Reda's Coat Has Many Tales

"Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing" Macbeth , Act V, Scene v.

It is a sad commentary to have heard people remark over many decades that our local government has a shameful history of corruption, patronage and mismanagement.  2012 has been an interesting year - a year in which I was:

a) publicly called an "idiot" by a Town official for questioning a patronage appointment which shocked Clarkstown and was the subject of a scathing editorial in the Journal News and

b) "advised" that my commentaries on the political shenanigans in Clarkstown "bordered on slander". 

Clarkstown is the ultimate insider's Town. Citizens who try to become involved in the political process find that naive political theory is not political practice in Clarkstown. To those who are not political neophytes the official Republican and Democratic parties in Rockland appear to be one and the same - a single 'puppet' party controlled by a small group of people which includes the leadership of the Independence and the Conservative parties.

I have referred to these 'minor' parties as "cuckoo" parties since they invariably do not run candidates of their own but wheel and deal with candidates of the 'RedBlue-RepubDem' party led primarily by Vinny Reda. Reda, in my opinion and in the opinion of many Republicans, can no longer be considered the legitimate Chairman of the Rockland GOP since his 'reelection' by voice vote by-passed the due process of a secret ballot. 

To many that's the way it is and has always been in Clarkstown's politics. Join one of the minor 'cuckoo' parties hoping that they are independent or in someway different from one of the major parties and one may find that naive expectations for due process there will never be realized either. Consider how a Jewish member of the Conservative party opposing Town employee, Ed Lettre, for leadership found that the election was held an hour after sunset on Yom Kippur!

Lettre demonstrated his complete control over the Clarkstown Town Board when he summon the Board to a secret meeting - he simply waved his finger and the 'RepubDems' all flocked to their shepherd's crooked staff.

Things haven't changed much since Ralph Nader cast his eyes over the scene 40 years ago and remarked:

"Up against the corporate government, voters find themselves asked to choose between look-alike candidates from two parties vying to see who takes the marching orders from their campaign paymasters and their future employers. The money of vested interest nullifies genuine voter choice and trust."  

People in business in Clarkstown are afraid to buck the politically powerful. Why? Because business can drop off.  Try as I did to get a lawyer in Clarkstown to handle a citizen's case against the Town and the legal profession in Clarkstown turns white. Many people in local government owe their jobs to the party bosses; voice votes are a useful way to note who votes which way.  Without a secret ballot one's job may be on the line.  

But the bosses become arrogant - as happened with Paul Adler - and slip-ups occur. Unfortunately, however, when one weed is pulled another sprouts.  

It was only 16 months ago that I became free of previous obligations and began to speak and write publicly about Rockland County politics though I have been writing in other forums and for different purposes over the past 40 years.  Just over a year ago Reda had been arrested; he was accused of shoplifting a 'pea coat' from Macy's. That coat may have had only one tail but Reda's coattails are not the only tales to be told about the politics and politicians of Rockland County. 

Here is a review of some of my favorite tales beginning with one coat tail or should I say coat tale?

A Coat Tale
"Marge! Look at all this great stuff I found at the Marina. It was just sitting in some guy's boat!"  Homer Simpson - Cartoon Character

Moves to have Reda removed as chair of the Rockland County Republican Party accelerated in 2012 after he made major headlines when arrested and charged with shoplifting a 'pea' coat from Macy's. The case was resolved through what is known in polite legal circles as an "Adjournment in Contemplation of Dismissal."  In layman's terms the court stated that in six months the charge would be erased as long as Reda did not find himself in trouble again with the law. 

Whatever became of the infamous 'pea' coat is not known but Reda subsequently survived a challenge to his leadership and was reelected by voice vote to head the remnants of the Rockland Republican Party for another two years. The Rockland County Times in the article 'Republican Rebels Launch Assault on Reda' explained how Reda controls the Republicans and Democrats in what might be dubbed the Rockland 'RepubDem' party.  It described how former Ramapo Town Supervisor candidate, Anthony Mele, charged Reda with being less than loyal to Republican candidates. Mele pointed to Reda not actively supporting him when he ran against St. Lawrence (Supervisor in Ramapo) in 2007, instead horse-trading for “bloc vote” support in another election.  

