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My astute and esteemed publisher, Bruce Battaglia, approached me last week with an idea for what he thought would make for a cracking good column.
Who would Mayor Irene Elia appoint to fill the vacancy created on the City Court bench when Judge Robert Restaino takes the full-time judgeship he won so convincingly on Election Day?
Bruce loves these kinds of stories. Backroom intrigue. What the boys at the Goose's Roost talk about over coffee in the morning. All the inside dope.
I tend to hate these kinds of stories. As the turnout in this year's election showed, there is about as much interest in local politics here as there is in a Grand Ole Opry show at the Convention Center. Aside from the politicians themselves, their families and friends, and a small coterie of individuals for whom political fundraisers and coffee shop cabals pass for what the rest of us think of as a "social life," people simply don't care.
But Bruce is my partner and when, from time to time, he involves me in these minor intrigues, I play along. This time was no exception.
The need for a new judge arose when Judge Kathleen Wojtaszek-Gariano unsurprisingly decided she'd had enough of city politics for the time being and told the mayor she wasn't interested in the appointment.
So critical is the judicial shortage here that Wojtaszek-Gariano -- who was appointed to the bench last year after the retirement of Judge John Mariano -- has been on loan to the Family Court, filling a vacancy created by the sudden death of Judge Paul Crapsi.
The mayor set up a review committee to interview potential candidates. The committee -- made up of businessmen Joe Catherine and Richard Muscatello, attorney Sam Civiletto and Elia guru Richard Noles -- talked to and graded seven prominent local attorneys.
The list included two Democrats, former city councilwoman Connie Lozinsky and former city corporation counsel Robert Merino. But word on the street had it that state Sen. George Maziarz and county Republican Chairman Henry Wojtaszek had let the mayor know in no uncertain terms she needed to appoint a Republican.
At least that's what Bruce said the guys at the Goose's Roost said.
Former county attorney Ned Perlman -- whose law firm has represented the Elia family in the past and who was a strong supporter of the mayor in her surprising 1999 victory -- was picked as an early favorite, in much the same way that former assistant city attorney Richard Rotella was characterized as the "dark horse" in the race.
The people who talk about this stuff all the time tend to use horse racing metaphors a lot. I'm not quite sure why.
Angelo Morinello, who used to be an assistant district attorney before starting his own highly successful law practice here more than 25 years ago, had also thrown his hat into the ring, as had Rocco Bruno, who recently purchased a house in Niagara Falls in what some of the boys thought might be a move to establish residency.
But residency was viewed as a problem for another candidate, David Boniello, brother of state Supreme Court Judge Ralph Boniello and brother-in-law of Sam Civiletto, who recused himself from the deliberations when Boniello sat before the mayor's panel.
Whew. That was a mouthful. Anyway, David Boniello lives in Lewiston.
I think Bruce likes these stories because there's so many names in them. Lozinsky, Merino, Maziarz, Wojtaszek, Wojtaszek-Gariano, Mariano, Crapsi, Perlman, Rotella, Muscatello, Civiletto, Noles, Catherine, Morinello, Bruno, Boniello and Boniello again. It's enough to make my head spin.
Anyway. I wrote the column. It was a thing of beauty, chock full of "informed sources" and "one insider said's." One of my best.
And then yesterday Bruce called.
"Never mind about that city court judge thing," he said. "I was over at the Goose's Roost this morning and the boys said Angelo Morinello's got the thing locked up. He met with the mayor this morning."
I pointed out the fact that the column had already been pasted onto the page and may or may not have already been shipped to the printers.
"Just bang something else out," he said.
So I did.