register star pimping crony spin

On Thursday, May 17, 2012 The Register Star ran an letter by planning board member and former head of the Stuyvesant Republican party Tom Shanahan called "Courts have better things to do." I know Mr. Shanahan resents the fact that newspapers and the ballot box are not the only checks on government. Luckily, the founding fathers gave us a strong judiciary to stand up to factional government. James Madison, arguing for strong courts, said, "By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community."

I found out Mr. Shanahan objects to lawsuits the hard way. On October 26, 2011 I filed my first article 78 suit. On October 30, 2011, after Mr. Shanahan was seen observing my property, I was given a citation in town criminal court for dog barking. The charge is ridiculous but the charge allows up to 15 days in jail. When I showed up at the appearance date on the ticket on November 9, 2011, Judge Carrie O’Hare reported that the affidavit for this charge disappeared off the face of the earth. The town tried to prosecute me in the same way back in January 2011, a charge clearly based on a false affidavit. After I filed a suit in federal court, the town judge dismissed the first ticket, but not after the town hired a special prosecutor, on a dog barking charge, and spent more than $7000 on expensive Albany lawyers from Whiteman, Osterman and Hanna to prosecute me.

Since I filed my suits, this kind of nonsense has now stopped completely. I have not been ticketed for impossible charges. I do not have to endure hearings (the town put me through 16 in 2011). I don't have cars at the end of my driveway. The zoning officer stays away. I can operate my business without worrying about having to justify every action (even how I take out my trash) questioned before a board of busybodies. 

Filing these suits is not sending a message. This is fighting for my livelihood and freedom from oppressive factional government. What is at stake in these suits is the rule of law, the 14th amendment, and basic issues of fairness. 

Mr. Shanahan said, "Perhaps it is best encapsulated in a statement Mr. Pflaum posted about the most recent lawsuit on one of his blogs – 'My lawsuit is meant to send a very simple message: ...'" I never said this statement. It's in quotes. 

Mr. Shanahan said, "the courts are not there for the purpose of 'sending messages.'" Yet on August 5, 2010 in an article on a junkyard in New Lebanon in the Regsiter Star, the town attorney said that a suit was  would  “send a message to anyone in New Lebanon who’s violating the law.”  Google the phrase "send a message" and "lawsuit" and watch what happens.

Speaking about the lawsuit for information filed against the town clerk, Mr. Shanahan said, "Even the state Committee on Open Government, which oversees the FOIL law, applauded Town Clerk Melissa Naegeli’s diligence." This statement was long ago. Mr. Shanahan has clearly not been following the actual suit. I sued to get information Ms. Naegeli denied existed, including evidence that the Hook Boat club assessment is fraudulent. Although Ms. Naegeli mislead the court, I now have town officials on record that the documents exist, the ones they earlier denied. I consider that a complete victory.

Then Mr. Shanahan called my efforts "a frivolous abuse of the legal system." Mr. Shanahan can say this in a newspaper article but none of the town's seven (at least) attorneys have made this charge in court. 

Then Mr. Shanahan said, "For Stuyvesant, the legal fees to defend against them now amount to many tens of thousands of dollars – and it’s likely to go higher." Did Mr. Shanahan complain when the town spent $150,000 to target me? And now, why does the taxpayer have to pick up the tab to defend supervisor Ron Knott's personal interests or the personal interests of ZBA Secretary? 

As per New York General Municipal Law 805 (1)(c), officials cannot “receive, or enter into any agreement, express or implied, for compensation for services to be rendered in relation to any matter before any municipal agency of which he is an officer, member or employee or of any municipal agency over which he has jurisdiction or to which he has the power to appoint any member, officer or employee.” Mr. Knott signed a contract with William J. Better to defend his personal interests on the taxpayers' dime. Does the above law preclude this contract?