The Republican party headed by Reda also did not support the Republican candidate for supervisor, Ralph Sabatini, in the 2011 election thus tacitly endorsing Democrat Gromack.  But that was not surprising since Gromack was the candidate whose name Reda put on the Republican line in the election of 2009 and he may have wished to do so again.  According to Sabatini, the Republican minority leader in the County Legislature and major player in the 'cuckoo' Independence Party, Frank Sparaco also betrayed Sabatini's candidacy by supporting Democrat Gromack with a targeted campaign mailing three days before the election.  'RepubDem' Gromack is apparently a man of such wide political principles that he was the only candidate appearing on all five party lines in 2007.

A Sordid Tale
"Secrecy, being an instrument of conspiracy, ought never to be the system of a regular government"  Jeremy Bentham - Philosopher and Social Reformer

The whole of the Clarkstown Town Board (Town Attorney Mele and the County Minority leader and new patronage recipient, Sparaco) attended a 'House of Horrors' meeting called by Conservative Party leader, Lettre, to help him remain in his leadership role. Councilwoman Lasker, a liberal Democrat, stated that while she had not attended the meeting she had "listened in by phone" because she appreciates receiving the Conservative Party endorsement. Councilwoman Hausner, a liberal Democratic up for re-election in 2013 with George Hoehmann and Supervisor Gromack, were also in attendance. 

The Conservative party, which has about 3,500 members, runs no candidates of its own but by rendering the other 80,000 residents of Clarkstown impotent, most of whom are Democrats and Republicans, the Party controls who the majority can vote into office. The only person that the Conservative Party seems to actually vote for is its own leader. But even there its ‘followers’ are manipulated into whom they may choose. When it came to holding the party's convention to vote on its leadership, it chose Yom Kippur, the highest of Jewish holy days, notwithstanding the fact that one half of Clarkstown's population are members of the Jewish faith as was the one candidate running for leadership against Lettre.

According to the Rockland County Times Nick Longo, the former Chairman of the party, said the move by Mary Loeffler, chair of the party and the party’s executive director Lettre, was unconscionable and "to be so blatantly anti-Semitic is frightful".  Loeffler retired as Clarkstown’s personnel director, earning $134,200. She worked part time for the town, for $50 an hour, for about six months after her retirement until the Clarkstown Taxpayers raised questions about her time being spent in Florida.  Lettre is Clarkstown's Superintendent of the Works a position that pays about $175,000 a year.

At a press conference Rabbi Justin Schwartz blamed Clarkstown Supervisor Alex Gromack, a close ally of both Loeffler and Lettre, who had asked Town Board members to support Lettre and Loeffler by helping them recruit committee members. Chairwoman Loeffler opined to the Rockland County Times "at the time we picked it, we thought Yom Kippur was the day before" proving that while ignorance may be temporary Loeffler's stupidity may be permanent.   Lettre tried to clear matters up by saying he "had checked with Jewish 'friends' who told him the holy day ended at sunset Wednesday and the convention started at 7:30 p.m. “I know the Jewish faith,” Lettre said. “I love Jewish people".   

Needless to say Lettre's reanointing in the Clarkstown Town Hall on the evening of Yom Kippur was followed by a 'celebration' at the La Terrazza restaurant attended by Supervisor Gromack and Gromack patronage appointee, Bronx GOP Chairman Savino, about whom there is a dismal tale to tell.

A Dismal Tale
"Patron: One who countenances, supports or protects. Commonly a wretch who supports with insolence, and is paid with flattery"  Samuel Johnson - English writer and Lexicographer

Supervisor Gromack began the year 2012 by giving the Head of the Bronx Republican Party, Jay Savino, an $87,000 patronage job to fill out forms for the Town's tax certiorari cases.  Several Freedom of Information Requests filed with the Town showed that there apparently was a flawed bidding process. Savino’s bid seems to have been made orally and one other firm knowing of the oral bid wrote that they would not submit a proposal as it was not possible to do the work for the amount that Savino claimed. 

