update

Politics still stinks in Columbia County. This is hypocrisy. The State Police won't lift a finger to touch Robert Fitzsimmons, Columbia County Attorney and active is supporting and encouraging the felonies of Tal Rappleyea and other, likely including himself, stealing millions and still there and still stealing but they will run a sting on a woman syphoning off $20,000.

welcome times union readers

http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Attorney-math-1-day-26-hours-4026396.php

Welcome, Times Union readers. The story is now online.

A couple of points: this billing 26 hours in a 24 hour period business is the tip of the iceberg. I call the no show job scandal at the county attorney's office Sleepergate. There is a lot of evidence, beyond the invoices. (The FOIL lawsuit, the phone records, the videos, the emails, etc.).

If Tal Rappleyea were defrauding welfare of say, $1,824, he'd be in jail. The District Attorney Paul Czajka has no trouble filing charges against these guys. But what about a connected lawyer?

I met with Czajka in February. He has known about the 26 hour problem for nine months. What did he do? Rappleyea stole 100 times more than the schmoes he prosecutes routinely for welfare fraud.

The story is not about one crooked lawyer. It's about the whole Columbia County Board of Supervisors, every elected official in Columbia County, Democrat and Republican, rubber stamping a million plus dollar fraud ring lead by the de facto county administrator, Robert Fitzsimmons. Unanimous vote, the elected supervisors let the gang of crooked lawyers do whatever they want. Five no show jobs in just the county attorney office. When you have this kind of corruption at the top, how hard do you think the rest of the people are working? Or showing up?

Here is an older Times Union story about my fight with Stuyvesant.

I am a small business man still under siege from the local government because I refused to pay them more bribes and kick backs, although I did pay Tal Rappleyea $437.50 in one kick back. Rather than pay them, I FOILed their documents. I'm in court defending my business (or will be soon). They came at me harder. They tried to lock me up, hired a special prosecutor (two actually) from Whiteman, Osterman and Hanna, the capital district's largest law firm to try to close down my small family dog boarding business. They spent $200,000 to close my business and lock me up. Criminal court in town on a false charge based on perjury, zoning abuse, planning abuse, sent the county sheriff to my house, they threw whatever they had at me.

Millions are being stolen in this county and, I'm sure, many counties in the state.

What do you expect? There is NO SYSTEM to enforce ethics (or even the penal code) at the local, municipal level. Comptroller: no jurisdiction.

The Attorney General thinks it's okay for local guys to steal. The Joint Commission on Ethics is a joke. The BAR association?   Local oversight? Right. The comptroller?

I'm in court looking for documents. I'm in federal court (Northern District New York) to stop assessment fraud and more lawyer invoice fraud (1:11-cv-00335-GTS -RFT Pflaum v. Town of Stuyvesant).

These crooks throw away what I send them in sales taxes in five minutes. Everywhere I have looked, I found nothing but crime. New York local government is completely broken.

We need a new ethics regime in New York. Not kabuki theater. A real, effective system. It's possible. The guys in Albany, the elected officials, don't want to pass a real law. They'll authorize a commission to study the issue every once and awhile and stack the commission with cronies then ignore the conclusions of the report, but no, the senators and representatives like it the way it is. They have friends at the local level who are doing just fine as things are now.

Do you want to stop the kleptocracy? Then throw up one of these signs.

The dog sign means you believe New York needs a real system of ethics that includes local and municipal government, that 1200 jurisdictions can not be left alone to police themselves.

Email me and I'll get you a sign. More corruption stories here.

last night's budget hearing

Links to come: video (below! verify for yourself), budgets, and salt shed/garage contract (this one piece of documentation may take awhile).

Here is the Register Star article on the same hearing you can watch in video below. No mention in the paper of the fact that the same accountant/bookkeeper in Stockport and Stuyvesant and that Stuyvesant's numbers don't add up. This article is from the same hearing. Also, not really what I took away from the meeting. The website had the wrong boat on it. A number of residents objected that this is The Half Moon,  Look at the boat on the website when it comes out and see if the one the town paid for looks historically accurate. This is in the public domain.

