it could no longer function and its work could be outsourced and its staff 'eliminated'. The expense to taxpayers had this occurred would have been enormous but Ballard would have relieved himself of the management headache given he is not skilled in the running of a garage doing maintenance and repair of heavy-duty highway vehicles. Working conditions in the Highway garage were described as 'dungeon-like'. Not surprisingly these conditions led to dissatisfaction and disillusionment of Highway Department employees.

From what I have been given to understand many vehicles and pieces of equipment were not serviced at the properly scheduled intervals leading to deterioration of very expensive capital equipment. For example, simple lubrication operations were way overdue; vehicles that handled road salt were not properly hosed down after use and, at the end of the winter season, were left coated with salt residue that resulted in corrosion of the vehicles accelerated by the warm temperatures of the summer period.

I am told that Malone's strategy is to thoroughly wash salt off the vehicles as part of routine maintenance and to not purchase new trucks every three or four years. Under Ballard trucks were being retired not because of high mileage, worn out engines or failed transmissions but because parts of the vehicles had corroded. In Ballard's proposed 2014 budget three new truck purchases for $500,000 will now not be made. Instead, three perfectly operational trucks will have the corroded parts removed and replaced at a cost of $20,000 per truck and the vehicles will be returned to service.

$60,000 will be spent and $440,000 will be saved.

One of the key future benefits in which Malone appears to be investing is equipping the garages with the proper diagnostic tools to service vehicles. Due to the savings he has made in the Parts budget, which is now under his control, he has been able to use part of the savings to begin equipping the Town with needed diagnostic equipment.

One experience that was described to me involved a brand new International Truck that had the 'check engine' light on. Since there was no diagnostic equipment to determine the fix that was required the Town had to send it out for a diagnosis. The part for the repair was under $200 but the bill from the outside repair shop was $3,200, practically all of it due to labor charges.

Given that the diagnostic tool for this truck would have cost only about $8,000, one can easily see that the outside repair cost associated with three 'check engine' lights coming on quickly explains why proper diagnostic equipment should have been purchased under Ballard's administration and the outside labor costs that Ballard was paying should have been saved by using the Town's own mechanics whose salaries must be paid even if they stand idle while vehicles are in outside shops.

The Town Board has now seen the wisdom of giving the Town mechanics the diagnostic tools, computers and software that they need to perform the basic functions of any modern service and repair facility.

The 'ghost' of Ballard's past management was 'dug up' at Tuesday's workshop meeting when Ballard took issue with Malone over the repair and servicing of a piece of excavation equipment known as a 'Menzi Muck'. Patch reported that a dispute arose over the operational capability and expense of this equipment. Malone stated bluntly that the 'Menzi Muck A61' excavator should never have been purchased by Ballard in the first place; it is made in Switzerland and the only dealer able to service it is in Florida.

Malone commented in Patch:

"Ballard spent approximately $76,000 to repair the Menzi Muck in 2012 and by his own admission, it is only worth $24,000. The sad part is that the machine was never fixed to begin with".

Councilwoman Hausner told Ballard and Malone that major issues like the Menzi Muck should "not be raised at a council meeting but be brought to their attention right away". The facts are that Ballard purchased a piece of Swiss equipment at over a quarter of a million dollars that didn't function properly and he had no idea how to keep it functional.  It might have been better if you the taxpayer were not informed of this fact - sometimes with 'baggage' it is better that it be 'deep-sixed'. 

It appears that Clarkstown has not been alone in its difficulties in keeping the Menzi Muck A61 running. Ballard allowed it to become an expensive money sink for repairs preferring to "ship it out" to have it "fixed". Malone wants to follow the wisdom of other Town's that purchased this 'white elephant' by cutting the losses now and getting rid of it. Ballard noted that a trade-in would bring only about $20,000 and claims “it’s an important piece of equipment but we need to do much more 'research' on this”.

Does the Highway Superintendent really expect taxpayers to throw more good money after his foolish decision involving this bad excavator?