The story behind this dismal tale is that the Clarkstown Town Board gave a pink slip to Independence Party political lightweight, Marsha Coopersmith (who previously had headed up the Independence Party until she was ousted by Debra Ortutay - County Legislator Sparaco's mother-in-law) and handed her job conducting the Town’s tax certiorari matters to Bronx Republican Party Chairman, Jay Savino, claiming 'cost savings'.  Only Councilwoman Hausner voted against the apppointment say that Savino came to the Town "with baggage" though what the "baggage" was Hausner refused to clarify at the time.

A simple Google News search conducted by the Clarkstown Taxpayers Organization made one wonder if the "baggage” to which Councilwoman Hausner alluded referred to some of Mr. Savino's acquaintances who seem to have got themselves into a mess of legal trouble and Savino was apparently caught on an FBI wiretap saying things not helpful to a Federal judge. 

The wiretaps were produced during criminal proceedings against Mr. Guy Velella, former Chairman of the Bronx Republican party, that he took bribes. A federal judge had demanded the presence in court of several Republican campaign workers.  The wiretaps picked up Mr. Savino talking about how he wasn't going to look too hard to find the campaign workers. Savino was heard telling another party aide on the wiretap:

"I would do what the Boss said. I would, I would call them, and if you reach them, you reach them; if you don't, you don't. You know, you might not reach them because your phone clicks off.  I, I, I guess do what he says, I don't know what to say. That's what I would do, I would just forget about it maybe."

Further, in March 2012 a corruption trial in Manhattan ended in the conviction of two defendants following testimony from a disgraced White Plains lawyer, Anthony Mangone, who was himself indicted in a Yonkers bribery scheme and testified under a plea deal agreement.  Earlier in September 15, 2010, The Daily News reported that:

"One subject of (an electronic voting machines) probe is White Plains lawyer Mangone, who was hired as an Election Systems & Software lobbyist last year. Mangone has links to Bronx Republican leader Jay Savino, who was subpoenaed in February along with the Bronx GOP's rep on the Board of Elections. Both have denied wrongdoing." 

According to the Yonkers Tribune: "Savino was instrumental in steering the New York City Board of Elections toward choosing the voting machines that are the rationale for a continuing FBI investigation that connects Anthony Mangone and the New York City Board of Elections voting machine contract."
Until December 2012 Councilwoman Hausner remained silent regarding her comment that Savino has "baggage". However, on December 20, 2012 a flawed resolution was presented to the Town Board to retain Savino again for 2013 with a 2% raise over 2012.  Hausner was asked again whether she was now prepared to explain her comment of "baggage" prior to the Board's vote to retain Savino for the second time. Hausner replied:

At that particular time in January (2012) I had read many articles and I felt that there was "baggage" at that point that came along with Mr Savino.  Over the past year I have seen him work for the town and specifically we all have had the opportunity to visit the courts during the law case and the work that he was doing with that and I believe that over the course of the year he has proved that him and his firm has done a good job in this area. So I will be voting today for this resolution because I think he has shown himself to be a good attorney and one that has done a good job for the Town. 

Things are not much better at the County Level.  In the Our Town edition of December 12, 2012 one legislator commented that patronage employees are the most protected in County government to the extent that suggesting cuts was "heresy". Legislator Day followed up with references to the head of one department making as much as the County Executive.  He said there was one deputy commissioner who would be collecting three pensions upon retirement.  The Head of Tourism for Rockland County is receiving more that $100,000 for what is basically a position overseeing a website.  One person was actually laid off but was immediately re-hired 'temporarily' in a higher paid position.  

Do you ever wonder who are these 'ghosts' that occupy the positions of "patronage" in the Town governments and in the government of Rockland County?   We hear about them all of the time - they are said to be everywhere - but some of them must be 'phantoms' as seldom does anyone name these chimeras and tell us where exactly we should look to find them.   