Then Mr. Shanahan said, "In the long run – surrendering to intimidation never turns out to be cheaper." My point exactly. As the zoning officer Gerry Ennis admitted, the town posted the ZEO at the edge of my property before dawn 25 times in June 2010, for example. I have a video of town board member Ed Scott threatening to beat me up for conducting a sound test mandated by the planning board on which Mr. Shanahan sits. The fire chief and town employee Steve Montie posted on the internet that I should move out of town and applauded Scott's vigilantism.

In addition, the town hired a special prosecutor, William Nolan, from the biggest law firm in the capital district to prosecute me in town court on a false, indeed impossible charge, based on a perjury then destroyed an affidavit proving a secondary account of perjury.  Mr. Shanahan was involved in the second incident of judicial harassment and destruction of evidence in October 2011 as above. 

Mr. Shanahan is part of the oppressive government that I am suing. If Mr. Shanahan got his wish and removed the ability of courts to keep tabs on local government, can you imagine the abuse and larceny that would be going on? Even now, the situation is not good.

Will Pflaum

7 lawyers

Back in the paper again. I wrote a letter to the editor back, which I will publish here if the Register Star declines to run my response.

The Lawyer Roll for Stuyvesant 2011-2012

William S. Nolan: special prosecutor, wrote response to motion to dismiss on criminal dog barking charge

Philip Meyer: answered FOIL law suit, state court

Sharon Siegel: hired by insurance company, federal court

David R. Everett: did the ZBA stuff in 2011, town level action

John Henry: answered the dog lawsuit, state court

Tal Rappleyea: town attorney, got more than $12,000 for dog barking issue

William J. Better: defended Knott and Narzynski with taxpayer money, many tens of thousands to defend private interests of officials in state court

7 lawyers. 1 dog guy. 7 against 1? 

William S. Nolan

William S. Nolan of Whiteman Osterman and Hanna served as special prosecutor on the dog barking charge. He violated his duty as a prosecutor by pursuing a charge he knew to be false at the time her pursued the charge. He was just promoted by Whiteman, Osterman and Hanna.

in the paper

Here is the latest article in the paper.

all about the paper

Over on the other blog.

last night at the stuyvesant zba

There is an article in the Register Star by John Mason that is a good summary of the issues and what happened. I think mediation is the way to go now in the neighbor dispute (Serpico-Palladino), as I recommended to the town more than a year ago. As to the second issue: Ronald Knott, the deputy supervisor and later town supervisor, is the author of the policy to spend 17% of the 2011 budget on zoning enforcement to close Glencadia Dog Camp. The town spent $150,000 hiring the biggest law firm in the Capital District, Whiteman, Osterman and Hanna in an illegal executive session. Ronald Knott participated, lead the charge and supported all of this. One of the primary points in that process was whether of not the business qualified as a home occupation if the house and the barn were on separate lots. The law is clear that a home occupation required the business and house to be on the same lot. Meanwhile the town planning board refused my application to put the lots back together, which would solve the problem. Meanwhile, Knott himself was operating a home occupation with a business and a house of separate lots. That's the deal.

sleepergate, episode II, the office

In episode one of the Sleepergate scandal, we saw how Tal Rappleyea, who is or was in 2011 the designated Town Attorney in Durham, Ashland, Prattsville, Lexington, Germantown, Cairo, Stuyvesant, Austerlitz, Copake, Chatham, Greenville, Jewett and assistant attorney for Columbia County, claims to work as much as 21 hours in a single 24 hour period. I only looked at one month so far: October 2010. More to come. WORSE than 21 in another month?

Following episode I, Tal Rappleyea resigned as County Attorney and perhaps Stuyvesant Town Attorney.

We also saw, in episode one, that the other attorneys in the office, Clarissa D. Garvey, Charles E. Hoag, Jr., Tal G. Rappleyea, Robert J. Fitzsimmons, Barrett D. Mack, Brent R. Stack, refuse to deny that they are stealing pension credits for no or little show jobs as does Tal Rappleyea.

