Concerning the "Kevin crisis", Mayor Gallo announced that he intends to submit a memorializing resolution for the Common Council that basically condemns the actions of Assemblyman Kevin Cahill and asks the Legislature to essentially override him.
Alderman Senor has now announced his support for Kevin Cahill on this issue. It must be of great comfort to Kevin that his only 2 allies in this fight are Tom Hoffay and Bob Senor. That's kind of like going into battle with F Troop as your only support.
The real hypocrisy and conflict of interest involves Alderman Hoffay. He was quoted in the Freeman as saying that the Council should not vote on the resolution because it has no legal effect. Now, I do not like memorializing resolutions. I have said this repeatedly. Tom Hoffay, however, has submitted numerous memorializing resolutions and pressed for a vote. When he was Democrat County Chair, he pressed for many memorializing resolutions from the County Legislature. Now, when the resolution is something he does not like, he decides that the Council should not vote because the vote would have no real legal effect. That is called hypocrisy. But, it gets even worse.
In actuality, Hoffay should not even be commenting on this resolution and most certainly should abstain from voting on it. Hoffay is employed by Kevin Cahill. Hoffay has a clear financial motive to see Kevin thrive politically. If Kevin gets weakened politically and loses his seat, Hoffay is out of yet another job.
Under the City Code (section 49), E. Disclosure of interest in legislation. To the extent that he knows thereof, a member of the Common Council and any officer or employee of the City of Kingston, whether paid or unpaid, who participates in the discussion or gives official opinion to the Common Council on any legislation before the Common Council, shall publicly disclose on the official record the nature and extent of any direct or indirect financial or other private interest he has in such legislation.
Moreover, under the rules of Common Council, no member (Alderman) may vote on an issue if he or she has a conflict of interest directly or indirectly. For example, when I was an Alderman, I had to abstain on any votes concerning selection of or payment for the workers' compensation carrier for the city. The firm that employs me represents the current carrier. Alderman Senor had to abstain when work was done for the city by his employer. It is well known that Alderman have to abstain on certain votes. It is a small city after all.
Since Hoffay is employed by Kevin Cahill and thus has a direct financial interest, he must abstain from any vote and should not be commenting in the Daily Freeman about it. Yet, there he is in black and white commenting away.
Should Hoffay continue to offer comments on this matter and then actually cast a vote or take steps to prevent a vote, I urge members of the Common Council to then file an ethics complaint against Hoffay.
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3 comments:
Just in time for the new ethics bill which was approved by common council in June. Let's see how Hoffay reacts to this. Perhaps his minion Dunn can point it out to him since Dunn was involved in the wording.
Maybe you should contact your Alderman?
Much ado about nothing(also a Shakespearean play title). Now, what will happen is Cahill will prevail, the issue will be settled, and we will move on(some of us will anyway). As for actually changing the way state government does business that is more comoplicated than one assemblyman pushing for that to happen. I see Deb Brown is the point lady on this issue for the city. Years and years and years and years ago Mr. West of Woodstock was screaming about it before the county legislature and it was like everyone was dead and deaf to the issue. Now of a sudden it is on the agenda--but, we are far far behind in the process on that. I agree it needs to be a process--case in point the Health Alliance DEBACLE--which was yet another state mandate shenanigan. As such the issue is very good but the laborers, proverbially, have been few.
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