However, I did manage to get a headcount on the number of these 'ghosts'. On December 18, 2012 the County Legislature voted to override Vanderhoef's budget vetoes and retain full employment for all of the County's CSEA employees. I took the opportunity after the vote to ask P. T. Thomas, President of the Rockland County CSEA, if he knew how many patronage appointments there were in the County.  He had no hesitation is stating that there are 110 patronage positions costing the County approximately $7 millions per year in salaries.  He then went on to state that:

Legislator Sparaco, one of the three votes against overriding the County Executive's veto, "should be ashamed of himself as he took a $75,000 patronage job and here he is trying to lay off union people".

Who is to blame for making patronage appointments; perhaps it is the voter? Lily Tomlin, in her role as 'Ernestine, the telephone operator' in Rowan and Martin's 'Laugh-In' reminded us:

"Ninety eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hardworking, honest Americans. It's the other lousy two percent that get all the publicity. But then, we elected them!"

Frank Sparaco is obviously not a 'ghost' and is indeed the recipient of a patronage job in the Town of Clarkstown acting as the telephone operator for the Highway Department which leads us to a tall tale.

A Tall Tale 
"I don't think that we necessarily lie. I mean, we make our living by pretending that we're someone else. I don't tell tall tales. I always tell the truth" Albert Finney - British Actor

A few years ago the chairman of the Democratic Party in Rockland County, Paul Adler, was charged with public corruption after prosecutors said he had enriched himself by almost $375,000 through a series of real estate transactions tainted by fraud, bribery and extortion.  He went to prison having threatened local politicians with the loss of their jobs if they did not cooperate with him on several deals, including the Palisades Center mall . In one secretly tape-recorded conversation, he argued that he had not assumed the party chairmanship to ''lose money''. He was quoted as saying:

''If you can't help your friends, then why get into some of these positions?'' 

I was reminded of Adler's aphorism about "helping one's friends" when Clarkstown Highway Superintendent Wayne Ballard, in a move that shocked even his most ardent supporters (including me) gave a part-time job paying $75,000 to Legislator Frank Sparaco the Republican minority leader in the County Legislature and a person who had sufficient influence to put his mother-in-law in charge of the Independence Party.

The Journal News reported the appointment as follows:

Rockland County Legislature Minority Leader Frank Sparaco has been appointed “Constituent Representative” for the Clarkstown Highway Department — keeping alive the town’s penchant for hiring political operatives. As a Republican legislator, Sparaco has fought pay raises for county employees. Now he earns $75,000 for a 25-hour-a-week town post. That’s $57.69 per hour. He gets no benefits, though — he gets those, courtesy of the taxpayer, through his part-time county post. Besides his GOP leadership role, Sparaco, who has owned a tanning salon and a vending machine business, has been a key player in the county’s Independence Party. Highway Superintendent Ballard, like Sparaco, is a Republican. But in Clarkstown, that’s of little matter. The Democratic supervisor, Alex Gromack, has various party leaders in his employ, and election after election, he and Ballard have been cross-endorsed and rarely challenged.   Patronage is an institution in Clarkstown.

The explanation that Ballard gave for paying Sparaco nearly $58 per hour for a position that was expected to pay $20 -$25 per hour and rejecting 260 applicants for the position is indeed a very 'tall tale'.  At a Bardonia Civic Association meeting Ballard's explanation was as follows:

"I did look around considering comparable salaries what the compensation should be and, believe it or not, the $75,000 was fair and equitable to what was happening in the Town of Clarkstown, in the County and in the State ..... I will tell you that $75,OOO per year for 25 hours per week is below the average with only one position being paid less. The median salary for this position is a little more than $100,000 per year for a full time position and 35 hours per week for full time value. In order to compare the two you have to come up with the comp unit value which is the number of hours worked per year and what that value is. 52 weeks per year at 25 hours per week is 1,300 hours worked per year. For the full time position it is 1568 hours per year. Taking into consideration the number of days worked per year, taking away the weekends, the vacation days, the sick days, it comes down to $64 per hour. So what's in that difference between the two, 52 compared to 64. Then if you think on top of that medical and dental brings that up another $10 per hour. I'm telling you I have come up with a justifiable value."