Supervisor Gromack asked Finance Director John Sullivan to work on the problem with Ballard and Malone which suggests that the Supervisor is unaware of the Town of Harrison's experience with this excavator. A simple Google search turned up the following article in the Harrison Patch which states:

"Deciding to cut its losses and move on, the Harrison Town Board has voted to sell a Menzi Muck excavator originally purchased for $243,000 to a municipality in New Jersey for $90,000. The machine, purchased in 2007, was intended work on streams and brooks to battle flooding. Considered state of the art at the time, the machine has sat idle for four years because of technical problems and a lack of (trained) manpower to use it. After the board voted to accept bids to sell the machine in 2011, offers topped at $40,000. Earlier this spring Woodbridge, NJ, offered $90,000 for the piece of machinery and Harrison accepted the offer on Feb. 29. "We decided to let it go rather than hold on to it longer and who knows, we might have lost more money," said Harrison Mayor/Supervisor Ron Belmont (R).
 

Handing out the pork....

Sparaco and his mentor, Vinny Reda, attended the Workshop meeting. Both must be extremely worried that Ballard will be thrown out at the next election and Sparaco will be gone with him. Gromack might 'wise up' and throw Ballard 'under a bus' before then. However, he seems more beholden to the leader of the Republican Party (who attends many of the Town of Clarkstown's Board meetings unlike his Democratic counterpart) than to his own party's leadership. Thus he may not do anything more than distance himself from Ballard and his problems.  If Ballard is 'hogtied' by the electorate this November what will his poor County Legislator do? Ballard appears to be arriving at the realization, now obvious to all, that Malone knows how to efficiently service vehicles and prudently manage the three Town garages and is a threat to his re-election. Continual complaining will not solve the problems he has created for himself with his 'pork barrel' politics.

First, given he must run for re-election this November, he is going to be asked why he was unable to 'bring home the bacon' in prior years when the garages were under his control. The savings that Malone has wrung out of the 2013 and 2014 budgets are so massive as to cause one to wonder how much have the taxpayers been punished by Ballard's poor fiscal management prior to 2013?

Second, his blatant patronage appointment of Legislator Sparaco, that caused one of the most scathing editorials ever to be published by the Journal News, means he will be pursued with questions as to why he 'handed out the pork' to Legislator Sparaco for what many believe was a misguided attempt to guarantee his re-election by gaining the support of the Independence 'puppet' party influenced by Sparaco.

Third, Supervisor Gromack and the two other members of the Town Board who are up for re-election this year with him (Hausner and Hoehmann) will have to explain why they voted to create the part-time position in the Highways Department and placed no limits on the compensation that could be paid for this position allowing Superintendent Ballard to trot off to the Town's 'piggy bank' and hand over a check in the amount of $75,000 for 25 hours a week of 'constituent services' work. A County Legislator is now feeding contentedly at the Clarkstown patronage trough at three times the cost 260 other people would have thankfully accepted working full time.

Current belief is that Sparaco's position was created by the Town Board and filled by Ballard solely because of influence Sparaco exerts in the Independence Party. It assures that party’s line will go to the present incumbents. The Conservative Party line will be supplied by another Town employee, Ed Lettre, who is so powerful that he can snap his fingers and the whole of the Town Board including Sparaco will turn up for a "House of Horrors" meeting.

The Independence and Conservative 'cuckoo' Party lines are thus now set to be given to Ballard and Gromack in November. The Working Families party will probably go likewise given it has been successfully cuckolded with fresh membership from its rival parties while standing 'ostrich-like with its head buried in the sand' fearing to look up in case it might see that the pigs were out of the sty and running all over the farm.

Since Supervisor Gromack obligingly provided a metaphorical 'patronage trough' for Bronx Republican GOP Chairman, Jay Savino, to conduct the Town's tax certiorari work and he turned a blind eye to Ballard's 'piggy-back' appointment of Republican Sparaco, the only question that remains for me in the 2013 November election is to see how the Chairman of the Rockland County GOP, Vinny Reda, might try to ensure that there is no real race this year against incumbent Democratic Supervisor, Gromack, as he apparently attempted to do two years ago.

Let me explain ....