Otherwise, it seems like a waste of money to hire a firm to make a website with no more functionality than this blog that I spend $15 a year on ($10 for the domain name and $5 to have google use the domain instead of .blogger.com).

At the start of 2011 end of 2010, the town reserve fund was about $200,000. I found the preliminary 2012 budget passed in November 2011. UNEXPENDED BALANCE, last line of the 2012 budget page 7 says $100,000. In 2011 the town spent $100,000 of the reserve fund by November 2011, or so they reported.

Supervisor Ron Knott said $180,000 as of January 1, 2012. Not true. Less than $100,000 as of the beginning of 2012. Ron is clearly wrong. Not $180,000. Can't be. Less than $100,000. Must be.

See minute 5:00 in the video at the end of this post.

At the time the budget listed $100,000, November 2011, the town only listed $40,000 in the budget for Whiteman, Osterman and Hanna but had already spent or received invoices for $100,000.

Lines A8010.1, A8010.4, A8020.4.

I can post the 2012 budget and the invoices and I will, when I get the video of the hearing. The documents (video, budget, invoices) will confirm that 1) Knott said $180,000 when that cannot be true, 2) the budget listed $100,000 as of November 1, 2011; 3) that the town paid Whiteman, Osterman and Hanna in excess of $75,000 between the November 1, 2011 and February 1, 2012. 

The town wrote Whiteman, Osterman and Hanna a check for $75,000 after the November budget, meaning the reserve fund would have been $100,000 minus $75,000. Some of the $75,000 paid in late 2011 may over lap with the missing $60,000 from the budget but not all of it.

The tax increase only added about $65,000 according to the budget we received tonight.  I will scan and post that document too.

Look at the current revenue lines in the current budget.

The total amount billed by Whiteman and Better is more than $200,000 and it has never been fully listed in the budget. It mostly came out of the reserve fund. Only 150,000 is kind of listed at Lines A8010.1, A8010.4, A8020.4 this year but some money is missing, maybe $50,000 not reported. 

Next, the board announced they were planning to borrow $700,000 for the garage/salt shed project. However, the town only received one bid for this entire project and that bid was for $450,000.

I will post those documents too when I get them. 

The town sold a truck for $40,000 and didn't list it. The money went into and out of the reserve fund. 

Further, the town accountant, Fitzgerald, penciled in $2750 for Tal Rappleyea in 2009. There is no other paper justifying the money moving into Tal's pocket other than Fitzgerald writing the number on a list of payments on a computer print out. You can't just write in a number by hand on a print out and say "That explains it." 

The same accountant/bookkeeper Fitzgerald did not notice $250,000 disappearing from Stockport. 

The truck covers the difference between the reported $150,000 lawyer expenses and the $200,000 actual expenses. The $700,000 bond covers the fact that they spent the whole reserve fund, all $200,000. They are borrowing to cover operating expenses.

pflaum v. grattan

Here is the latest filing in my FOIL (Freedom of Information Law) lawsuit against Columbia County. What I asked for was a single piece of paper produced by Tal G. Rappleyea before he quit one week after I posted the first episode of the Sleepergate scandal. You would think if the guy was clocking 30 hours a week for nine years, he would have made some kind of paper, being a lawyer and all, right? Apparently not.

So far, six reasons not to give me a piece of paper but no paper. Read the court filing for yourself. I can put the other papers up from the suit if anyone is interested. Thanks for following the case.

post election day blog post: 3 questions

1. How come a county that has gone consistently for Democrats presidents and governors has been so totally dominated by Republicans locally at the town level? Will the local Democrats ever get the Obama votes to the polls on an odd numbered year?

2. How will Republicans like Gibson in districts that went for Obama stick with their sometimes fairly extreme Republican leadership or will these kind of Republicans, particularly Gibson, work with Obama to pass the agenda the people of the county want: universal health care, higher taxes on the rich, funding for science research, no more wars, environmental protection, green energy, and an economy that works for the middle class, not the oligarchs?

3. Can the Republicans change? Will they listen to their reasonable members or will they continue to be dragged down by the nuts?

