Memo to state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli: If you're coming to Western New York to stage a photo-op for your re-election campaign, and the biggest local celebrity you can scrounge up to attend the thing is Niagara Falls Mayor Paul Dyster, you've pretty much wasted your gas money.
In addition to members of the news media (8), Dyster and his invisible city administrator, Donna Whazzername (2), and a quorum of the county Legislature's Democratic caucus (3), exactly one real live member of the Niagara Falls taxpaying public turned out at City Hall last Friday morning to hear DiNapoli talk about former county treasurer David Broderick and what he may or may not have done wrong at various points during his 40-year career.
DiNapoli audited 15 estates that Broderick had handled for dead people who had the misfortune of not having been smart enough to write a will before dying. It was DiNapoli's considered opinion that the estates were not handled as well as they might have been.
"Was there any criminal activity?" one of the TV reporters asked hopefully.
"We're not a law enforcement agency," DiNapoli said.
One of the other reporters thought that perhaps, by asking the question in a different way, he might be able to elicit a different response from DiNapoli. It is an old reporter's trick.
"Do you think that anything uncovered by your audit might show that some of these things were criminal in nature?"
I said it was an old trick. I didn't say it was a good trick. In fact, I've seen it pulled countless times over the nearly 35 years I've spent mucking about in the newspaper game and can't recall a time when it ever worked. Usually you see the TV people do it, because then they can use pictures of them asking it instead of some other guy asking it on their nightly newscasts.
"We're not a law enforcement agency," DiNapoli said again.
County Legislator Dennis Virtuoso rose to ask his question. You didn't have to rise to ask your question or make your statement or do whatever it was you were going to do, but rising made it easier for the TV guys to get a good picture of your face. He summoned all the righteous indignation of a Democrat speaking about a Republican.
"When the county treasurer was doing this administrative work, was he doing so on county time, using county phones, fax machines and computers, and shouldn't the county be reimbursed for these expenses?" Virtuoso asked.
"One thing about the way this was handled is that there aren't any records showing ..." DiNapoli began.
"Because we brought this up before the Legislature a while ago and were shot down by the majority," Virtuoso continued.
I thought it was funny Dennis had mentioned that since, in addition to being the county Legislator and all, he's also the chief building inspector for the city of Niagara Falls, and I had just a minute earlier been wondering whether he'd punched out at his building inspector job to come downstairs for this photo-op and to do his county Legislator thing. And then I thought he must've, because the mayor and the city administrator were sitting right behind him and they're kind of like his bosses, but then I thought maybe they gave him permission to take off for a few minutes so he could be on TV.
The whole thing got me to wondering. I wondered what was the state comptroller doing so far away from his office in the first place, distributing a boxful of his nicely bound 56-page report on stuff David Broderick allegedly did at sometime in the past, which kind of didn't make any sense since the county district attorney's office isn't about to prosecute Broderick anyway and, even if it was, couldn't DiNapoli have just faxed a copy of his report from Albany, where he works, to Lockport, where DA Mike Violante has his office?
And then I wondered why the mayor and the city administrator seemingly had nothing better to do in the middle of a weekday morning than to sit in the Council chambers like two bumps on a log listening to DiNapoli prattling on about Broderick. And did I mention that Broderick, 71, is retired and no longer has anything to do with county government, lives in Florida, and that he had a stroke and suffers from Bell's Palsy?
To tell you the truth, from where I was sitting, the whole thing looked like a freakish sideshow put on at huge taxpayer expense that had no purpose whatsoever other than to embarrass an elderly former Niagara County resident who couldn't be there to defend himself because he's ill.
These are pretty much the same individuals who can't manage to pave our streets, can't provide enough police protection to keep our neighborhoods from sounding like firing ranges most every night, can't or won't do anything to attract new businesses here or at least keep the ones that are here from fleeing, and who, by their very inaction and inattentiveness, have allowed the city of Niagara Falls to sink to levels unimaginable even a decade ago.
Anyway, I got sick of the whole thing and found Danny, and we went over to his mother's house and had some anchovy sandwiches. She's such a sweet lady.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | March 16, 2010 |