A hate-filled campaign directed against members of the Niagara Falls City Council who are seeking to eliminate county Legislator Renae Kimble's patronage position with the city has attracted the attention of law enforcement agencies already involved in investigating local government here.
Telephoned threats and a race-baiting letter have characterized the effort, one that Kimble claims she knows absolutely nothing about.
Shortly after taking office in 2004, Mayor Vince Anello created the $46,332-a-year position of "risk manager" for Kimble, who had worked on Anello's campaign. Kimble had no previous experience in risk management and, in fact, the work of keeping the city's workers' compensation premiums in line has fallen to the Public Employee Risk Management Association, an Albany-based consulting firm.
Kimble has primarily acted as a glorified "gofer" between the city and PERMA, which saved the city about $600,000 last year.
But a recent audit by the state comptroller's office threatened the possibility of a control board, similar to one now in place in Buffalo, should significant cuts not be made in Anello's 2006 budget. Rather than cutting public safety positions, the Council opted instead to eliminate Kimble's patronage position and those of a number of other Anello cronies in order to make the budget more acceptable to Albany.
That's when the trouble began.
Councilman Babe Rotella said he was deluged with calls, including one from longtime Kimble associate Shirley Hamilton. In a message left on Rotella's voice mail, Hamilton hinted something bad might befall him should he not change his mind about eliminating Kimble's position.
"Was it a threat? Yeah," Rotella told the Reporter. "But I've had better people than her threaten me."
A major player in the contemptible campaign is Kevin Green, who has produced cable access television shows for both Kimble and Anello, and whose wife, Kathi Green, works in the city's human resources department. Green is responsible for a widely distributed letter issued by something called Black PAC, which accuses Councilman Bob Anderson of somehow betraying his own African-American heritage.
"Why would a black man hurt the only black department head that has done the job by eliminating her position?" the letter asks. "Call your friends and tell them that Bob Anderson wants to fire the only black department head at City Hall who has devoted her career to standing up and helping the Black Community."
Anderson, who donates his entire Council salary after expenses to churches, youth groups and boys and girls clubs, was philosophical. He said the decision to eliminate Kimble's job and those of the other patronage appointments has nothing to do with race.
"The city's in a bad position. The state's going to put a control board in here if we don't get our financial house in order," he said. "They can cheap-shot me all day and it's not going to change that."
It could not be determined over the weekend whether Black PAC is a legally registered political action committee under New York state law. Political action committees are required to file regular reports with the state Board of Elections, listing officers and the sources of contributions. Failure to do so would constitute a violation of election law.
In the past year, Green has been suspected of involvement in a number of other anonymous efforts, including the Niagara Falls Regurgitator Web site, a vicious parody of the Reporter, which was banned by Yahoo on grounds of slander, libel and copyright infringement.
The site targeted Reporter staffers, along with Rotella, Anderson and Council members Glenn Choolokian and Candra Thomason, while singing the praises of Kimble and Anello. Both Anello and Kimble denied any responsibility for the Web site at the time.
Another investigation in which Green's name came up concerned a poison-pen letter directed at library board member Ken Hamilton. The letter, sent out by e-mail under Rotella's name, was a vicious racist diatribe. Hamilton, who is black, had also been a frequent target of the Regurgitator Web site.
And just before last month's election, a DVD containing pornographic pictures of women with Councilwoman Thomason's head superimposed on them was anonymously mailed to various city officials and employees. The photos were similar to ones that had appeared earlier on the Web site. The matter is still under investigation by the Niagara Falls Police Department.
The link to the Web site and the phony Rotella letter had both been sent on computers at one of the city's libraries, sources said. Green has not been charged in connection with the incidents and has denied any involvement, but law enforcement officials familiar with the investigations said his name was mentioned by several witnesses and victims in the cases.
Ironically, some of those involved in the front-line fight for racial justice here charge that Kimble has used her status as a black "leader" simply to feather her own nest. Joe Paulk, one of six African-American employees in the Department of Public Works alleging a pattern of institutional racism in a $26 million lawsuit against the city, said Kimble's loyalty is to Anello rather than to her own people.
At a luncheon honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. at the Niagara Community Center, Kimble delivered a lengthy speech without mentioning the plight of the city workers -- whose widely publicized case has become a lightning rod for the often sorry state of race relations in Niagara Falls -- despite the fact that several of them were in the room at the time.
"Our so-called black leadership in city government has done nothing to support us," Paulk said. Ken Hamilton agreed.
"Renae has made a career out of playing the race card to her own advantage," he said. "What's going on now is only the latest chapter in a long and frankly depressing story."
Citing a visit to the Falls by the Rev. Al Sharpton in 2001, Hamilton said Kimble's opportunistic stance on race relations comes and goes as it suits her.
"She and Reverend Al were all over TV, the newspaper, talking about a campaign targeting racial profiling by law enforcement here. But after the lights went out and she'd got her publicity, you never heard another word about it. And that's typical," he said.
Whatever reservations Rotella and Anderson may have had in axing Kimble's position along with nine other patronage jobs have evaporated in light of the nasty campaign mounted by Green, Shirley Hamilton and others in her name.
"If they thought they were going to intimidate us or scare us, they thought wrong," Rotella said. "The whole thing makes me sick."
Late last week, the mayor announced his vetoes of the job cuts, as well as to cuts in the police and fire department overtime budgets. But Rotella, Anderson, Thomason and Choolokian have vowed to provide the four votes necessary to override any vetoes at Monday night's Council meeting. Council Chairman Charles Walker is the only member in favor of retaining the patronage positions.
"I'll most definitely be there," Thomason said over the weekend. "I voted against these positions in the first place. They were unnecessary when they were created and they're unnecessary now."
Rotella said that the city's poor economic condition -- and not personalities -- are behind the cuts.
"I don't like to see anybody lose their job, this was a tough decision," he said. "The mayor had every opportunity to come in and tell us why these positions are needed, but he didn't do it."
Kimble's supporters will also likely show up en masse, and extra security may be called in if circumstances warrant.
State and federal law enforcement officials investigating possible corruption at City Hall are keeping close tabs on the situation. The Official Corruption Task Force -- made up of the U.S. Attorney's office, the FBI, IRS, the U.S. Postal Service, the departments of Labor and Housing and Urban Development, and the New York State Police -- has had the Anello administration under the microscope for months. A federal grand jury seated in Buffalo has been hearing evidence on various aspects of the case since May.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | Dec. 13 2005 |