Now we come to episode two. The time sheets these guys send in say they are supposed to work at least 6 hours a day.  Here are their timesheets:

http://wikicoco.com/file/detail/Pflaum+-+CA+FOIL+2011.pdf/298379228

http://wikicoco.com/file/detail/Pflaum+-+CA+FOIL+2010.pdf/298379230

http://wikicoco.com/file/detail/Pflaum+-+CA+FOIL+2009.pdf/298379226

So I figure, if they don't mind sending in time sheets to the taxpayer to get pensions, they would have no problem affirming that that information on the time sheets is correct. So I made up some affidavits asking the attorneys to verify that they do some work to get their money and benefits.

Here are the affidavits I asked the attorneys to sign (in the video below), with their time sheets:

http://wikicoco.com/file/view/affidavits.pdf/298327888/affidavits.pdf 

I put the affidavits in an envelope and wanted to hand deliver the affidavits to the lawyers. I went on Thursday, February 2, 2012 at 11:20 AM.

The affidavits are confidential, county business. I went into a public office building to deliver confidential material individually to the people mentioned in the correspondence. The matter is of public interest and valid activity in a public office.




And the guys don't have a desk? And they are not there whenever I check? And no one know when you might be popping in?

I see 10 people on the payroll, all full time. I want to see 10 desks and 10 butts sitting in them. If I can't see that, I'll come back and check again until I see it.

So I went back on Friday, Febuary 3 at 11 AM.



Robert Fitzsimmons has 7 lawyers on the books but he never has 7 lawyers in the office. These are TIME SHEETS with PENSION CREDITS not invoices of independent contractors. That's a big difference.

Now we're at two visits with an average of 2 attorneys per visit. Should be 7. I would have thought 5, maybe 6 might be reasonable: one in court, one sick. The secretary should be able to tell me when they might be back.

Well, I struck out. Four to six no show lawyers. Pensions, salaries... maybe a couple hundred thousand stolen every year for at least 3 and probably many more years.

I'll keep checking. I'll even write Fitzsimmons an email and tell him when I'm coming if he wants. I said I would be back on Monday at 9:30 AM to check again. I wrote him an email.

Now the county attorney Fitzsimmons panics. He can't actually get all the attorneys to come to work and they don't have desks. He calls the sheriff. If I dare to go into the office and count lawyers again, they will arrest me.




I thought about this interaction later. If I can send the sheriff to deliver my paper the same as the county attorney, then the sheriff cannot say that the police AGREE with the paper.

No show jobs for rich lawyers to steal pensions. They won't sign the affidavits. No desks. Not at work. No one knows when they will be in to work.

They had a bunch of sheriff's deputies waiting on Monday, February 6, 2012 in case I showed up again. God forbid I should walk into a public office and check to see if public officers are where they claim to be.

Where in this email did I say which Monday I was coming? Some Monday. And I won't come alone. Send me an email if you would like to join me. I need as many people as I can get. If you work Monday, we can try Tuesday. Or go on your own. Find any lawyers? Report back to me.

Email me.

So, on Monday, February 13, I went to see Pattrick Grattan at the Kinderhook Town Meeting: audio here. Not great quality audio on the iPhone. This incident was reported on page one in the newspaper.

Listen, as best you can, to what Grattan says. If you can't make it out, let me know and I'll try some filters in GarageBand.

So, there is some kind of law that means that the top elected official in the county can't meet with me because I might sue him. He can't talk to his wife because she might sue for divorce one day. If he doesn't talk to her, she definitely will sue him.

Anyone can sue anyone at any time, I guess. So we all stop talking?

And when the person accused of embezzlement was associated with the opposition and not a personal friend of Pat Grattan, as here, he was able to do something about it. Funny how that work. When it's your friends, there is nothing you can do. When it's some nobody associated with the opposition, then, well, that's easy.

Grattan, in the Register Star article cited above, wants to get every penny back from Mulligan-Moore. He wants to keep that story in the news. But Fitzsimmons: he can keep stealing. We wouldn't want the husband of his judge and ticket mate, someone he has known for years socially, to have to stop stealing, let alone give the money back or go to jail, like the hapless Mulligan-Moore.