Ballard explanations, reported further in a Nanuet Patch article of December 24, 2012, brought up a discussion of previous questions about Sparaco’s financial backers that were raised by the Journal News a couple of years ago. Two of the people reported to be supplying funds to Sparaco’s election campaign were Michael Persico and John Staluppi.  Why Ballard would risk a patronage appointment of this magnitude and attempt to explain it at several public meetings as rational and reasonable is a mystery to some but an enlightenment to others. His comment ... "I'm telling you I have come up with a justifiable value"... indicates that he may have earned the art of doublespeak at the feet of the master who spun a school surcharge story that matches any good fairy tale.

A Fairy Tale
"Gifts fall from heaven only in fairy tales"  Walter Ulbricht - East German Communist Politician

In Looking Through My Bills I noted that Clarkstown has been running at a loss since at least 2008 and this is continuing in the budget for 2013 where an amount of $2 million is to be withdrawn from the Town's Reserve Fund.

What is troubling is that Clarkstown is adopting deficit budgets every year. It is using the reserve fund to meet expenses.  In 2009, Clarkstown negotiated the sale of its Solid Waste Transfer Station and established a ‘Tax Stabilization Fund’ with the proceeds which it added to its existing reserve fund of $7 Million.  That fund is being depleted at an alarming rate

The unfunded OPEB (Other than Pension post Employment Benefits) retirement and health insurance benefits of Clarkstown as of 2011 stand at $157 Million and are rising. That number was $133 Million in 2009 - up by $24 Million in three years. 

Clarkstown's bonded debt is about $95 Million and there was another $23 Million authorized but not sold through 12/31/11.  Add these two figures together and one is looking at a figure of over $118 Million in bond debt. Clarkstown continues to tout its AAA bond rating - its license to go into more debt.  The County's credit card is maxed out and no more charges can be put on it – the Town's credit card is in the process of being maxed out. 

The Palisades Center Mall filed a challenge to its property tax assessments in Rockland County Supreme Court. The mall pays $23,477,500 in property taxes annually, of which $15,165,000 goes to Clarkstown schools, $1,332,500 to the county, $5,635,000 to the town and $1,345,000 for special fire, ambulance and sewer districts.

If this case is lost tax disaster will follow. 

Realizing that the shell game of keeping the Town's taxes artificially low by bonding Town expenditures on the Town's Triple A credit card and raiding the Town's Emergency Reserve Fund, Supervisor Gromack tried to hide part of the Town's tax needs by putting a 1% surcharge on the School Tax bill. His rationale in Orwellian doublespeak went like this:

"The $1.5 million RAISED from the school tax fee would not be a burden on taxpayers because the town would end up LOWERING town taxes for the coming year. In other words, while the school taxes would INCREASE, homeowners’ share of town taxes would DECREASE. A $1.5 million INCREASE in revenue would allow the town to LOWER its tax rate by 2 percent. This is money that is COMING from town residents is GOING back to town residents in tax relief.”  

Taxing my mind trying to understand this serpentine fairy tale I looked to the September 12, 2012 issue of Our Town for further clarification but was brought no further into the world of reality when I read that Mr. Gromack had declared:

"The surcharge does not affect the school districts' tax levy, their bottom line, their tax cap or the residents' tax rate. It is a charge to the residents .....

Orwell's 'Ninteen Eighty-four' political tale advises that the power of doublethink rests in holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.  But if a charge is not a tax then the fairy tale must be a taxing tale. 

A Taxing Tale 
"Greed, for lack of a better word, is good"  Gordon Gekko - 'Wall Street'

In an article entitled ‘Two Jokes: One Humorous, One Laughable’ I observed that in 2008, the then Chief of Clarkstown Police, Peter Noonan, 'earned' $332,529.88. He was not the highest paid police officer; one of his two captains earned $335,676 and another captain earned $311,369.  The 50 highest-earning Clarkstown employees were all members of the Police Department, with those 50 earning roughly $10 million, or about $200,000 each on average. 

Supervisor Gromack called the police salaries "obscene" but also said that the department was "proficient", and was "covering the entire Town on its own and so is doing the job of two or more departments".  What "two or more departments" were being referenced here is something I will leave to the reader's imagination. Mr. Gromack blamed the high police salaries on previous administrations, which he said allowed salaries and benefits to balloon with every contract negotiation.  

