Posted with the permission of The Naples Record, originally published Wednesday October 28, 2009
Entrenched incumbents lose touch with their constituents
During a 35-year newspaper career, I reported on numerous public uprisings sparked by controversial projects in scores of towns and villages throughout Ontario, Wayne, Yates, Steuben and Monroe counties. As an objective observer and student of human behavior, I came to understand that, in spite of periodic "tea party" eruptions over hot-button issues like waste disposal, wind turbines - even a fire-breathing mechanical dragon in Naples - the elected board members who must decide such controversies are in most cases decent people trying their best to serve the public good. In other cases, they're longtime incumbents who have lost touch with the communities they were elected to serve.
Now a retired taxpayer, I've become as outraged as other irate citizens over the increasing financial burden property owners are required to shoulder because of ill-considered, self-serving actions by elected and appointed officials at all levels of government. But it wasn't until I bought property in Steuben County two years ago and received my county property tax bill that I began to appreciate just how indifferent those long-time incumbents have become to the public will.
I tried to put everything in perspective by considering the public services that government provides - and realized that, except for routine road maintenance and plowing of highways in winter - the Town of Prattsburgh and Steuben County offer little to nothing by way of public services. Rural residents build and maintain their own water supplies and septic systems and public safety calls are invariably handled by the State Police. Reflecting on the high cost of local government and low volume of government services, I have begun in my overtaxed "golden years" to see the overall tax threat as a hometown version of the corruption and incompetence in public office that has created "bailouts" and put state and national economies on the brink financial ruin. A big part of our tax bills is the price we pay for bad decisions made by smugly secure incumbents repeatedly re-elected to public office.
Need proof of just how these incumbents are hurting us? Consider a vendetta over a $13 lunch that has cost Steuben County taxpayers more than $650,000 so far. In a nutshell, this bizarre saga, which literally added two per-cent to a tax bill that our elected officials want to raise three percent this year, involves county officials who for personal reasons filed criminal charges and fired a veteran Department of Social Services employee who had billed the duties.
After the initial legal case was decided against them, diehard Steuben pols and county lawyers refused to abandon the costly witchhunt, launching a high-priced appeal of a court ruling that had gone in the employee's favor. The result is legal costs that when finally totaled will come close to $1 million, including back pay and interest on a defamation of character award to the targeted county worker. Kudos to The Corning Leader reporters who uncovered this inexcusable waste of taxpayer money earlier this year.
The Leader also recently alerted us to outright nepotism in the District Attorney's office, where longtime incumbent DA John Tunney has put his son on the county payroll as an assistant over the objections of others in the department, prompting the resignation of at least one seasoned prosecutor. And that brings us to Prattsburgh, where Tunney has come under suspicion of political cronyism after rebuffing several requests to investigate apparent improprieties in the awarding of contracts for controversial wind farms.
No one who knows Prattsburgh Supervisor Harold McConnell was surprised when the long-time town official was forced to admit that he had accepted money in a real estate deal involving wind farm developers - whose projects he has unwaveringly advanced. McConnell, a town official since 1990 and supervisor for the past seven years, admitted getting paid for the deal only after documents were erro¬neously provided to a local Realtor who made them public.
Nor was it McConnell first problem with state investigators over questionable real estate dealings. In 2005, he was fined $3,000 after a Department of State investigation found he had violated business ethics. According to the state's finding, McConnell - who has shepherded the town board through wind projects that have netted big paychecks for political cronies, including a $439,250 payday for former Town Board member Fran Hall, the father of incumbent Deputy Prattsburgh Supervisor David Hall, engaged in business practices that demonstrated "untrustworthiness and incompetence." Investigators also found McConnell guilty of "the unauthorized practice of law," "breach of duty to deal honestly with the public" and with other offenses arising from his misrepresentation to buyers of a local property and town plans regarding dozens of controversial, 400-foot tall wind turbines.
With a rap sheet dating back to at least 1976 (ask him how he got lost his banking job sometime), McConnell nonetheless has been elected and re-elected in much the same fashion locally as have the big-name scoundrels, like Congressman Charlie Rangel and our indicted former state Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno.
Thanks in large part to McConnell, the town of Prattsburgh will see virtually no economic benefits from a wind farm project that threatens to devastate property val-ues while property taxes continue to rise. Under contracts that McConnell and other town officials have refused tax-payers' requests to renegotiate, Prattsburgh would receive about one-fourth the amount ($3 million compared to over $13 million) offered by developers for similar project in the neighboring Yates County town of Italy.
McConnell, along with fellow wind advocate and Town Board member Stacy Bottoni, also in recent months attempted to put the town at financial and legal jeopardy over sale of a town parcel awarded to the highest bidder at public auction. When former Town Board member and McConnell-Bottoni crony Donna Campbell came up short ii her bid, McConnell and Bottoni proposed opening up the sale to a legal challenge by advancing a measure that would have overturned the auction result. You may have read or heard Bottom's name in recent news reports regarding her arrest last month for shoplifting at the Hornell Wegman's while on duty as a school bus driver. Regardless the outcome of Bottom's pending petit larceny court case, this overtaxed voters would prefer that a person with better judgment be involved in town government decisions affecting the finance and future of the community - not to mention the welfare d children.
A popular bumper sticker once advised "Think Globally, Act Locally." To paraphrase in light of Steuben County's political incumbents "Think Carefully, Vote Locally." Barring term limits on repeat offenders, beleaguered tax¬payers have only one defense: vote the bums out.
Jack Jones is a frequent contributor to the Naples Record, the Victor Herald and the Honeoye Herald
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