Columbia County: President

Barack Obama (D/WF) (inc) 14,068 55%

Mitt Romney (R/C) 11,059 43%

New York House District 19

Christopher P. Gibson (R/C/I) (inc) 135,328 53%

Julian Schreibman (D/WF) 118,358 47%

election day blog post

Here is an endorsement in a local court race. And meanwhile, here is an interesting blog from East Greenbush.

Now, I was in Brooklyn last night. I saw people waiting in line for gas. In Brooklyn, you have Black, White, Hispanic, Asian, Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Secular, college-educated, high school drop outs, rich, poor, native born, foreign born, and yet Obama will probably carry Kings County with about 85% of the vote.

There is probably some rural, southern county, plus somewhere in Utah, where Romney will carry the county with 75% of the vote (but not 85%). The difference is that the Republican county will be all white, rural, all Christian, less than average percentage of college educated, etc.

The Democrats are failing to reach one piece of the electorate. The Republicans are failing to reach many parts of the electorate. If the Republicans cannot get some kind of divide and conquer thing going on in a place as diverse, with as little common ground, as Brooklyn, they are doing something very wrong. You can't write off this broad a swath of the population.

Meanwhile, of a different topic, whenever I hear local politicians discuss any issue, any issue at all, Democrat or Republican, I think: kabuki theater. I can imagine a sincere conservative speaking to a board of elected officials, talking about high taxes or something, then a sincere liberal talking about the environment of something, and I just imagine the internal dialogue in the head of the normal elected official in New York: "I can't wait until this naive peasant stops talking so we can do what we always do." The Democrats go around talking about some issue, then the Republican talk about another issue, and then you find some paper that one gang or the other is stealing. Silence.

More to the point, the bookkeeper in the Stockport case, the missing $250,000, is also the bookkeeper in Stuyvesant. While the fact that Stuyvesant Town Attorney Tal G. Rappleyea was part of a gang that stole more than a million dollars from Columbia County over several years should not mean we forget that he also stole $10,000 from Stuyvesant in 2009.  Other members of the gang include Robert Fitzsimmons of Fitzsimmon, Mack and Mills, Andrew Howard of Freeman Howard and a few others.

Bookkeeper Mark Fitzgerald or his partner and uncle penciled in $2750 for Rappleyea here:

There is no way to get to the amount Rappleyea received, $10,000 more than he billed, without Fitzgerald penciling in $2750.  Here are the monthly amounts billed and recieved:

Here is Tal's incoherent explanation. Here we have a linked between the missing $250,000 in Stockport, to the missing $10,000 in Stuyvesant to the missing 1.5 million in Columbia County through Rappleyea, Fitzgerald, Fitzsimmons, etc. Oh, and about $500,000 in assessment fraud, tangentially related. 

Same gang. Republican gang. Any Democrats care to complain? No. Why? They are doing the same crap here and other places.

Everywhere I looked, I found problems.

Vote for them today. 

like father like son

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/06/17/nyregion/albany-bill-hides-a-job-in-fine-print.html
Everyone is for Rapp!

stockport

Meanwhile, a few years ago in the same town with the missing $250,000 now...

http://exposecorruptcourts.blogspot.com/2009/08/former-ny-judge-charged-with-grand.html

Former NY town judge charged with grand larceny
The Associated Press - August 4, 2009

ALBANY, NY -- A former town judge is accused of using $27,000 in court fees and bail money to pay taxes and utility bills at his restaurant and stave off foreclosure on his home. Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's office filed charges against 47-year-old James Funk, the former town judge in Stockport, 25 miles south of Albany. Cuomo says a state audit found the money withdrawn by Funk was mostly bail money held by the court. Funk was the only person authorized to sign for the account. Funk was charged Tuesday in Stuyvesant (STYE'-veh-sihnt) Town Court with grand larceny, falsifying business records and official misconduct. If convicted, he faces up to seven years in prison. He was released without bail. Funk's lawyer, Peter Moschetti, did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

right, dog barking, really, no kidding... and ...

Here we go again. That's the link to the surprisingly good Register Star story.

Read: new members on the board. Think: people are sick of this and quitting. Read: Ennis says 75 dogs are louder than one dog. Think: therefore the sun must, obviously, be the brightest star in the universe by far. I mean, just look at it.