“I inherited these obscene salaries, and I’ve been attempting to turn them around and bring some reality and sanity to the salary structure of our police,” Mr. Gromack said.

Mr Gromack has now gone through two cycles of negotiations with the PBA and what has he accomplished? The Clarkstown police were awarded 3.4% raises by a State arbitration panel retroactive for 2009 and 2010 even as it conceded that the police officers were among the highest paid in the nation. How well did Supervisor Gromack fare in his recent negotiations with the PBA for the five year period January 1, 2013 through December 31, 2017?  The Clarkstown Town Board approved a new five-year agreement with the Rockland County Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association with 2.5 percent increases each year. The Clarkstown Police will receive an additional 13% raise over the next five years and the Town saved, according to Supervisor Gromack, $25,000 by not having to go to arbitration!   

At a Town Board meeting I asked about the morality of giving pay raises that were more than Clarkstown's senior citizens would receive in social security increases saying: 

The Board gave a 2.5% increase to the police every year for the next five years.  We have the highest paid police force in the State if not in the United States and this is the third highest taxed county in the whole of the United States.  Four police officers alone take home $1 million in salaries annually according to the Journal News. Social Security will go up 1.7% next year.  How do you justify a 6.2% tax increase and a 2.5% salary increase for the police with our senior citizens getting 1.7% next year?

The Board's response was basically that things were out of their control which begs the explanation as to whether this is just another 'fairy tale' being spun by our elected officials. Shortly, thereafter the Town of Orangetown gave its police force a similar contract saying their hands were tied because of Clarkstown.

Recently, in negotiations with the CSEA, the mantra from the CSEA has become that one group of union employees can not be treated differently from another and their members expect therefore to receive no less than the police.

That is a fine tale to be told on another day but this County Tale is better.

A Horse's Tale
"If you call a tail a leg, how many legs does a horse have?   Four, calling a tail a leg does not make it a leg!"  Abraham Lincoln - President 

The Town of Clarkstown may have put the police ahead of the senior citizens but the County Legislature went one step better.  

It put the police horses ahead of the senior citizens. 

The Legislature, knowing that the County was nearly bankrupt and has a bond rating just above junk status, signed a "contract" with the CSEA that no one could be laid off for budgetary reasons. Originally Vanderhoef proposed eliminating about 70 positions including the Sheriff's Mounted Patrol, i.e. "All of the King's Horses and All of the King's Men". The legislators restored all of the cut positions including the "King's horses".   Vanderhoef then vetoed practically all of the legislators proposed budget except for the horses. 

So however this taxing tale plays out senior citizens will see an 18% tax increase in their County Tax bill which will completely erase the 1.7% increase they will get in their social security in 2013.

The bottom line in the County's budget process:

1) The horses will be well-fed, well-housed and will receive full veterinarian services. They can expect a well-fed, stress-free retirement after their time trotting around Rockland.

 2) The seniors get an 18% tax increase that completely wipes out the 1.7% increase they will get in their social security next year while struggling to pay their medical premiums, co-pays etc. They can expect a stress-filled future in their retirement worrying if they will be able to stay in their homes with rising school, Town, and County Taxes.

Police come before horses and the horses come before the seniors.   The rest of the discussion is simply blowing clouds of political smoke while preening politically puffed-up feathers.  

Watching the County Executive prepared to dance the 'do-si-do' with the fiscally imprudent legislature George Orwell speaks to all of us again:

"He thought as he re-adjusted the Ministry of Plenty's figures, it was not even forgery. It was merely the substitution of one piece of nonsense for another. Most of the material that you were dealing with had no connection with anything in the real world, not even the kind of connection that is contained in a direct lie. Statistics were just as much a fantasy in their original version as in their rectified version." - Nineteen Eighty-four.

Consider this - the population of Rockland County was estimated in 2011 to be 315,158 while the population of Clarkstown in the last census was 84,187. Looking at the figures for Rockland County - its debt is $250 million with a nearly $120 million deficit as of 12/31/12 and $1 Billion dollars (that's a B) of unfunded OPEB (Other than Pension post Employment Benefits).   