Before the 2011 election for Town Supervisor, Reda tried to persuade Ralph Sabatini, who eventually succeeded in becoming the Republican Party candidate, not to run for Town Supervisor by offering Sabatini a County patronage position that would pay the same as Sabatini could hope to make if he were elected to the Supervisor's position. Sabatini spurned this solicitation and relates that he subsequently received no support from Reda while his Republican colleague and Reda's sidekick, Frank Sparaco, openly worked in support of Gromack and against him just days preceding the election.

Not much has changed in two years. Here is how Sabatini describes the situation today ....

This is Clarkstown and the politics are rigged. Frank Sparaco (a registered Republican) controls the "Independence" party and uses that control to endorse Gromack.

Sparaco has been spending a lot of time recently recruiting Republican and Independence voters for the Working Families Party which he also hopes to control.

Ed Lettre (who works for Gromack at a salary of $160+ thousand is the chairman of the Conservative party and uses it to endorse Gromack and others to ensure his power base.

Any Republican who hopes to win an election in this town needs to find a source of voters from other parties (there just aren't enough Republican voters to carry a candidate). I have been honest in my run and spoken my mind on behalf of the taxpayers but I'm not naive. When I run again I will be looking for support from several parties and that's not assured.

The Republican Party under Reda's leadership has lost its way and is now considered by many moderate Republicans to be operating in ways that one fears may lead to corruption of the political process. The interesting question that will evolve in the next few months is to see how Reda and Sparaco working with Lettre and Savino can save Ballard and maintain their shared influence over the Clarkstown Town Board.

One possible scenario is that the leadership of the cuckolded Working Families party will take legal action against those who have placed 'cuckoos' in their nest. Working Families officials said in 2011 they had to protect the line from another candidate who wanted to take it over and make it a “Tea Party”. A lawsuit with the promise that many of the 'cuckoos' will be deposed under oath is sure to turn up all sorts of unpleasantries. We have been down a similar road before when Westchester County District Attorney Janet DiFiore said during the indictment of the Former Head of the Independence Party:  “Our electoral process does not work unless voters have absolute trust in the integrity of the system. The allegations contained in the indictment, that the defendant tampered with the most basic aspect of the electoral process, the collection of petition signatures, disenfranchised the voters of Rockland County". 

A second scenario is that the County Highways Department Chief, "Skip" Vezzetti, will announce a run to replace Andy Stewart as Supervisor of Orangetown thus opening up the promise of a slot for Wayne Ballard to slip away to a County job and avoid having to run in November and explain to the electorate why he maintains a pork barrel of taxpayers' cash in Clarkstown.

Who knows but given Sparaco's penchant for not supporting the candidate of his own party in an important election, a third scenario is that he might support Democrat Ilan Schoenberger for County Executive. Should Schoenberger win Sparaco could then aspire to be number 121 in the list of 120 patronage appointees presently pigging out on the pile of proflgate spending over at the County Legislature.

Though it is getting increasingly impossible to figure out to which party many of our local politicians supposedly belong, one thing is clear; the ire of Clarkstown citizens has been steadily rising about expenses in the Highway department. On October 02, 2012 an angry citizenry attended the Clarkstown Town Board meeting and one West Nyack Resident addressing Supervisor Gromack raged about some porcine practices:

Reduce the salaries of all of these folk that are making a hundred, a hundred and fifty thousand a year ...... (Alex) you're brilliant! You have the Democrats tied up ..... you have got the Republicans tied up .... you have got the Independents tied up ...... you give them all these patronage jobs (Savino - Republican, Lettre - Conservative, Sparaco - Independence) ..... it's absolutely horrific what you are doing. Take the Highway Department you now have a mouthpiece for Wayne for $75,000 bucks a year part-time. On top of Wayne's $150,000 salary .... on top of Nancy (Willen) the quote "secretary" who makes $100,000 .... before the garage door opens it's $325,000 bucks!

Not that I want to enrage this West Nyack citizen even more but he may have forgotten to mention that Ballard has three other full time office people in addition to Willen and Sparaco bringing up his administrative payroll before the garage opens to $475,000.

All things considered the time is coming for Ballard to leave the Highways Department ballroom; the taxpayers have seen enough of this 'Doo-Wop' dance.

Michael N. Hull is a retired senior citizen who writes opinion pieces on theology, philosophy and local political issues.