Markku Jaaskelainen of the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden, Institute of Fundamental Sciences wrote, “I hope that the issue soon will be settled in your favor. Anything else would be absurd if it is the noise levels that matter.” In his paper on the decay of sound, Dr. Jaaskelainen calculated that Glencadia Dog Camp would have to board 1352 dogs in order to achieve the level of sound of two dogs at 25 feet, as we see with the boxers at the Balint residence in the video annexed as file name “june 2010 walk through village” with Petition. “Glencadia Dog Camp has more dogs than other residents of the hamlet. However, distance is a tremendously important factor, given the inverse square calculation. Light intensity, the effect of gravity, many other forces in nature decay at the inverse square of distance given the formula of the surface of a sphere. To say that Glencadia Dog Camp obviously produces more barking noise at the relevant locations makes no more sense than to say that the sun is the brightest star in the universe.”  

(b) Ken Andria was the lead engineer on the study conducted by Acoustic Dimensions. Dr. Ning Xiang, Ph.D. Prof. Director, Graduate Program in Architectural Acoustics School of Architecture Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute wrote, “Ken Andria has obtained MS. Degree from Graduate Program in Architectural Acoustics, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, has presented his work at the Acoustical Society of America, has been awarded the prestigious Robert Bradford Newman Award ... as a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America I endorse Ken Andria’s measurements and report.”

But we need to have more hearings on dog barking. Got it.

The town attorney Tal Rappleyea embezzled $10,000 and extorted money, $437 on June 21, 2009, from me, which I paid. The town zoning officer Gerry Ennis stalked my house before dawn 25 times. Town board member threatened violence. Board member and town employee says to get out of town. The town, lead by Tal Rappleyea, encouraged perjury to put me in jail on false charges. And again.

But we need to have more hearings on dog barking. Right.

The county attorney, Robert Fitzsimmons and assistant county attorney, Andrew Howard, allow and participate with his colleagues in stealing and continue to steal millions of dollars. There are multiple felonies out of the Columbia County Attorney Office every day. But there is no hearing on stealing, massive corruption. The DA knows all about it. The sheriff knows. The chair of the county board of supervisors knows.

But we need to have more hearings on dog barking. I see.

The town assessor made a fraudulent assessment of the Hook Boat Club, costing the town $500,000.

Woof?

The town of Stuyvesant spent $200,000 on a dog barking complaint, violated Public Officer's Law by hiring Whiteman, Osterman and Hanna in an illegal secret meeting to get me in criminal court on false charges. (David R. Everett of Chatham New York)

But we need to have more hearings on dog barking. Check.

The town ZEO Gerry Ennis said on the record that he gave me the ticket because he does not like my blog. The town clerk Melissa Naegeli passed around an anonymous note calling me a bad father for making a song she doesn't like.

Dog barking. Right. Got to get our priorities straight.

The only town resident who complained about dog barking lives so far away, 1800 feet, Mary Kline, that she cannot hear any dog barking at all. Her neighbors on all sides say they hear nothing. Mary Kline made racially weird comments online and thinks violence is the solution (online post). This is the town's only complaint, on which they are basing the $200,000 in tax money.

Dog barking, got it?

The town Supervisor, Ron Knott, took $40,000 from the town government in an illegal contract for his own business, violating General Municipal Law § 805-a (1)(c) to help himself.

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.” Knott, as town supervisor, tapped public funds to defend his business in order to continue to operate Knott Industries without a permit. This undisputed misdemeanor is a violation of law. Violation of this provision for ethical government can result in the voiding of the contract in question, removal from office of the officer and return of misspent funds to the taxpayer (Matter of Keller v. Morgan, 149 AD 2d 801 - NY: Appellate Div., 3rd Dept. 1989; New York Attorney General opinions 2000-11 and 2005-10; Cahn v. Town of Huntington, 29 NY 2d 451 - NY: Court of Appeals 1972). Lesser ramifications may also be appropriate (Civil Service Forum v. Binghamton, 44 NY 2d 23 - NY: Court of Appeals 1978).

Dog barking.