This equates to $4,347 for every man, woman AND child living in Rockland County!

Clarkstown's 'already bonded' debt and 'approved to be bonded' but not yet spent is about $118 million or $1,402 per individual Clarkstown resident.  The unfunded OPEB debt is approximately $157 million or $1,865 per individual. 

That amounts to $3,267 for every individual residing in Clarkstown.  The total debt now owed by every MAN, WOMAN and CHILD who lives in Rockland County in the Town of Clarkstown is $4,347 + $1,402 + $1,865 = $7,614.

 A family of four living in Clarkstown and wanting to pay off its share of the Rockland County debt and the Town of Clarkstown's debt today would need to cough up $30,456.

Clarkstown's residents are paying outrageous property taxes and on top of all of this a family of four owning a house in Clarkstown has a property debt of over $30,000!   You can guess what this debt is about to do to home values in Rockland County. The truth is that voters pockets have become the Horsemen of Apocalypse's piggy-bank. According to the English poet John Keats in 'Ode on a Grecian Urn,  "Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."  But the truth sometimes lies in tatters.

A Tattered Tale
"An aged man is but a paltry thing, a tattered coat upon a stick, unless his soul claps its hands and sings, and louder sings for every tatter in his mortal dress"  William Butler Yeats - Poet 

Standing behind Reda’s coat tails on October 26, 2010 were two individuals who were appointees in Gromack's administration in the Town of Clarkstown.  Frank Sparaco and Jay Savino listened as Reda spoke in support of Sparaco’s candidacy to the State Assembly attributing the State Democrats implied connections of Sparaco to mobsters as having been "planted" to smear Sparaco and his campaign. At the press conference stood a somewhat forlorn and uncomfortable-looking Clarkstown Councilman, Frank Borelli. 

Since the time of that press conference Sparaco's bid to get to the State Assembly has ended in tatters and he has given up his minority leadership in the County Legislature. Jay Savino has been arrested by the FBI and fired by the Town of Clarkstown.  Sparaco, however, received the 'runners-up' prize when he was given a patronage appointment to be the Constituent Services Representative in the Gromack administration under Ballard.

Councilman Borelli being asked about the Savino and Sparaco appointments said ....

Nimick: Town Attorney Mele confirmed that rescinding the position would be a legally acceptable action. I would like to point out that the Board members have the power to entertain a motion (to rescind) now. If you choose to take no action your inaction will be understood as approval of the part-time position for $75,000 taxpayer dollars filled by Mr. Sparaco.

Borelli: Mr. Ballard as the 'appointing authority' has the right to fill positions and he has control over his budget.

Hull: “Is it your position that there are no law firms or lawyers in Rockland County capable of doing tax-cert work for this board who do not have what might be charitably called a ‘cloud’ associated with their past behavior?”

Borelli: I called the Town Attorney, Amy Mele, and she told me that she is very happy with his work.

Sparaco may be reduced to temporarily playing the role of Ernestine, the telephone operator, albeit for nearly $60 per hour, but Bronx GOP Chairman, Savino, was firmly installed, with Amy Mele's imprimatur, in the Gromack administration. He had a bright future if he could have taken over the reins of both the Rockland County and the Bronx Republican party leadership but he ran afoul again of the FBI. 

When Mr Reda finally decides to hand over his pea coat it can no longer be given to Jay Savino.  It might be too big for Mr. Sparaco but can we expect to hear Mr Gromack say: 

"Certainly" when I retire there will be a need for an ''earnest operator" to run for Supervisor of Clarkstown if the coat of many tails is found not to fit. 

That is the 'State of the Town of Clarkstown' and the 'State of the County of Rockland'.  Read it with a 'pinch of salt' for after all it is only a tale told by an "idiot", full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.   

Michael N. Hull is a retired senior citizen who has lived in Rockland County for 35 years.

A version of his article was first published on December 31, 2012 but due to the recent changes in the Patch websie layout, formatting of the old article was damaged and URL links were lost or broken.   I hope you will enjoy the second read!

 Image Courtesy of Melissagalt.com