So today I met with the Columbia County District Attorney Paul Czajka. I want to thank the District Attorney for the opportunity to meet with him.

Robert J. Fitzsimmons, Esq. is the lead attorney of a private law firm: Fitzsimmons, Mack and Mills. He is also county attorney with oversight over Brent R. Stack, Tal Rappleyea, Barrett Mack, Andrew Howard, Charles Hoag, and Clarissa Garvey. 


Stack, Mack and Fitzsimmons are also in private practice together at the same law firm.


So, if Fitzsimmons catches Mack or Stack working on their own legal work in the office instead of doing the public business, if he catches them doing private work at the county office on county time, he would have to discipline him... 


.... although, of course, his personal interest is likely in not disciplining him.


And that would never happen because Mack never bothers to show up at all and doesn't have a desk.

Then Fitzsimmons can hire someone at his private firm, like Brent Stack, and then hire him again at the county office. So you'll have him around and pay with the taxpayer's money in case you need him for your private work.


And who are the clients anyway? I know guys get away with this in the State Senate and State Assembly. What is the client paying for? Legal work by the firm or grease in the county office? Very nice set up: no show public job give you leverage to get money through a no work private job. Not that I can prove this part: they don't have to disclose their private clients, except through financial disclosures, and not even there, and those are highly redacted. 

Stealing pensions is a big deal. Think about how many tax increases and budget fights have to do with pensions and costs governments have to pay for decades after people retire.

Here are the key pension rules:

 For Tier 2, 3, 4 and 5 members, the minimum number of hours in a standard work day is six, while the maximum is eight... Since elected and appointed officials do not usually work a fixed schedule or have pre-set work hours, they must keep a record of their work-related activities so you can accurately determine the number of days worked to report....Effective August 12, 2009, each elected or appointed official must prepare a record of work-related activities (log) for three consecutive months within 150 days of the start of a new term or appointment if: 1) They are members of the Retirement System and 2) Do not use your time keeping system that shows hours worked. (This includes systems that keep track of accruals and attest that, other than time charged to accruals, full hours were worked.)

Fine rules. No compliance in Columbia County.

Rappleyea: $378,000. Mack: $210,000. Howard: more than $330,000. Hoag: $420,000. Plus pension credits and other benefits worth about 1/3 of pay. With just those four guys we easily have 1.5 million in fraud and embezzlement. They never did a lick of work, as per the pension rules.

Right now, the Germantown school board is considering eliminating the high school. They can't afford to pay the pensions. Look at the battles in Wisconsin and check out your local town budget if you don't think this is a HUGE deal. 

Government pensions. Benefits. No show jobs. Rich attorneys.

Right now, what percent of these pensions we are paying out for people retired in Florida are based on crooked accounting? A superficial look at Columbia County government suggest that a large percentage of what we pay is to allow crooks to retire on comfort on the tax money of people who actually work. The workers pay. The no workers get pensions.

What kind of value are we getting as taxpayers for all these pension folk? None. Are you going to get a pension? I'm not. I spent all my money defending myself from a corrupt town. 

Let's look at the Columbia County attorney office. What is the county getting for maybe as much as a million dollars a year in legal services? This million dollars or so does not include other legal services for bond issues, development corporations, etc.

The Columbia County Attorney's office spends $517,000 a year on salaries for seven attorneys and three secretaries. They all claim pensions and benefits which add another third or more in the cost to the taxpayer. 

We're close to a million in total wages and benefits, let alone pensions already being paid out for people who might not have worked a generation ago.

What part of that million or is stolen? Half? It's been going on for years. We're talking about a multimillion dollar fraud.

Compare these two:

Brent R. Stack, assistant county attorney FULL TIME, 7 hours a day, pay rate: $37 per hour, 7 years on the job, $2590 every two weeks, $67,340 per year.

Charles Hoag, assistant county attorney PART TIME, 6 hours per day, $27 per hour, 10 years on the job, $1640 every two weeks, $42,640 per year.

