Politics

It might not have reached Mark Foley proportions, but for
local Democrats, a recent scandal at the Monroe County Water Authority has been
the gift that keeps on giving.

This summer, State Comptroller Alan Hevesi
released an audit of the authority, revealing its former director, John Stanwix, received a lavish compensation package to which he
wasn’t entitled.

For Democrats, that confirmed what they’d been saying all
along about county government — that it’s opaque and unaccountable.
Accordingly, they’re trying to wield the scandal as a tool for reform.

And they’ve some enjoyed limited success. Earlier this
summer, Democrat Legislator Travis Heider was
appointed the minority liaison to the Water Authority board, a position that
languished vacant recently.

But the Dems have a broader Water
Authority reform agenda. First, they want the County Legislature to conduct its
own investigation into the Stanwix affair. They also
want to reorganize the Water Authority board to include, by law, members of
both majority and minority parties. State law requires not more than five board
members be of the same party: the county meets that requirement by appointing two
Conservative Party members. (That last proposal comes from Heider,
who says he’s been frustrated in his role as liaison: not a member, he has no
vote and he’s been shut out of executive sessions.)

Lastly, they want the resignation of the three Water
Authority board members who were on the board when the benefits were handed out
and remain on it.

Now those plans appear dead. That’s thanks in part to a bit
of superb political theater by Republican Majority Leader Bill Smith at last
week’s Ways and Means Committee meeting.

Smith is an attorney, and it shows. By turns acidic and witty, he
turned aside each Democratic proposal with an air approaching that of a savvy
defense lawyer shooting down one prosecutorial argument after another, rather
than that of a statesman.

(Perhaps it’s a testament to the GOP’s fear of the Water
Authority scandal’s fallout that Smith alone argued against the Democrats. The
rest of his caucus — and these are no backbenchers; Dan Quattro, widely
expected to succeed Smith as Majority Leader, was among them — kept quiet,
even looking a little bored, as the debate raged around them.)

The first proposal considered called for the resignation of
three Water Authority board members.

“I realize this doesn’t have the force of law,” said
Legislator Paul Haney, who proposed it. “We can’t force the members of the
authority to resign.” Nevertheless, he added, “I would hope they would take the
expressed interest of this body seriously.”

But that played directly into Smith’s tactic, which was to
equate the comptroller’s Water Authority audit with a similarly damning one:
the management of the fast ferry by the Democratic Rochester city government.
Calling the referral “intellectually and morally dishonest,” Smith began
proposing an amendment using the same language but substituting the fast-ferry
board for the water authority board as a target for his call for resignations.
At the last moment, he yanked it, saying it’d be premature. As with the Water
Authority, there are open investigations into the ferry, he said. Without knowing
their results, he said, “it would be wrong for me to ask for those
resignations.”

Democrats leapt to highlight differences between the two
episodes but the damage was done. Smith managed to link the two disparate
debacles. And by jumping to point out the differences, the Dems
took the bait, allowing the argument to be framed in terms of a comparison to
the ferry.

Heider’s resolution to launch a legislative
investigation was similarly stymied by Smith, who demanded to know why another
investigation was needed. (Besides Hevesi, the DA is
reportedly looking into the Stanwix issue and the
Water Authority has retained a special counsel to investigate.)

“I think we need to identify what we think are the
deficiencies of the comptroller’s report,” Smith said.

Democratic legislators couldn’t answer that challenge
effectively.

On the final Democratic proposal, allowing the minority to
appoint two members, Smith succeeded in making a relatively common-sense
referral look like partisan posturing. (Caricaturing Heider’s
claim that having Democrats on the board would boost accountability, he pointed
to Rochester’s all-Democratic City Council and Philadelphia’s model, which
mandates that at least two councilmembers be
Republican, regardless of voters’ wishes.) Once again, Dems
couldn’t effectively argue their positions.

All three proposals failed by votes of 6 to 3. (Democratic
Legislator Ted O’Brien recused himself, since his law
partner Don Chesworth is the special counsel retained
by the Water Authority.)

By contrast, two GOP proposals sailed through the committee.
Minority leader Carla Palumbo tried to amend the proposal authorizing the
special counsel, to require him to report his findings to the legislature.

When Smith rose to speak against the amendment, the Dems got a bit of rhetorical revenge.

Smith said he didn’t hear the amendment, but added, “it doesn’t matter.”

“Because it came from a Democratic legislator,” quipped Palumbo, drawing laughter. But, no, the amendment
was out of order, Smith argued, since the proposal was only formalizing a
contract with Chesworth that had already been
executed, so nothing more could be added.

Palumbo’s amendment was ruled out of order and the proposal
passed unanimously.

This article appears in Oct 11-17, 2006.