Here is what I said to the board about 50 times:

In September 2010, I appealed the August 9, 2010 notice of violation still before this board. In November 2010 I submitted a paper by physics professor Dr. Markku Jaaskelainen demonstrating that the charge of loud noise was impossible based on calculations. Later, in April 2011, I submitted a paper by Dr. Ken Andria of Acoustic Dimensions based on measurements on site reaching the same conclusion, that the idea that dogs barking can be loud 1000 feet away is impossible. The results of these papers were endorsed by Dr. Ning Xiang, associate editor of the world's leading peer review acoustical architecture journal and Dr. Ernst Warsits, an acoustical engineering professor in Germany.

The fact that Ennis' notice of violation of August 9, 2010 accuses me of a violation which is entirely impossible is further established by subsequent sound tests, including in August 2011 with ZBA members Jensen, Keller, and Vick in attendance. Videos, signed testimony and audio recordings of these tests, along with science reports, were part of the record of the Article 78 proceeding in New York Supreme Court. There is no doubt that the charge in the notice of violation is false, indeed impossible.

The ZBA knows that the charge of loud dog barking is false. Look at those videos.

They don't need another public hearing. I did not kidnap Santa's elves.

Dear ZBA:

Our position is that the board should vote to dismiss the notice of violation of August 9, 2010 either because Gerry Ennis did not have a written complaint at the time he issued the notice of violation, as required by town zoning law, or because he did not offer any evidence to substantiate the charge of loud dog barking.

Since the ZBA took this issue after the judge’s decision of May 2012, I wrote three emails: July 24, 2012, July 29, 2012, August 7, 2012. In those emails, I made a number of points:

1. I inquired as to whether we should we write to the judge for clarification on the issues below without a response from the ZBA:

A) Does the ZBA need to or can the ZBA hold a second public hearing if it wants to, even though the decision references August 9, 2011 and the notice of the hearing referencing the very issue under consideration now, as above? Is one public hearing enough?

B) Do you need to gather more evidence or are 17 hearings and $200,000 in costs enough to allow the board to vote up or down on the notice of violation?

2.     The judge’s decision refers explicitly to the public hearing of August 9, 2011. No need for another one.

3.     There is no complaint of any kind behind this notice of violation.

4.     The charge that my dog boarding facility produces "unusual noise... that exceeds that produced by a normal residence" is clearly not true. The notice of violation is false and defies the laws of physics.

5.     ZEO Ennis is welcome to send a new notice of violation if a violation is ongoing.

6.     The notice was not based on a written complaint as required by the Town Zoning Ordinance.

7.     One of the two people who made the verbal complaint no longer lives in town. The remaining complaint, Mary Kline, is based on racial bias, as evidenced by her internet posts promoting violence and suggesting racial motivation, not dog barking.

8.     There have been 17 hearings on this issue in town hall, including a ZBA public hearing. More than 2000 pages and many gigabytes of digital documents are on file with state court pertaining to this matter. Your lawyer has all the documents and we would the entire record considered if any piece of the record is to be considered.

9.     The notice alleges a noise violation more than two years ago.

10.  There is no evidence of any violation, not even a written complaint, prior to the issuance of the notice of violation. No decibel readings, no sound tests, no coherent written complaint, nothing to indicate a violation existed on August 9, 2010 or exists now in 2012.

11.  The ZEO has explicitly, clearly and on the record linked his decision to issue a notice of violation to the publication of evidence of criminal activity by town employees on my blog. He said, "Mr. Pflaum thinks he can hide behind his computer and write whatever he wants." Correct. That is exactly what I think. The link between the notice of violation and free speech is on the record, recorded and part of the set of documents submitted to the Supreme Court as part of the Article 78 proceedings.

12.  No one who lives or works within 1500 feet of my barn has complained of dog barking. There is not one single complaint from anyone who lives or works within 1500 feet and letters of support indicating no dog barking problem from people who do live and work with 1500 feet.

13.  The ZBA includes town employees/spouses.

14.  An anonymous note attacking my family, submitted to the ZBA by the town clerk, who refuses to disclose the source of the note she introduced as evidence, an act endorsed by David Everett, remains part of the record before the board and has not been stricken from the record.