What? The guy with more years gets less? The difference between part and full time is one hour? Lawyers working for $27 an hour? 

Why do they "work" for $27 if not to steal a pension? 

Never saw Hoag in the office. Stack does do work -- clerical work requiring no law degree like answering FOILs that Gail Dicosmo is supposed to do (she disappeared off the website last night for some reason, as did a couple other names). Hoag does nothing. Discosmo doesn't do her job. So, Hoag doesn't mind if his junior gets more than him. Why should he complain about a pension and pay with no work?

Next comparison:

Tal Rappleyea, assistant county attorney III, 6 hours per day, $27 per hour, 9 years on the job, $1640 every two weeks, $42,640 per year.

Lisa Brightly, confidential secretary, 17 years on the job, $22.70 per hour, 7 hours per day, $41,200 per year.

What? An attorney and a secretary get almost the same annual pay? And no one's complaining? Why complain: any pay is a good deal if you do NO WORK. Did I mention the pension?

Here are the rest:

Sheila Zito, clerk/typist, $17.25 per hour, 7 hours per day, 12 years on the job, $1207 every two weeks, $31,382 per year.

Barrett Mack, assistant county attorney III, 5 years on the job, 6 hours per day, $27 per hour, $1640 every two weeks, $42,640 per year.

Rita Lacasse, typist, 12 years on the job, $19.50 per hour, 7 hours per day, $1370 every two weeks, $35,620 per year.

Andrew Howard, deputy county attorney NA, 2 years on the job, 6 hours per day, $2608 every two weeks,  $43.50 per hour, $67,800 per year.

Clarissa Garvey, assistant county attorney, 7 hours a day, pay rate: $37 per hour, 10 years on the job, $2590 every two weeks, $67,340 per year.

Robert Fitzsimmons, county attorney, 5 years on the job, $53 per hour, 6 hours a day, $3210 every two weeks, $83,460 per year.

Our current chair of the Columbia County Board of Supervisors turned in a bookkeeper who was syphoning off funds with the help of the Comptroller and local DA. No one else knew about the crime and the perpetrator had no connections.

When a well connected person is caught red handed by the Comptroller, nothing much happens if they are cozy with the local mucky-mucks.

Stay tuned for next episode: sleepergate, road trip to Albany 

Ain't pretty. First I found out the town of Stuyvesant is corrupt. Then I found out Columbia County is corrupt. What do you think about the state of New York? Not looking good. 

It's a Republican town in a Republican county in a Democratic state. But when it comes to corruption, there is only one party, the party of power. Motto: get yours.

I keep thinking that as I go up the chain, town to county to state to federal government, I will run into an honest, dedicated public servant willing to do the job they are paid to do by the people and say no to obvious rackets of corruption. 

Other news: I filed two lawsuits against Stuyvesant on February 8, 2012. That makes a total of four. Why? New York State has not system of municipal and local ethics enforcement. 

1. FOIL: Freedom of Information Law-- I want some canceled checks and they aren't giving them to me and other issues.

2. Zoning: I filed another suit agains the zoning board of Stuyvesant to get them to enforce the law the same to cronies and non-cronies alike. 

I'm not a reporter but I'm breaking a story, or trying to. I'm not a lawyer, but I'm filing suits. I have no authority or badge or experience or education in any of this stuff. 

I can use help. Email me. 

If the authorities don't shut this racket down, there are always the courts... or giving up. 

I wish I could just walk away from this stuff. 

columbia county, new york state

corruption... corruption... corruption...

can anyone say IRONY?

Here is the story in the paper. See how it works, right?

I stopped arguing with Mr. Grattan to be respectful of the other people in the room but I think the contrast between the politically unconnected Ms. Mulligan-Moore, low level bookkeeper, and the well-connected lawyers is fairly obvious. I didn't need to hammer than point home in the context of the meeting. In one case Mr. Grattan wants every penny. In the other case, he throws up his hands. One is ongoing and involves more money-- but there is nothing he can do. And the accused is someone he knows personally and is connected politically. I see.  Duly noted.