15.  Steve Montie, board member and town employee, has endorsed violence against me and said that I should move out of town in writing.  These were not slips of the tongue, as he maintains his advocacy of violence even as he sits on the board. Ed Scott also endorsed vigilante violence on video. Ed Scott stands by his promotion of violence. Mary Kline stands by her promotion of violence. Vandalism, as encouraged by town officials, has occurred at our property as a probably consequence of previous hearings here at the ZBA.

16.  The only town resident who complained of dog barking prior to August 9, 2010, Mary Kline, also endorses violence, posted racially charged attacks on my inter-racial family and lives more than 1600 feet away from the dog boarding facility. By endorsing the notice based solely on her complaint, the ZBA would be endorsing and encouraging her racist vigilantism.

17.  The ZEO is on record admitting to have stalked my property before dawn 25 times.

18.  A federal civil rights action is already filed on this case.

19.  The ZBA has already voted on the issue of noise. The majority of the board voted that there was no violation by a 3 to 2 vote. Two members voted that there was a noise violation, although they both acknowledged that the noise is not loud at the property line. The ZBA was unanimous in acknowledging no loud noise.

Sincerely,

Will Pflaum

2 posts from the columbia paper

A salt shed problem solved creatively in Ancram, just $6,500 spent, no bond issues... compare to Stuyvesant.

...some on a town board in Germantown, including Roy Brown who I met with for an hour to go over the invoices for Tal, concerned with honesty in accounting.  That's makes 2 on the ball in Germantown.

 ANCRAM:

 Town Highway Superintendent Jim MacArthur also got in on the money talk, telling the board he obtained two bids for a new metal roof for the old milk factory building, now the town's salt/sand shed. Installed by Highway Department personnel, a green metal roof will cost the town $6,982.95 and a shiny metal roof will cost $6,456.85. The board decided to go with the green metal since the new highway garage is green and the green is more “aesthetically pleasing.” Supervisor Bassin was pleased because the town had budgeted $20,000 for the new roof.

 GERMANTOWN:

Tal Rappleyea, the new town attorney, was introduced to the meeting. Via the Internet connection, which uses software called Skype, Ms. Snyder had expressed misgivings about Mr. Rappleyea's time commitments and the way he was hired. Mr. Craig said he would respond to Ms. Snyder via email, and Mr. Rappleyea assured the meeting that he had time for Germantown

here is another great new york state govenment lawyer

Stealing. Another crooked New York State lawyer. Being crooked seems to be what government lawyers do. Did you see the Sleepergate story too?

school board officials stealing pension credits

Does this sound like Sleepergate to you? Same type of scam.

state lawyer convicted of hate crimes

Those wacky municipal lawyers... the Klan upstate.

PANDORA'S BOX OF ROCKS: Escrow Accounts Pay for Whiteman Osterman & Hanna's Services at the Discretion of BP $ ACCIONA

my mother on aids in africa

snake and jellyfish

Will Pflaum

Instead of an elephant, Republicans should have the snake as their symbol. And the democrats should change from the donkey to the jellyfish. 

If Republicans nominate Newt Gingrich, however, then they will have to move to the platypus: as funny as a duck, only funnier than a duck.

crusader for open meetings

Roy Brown seems to be changing and growing. We all can learn from his example. I met with Mr. Brown on 1-17-2011, talking about attorney invoices for over an hour with observers, and found that he was indeed concerned about corruption in government. I appreciate Mr. Brown's initiatives.

Big story here. Sleepergate.

way to go sanctuary for independent media

WGXC WGXC: Hands-On Radio 

City of Troy settles with Sanctuary for Independent Media after shuttering center in 2008 for free speech reasons, now funds media art there

Big story here.

Kruger Used Campaign Contributions for defense

Columbia County News: ReformNY: Kruger Used Campaign Contributions to Pa...: ReformNY: Kruger Used Campaign Contributions to Pay Legal Fe... : New York’s notoriously weak campaign finance laws were highlighted this we...

District Attorney’s Office won't charge embezzler

Watertown Daily Times | Pitcairn town officials want action from District Attorney’s Office over alleged embezzlement

Sleepergate.