New Rochelle Democrats Have the Better Plan for District 3 Appointment

Jim Stowe

Jim Stowe died suddenly this month, leaving an open seat for District 3 on the New Rochelle City Council. A special election on November 2 will select a councilmember to serve out the final year of Stowe's four-year term. Republicans and Democrats are in the process of selecting their candidates.

In the meantime, the City Council is evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans at three votes apiece. And because the winner on November 2 won't be sworn in until January 1, the Council will remain split during what may be a difficult budget negotiation this fall.

The Council has the power to appoint a replacement Councilmember to serve through January 1, and there's plenty of precedent. In 2006 the Council appointed Noam Bramson Mayor when Tim Idoni was elected Westchester County Clerk, and also appointed Barry Fertel to the District 5 seat Bramson had held. Soon after that, Jack Quinlan resigned his District 2 seat and Chris Selin, the retired Councilwoman from the same district, was appointed to replace him. And when, in 2000, Councilwoman Rhoda Quash died in office, the Council appointed Bea Brown for the six months until the November special election to fill out the term. (Brown was defeated in a primary in 2003 by ... Jim Stowe.)

Republicans on Council have used these precedents to argue that an appointment should be made right away. They propose Pearl Quarles, a qualified Republican for a strongly Democratic district. The three Democrats call for the winner on November 2 to be appointed immediately after the election, instead of waiting until January 1. Both sides are pushing for a resolution that favors them politically — Republicans would love a Republican majority for budget votes in December, while Democrats expect a Democrat to win the special election and give them back the majority. But the Democrats have a much stronger case.

The only issue coming before Council between now and January that might require a time-sensitive, tie-breaking vote is the budget. And since that vote will come after November 2, there's no reason not to wait for the voters' choice of representation, especially since the current, temporary partisan divide on Council would make it very difficult to find a consensus candidate. Wait just two short months and let Jim Stowe's constituents choose his successor.

Republicans right now may feel like refusing to go along with the Democrats' proposal burnishes their image heading into next year's city-wide election, but immediately after November 2 it's going to be very difficult for all three of them to stonewall seating the special election's winner. At least one of them will blink.

NYDEMS: "Could be worse"

Underwhelming message at the top of the New York State Democratic Committee's TV ad "slamming" the two GOP candidates for governor:

Albany. A swamp of corruption. Overrun with lobbyists and special interests. It could get worse.

I guess they just didn't see any way to defend the Democrats who've been running the place.

Ce n'est pas un bus

Existing bus routes in
Tuckahoe and Bronxville.

Can Westchester's tax cut fever be cured by nostalgia?

Westchester's Bee-Line bus service faces cuts and Tuckahoe has been arguing for a decade against the empty buses that run through the village. But a new diesel-powered trolley? With mahogany panels and brass handrails? Just like in the old days? Oh goody!

Patch.com has the underwhelming video.

Marcotte Money

In light of the Journal News article today about the LD-10 special election, which was a little loose in its analysis of campaign fundraising, I thought I would summarize what was discovered reviewing campaign finance disclosure forms last month (here, here, here, and here).

• Marcotte did not win "despite being outspend fourfold," as the JN headline attests -- even the numbers within the article don't support that claim. While it's true that Varian's campaign committee raised over $40K and Marcotte's campaign committee raised under $4K (that would be "outraised tenfold"), the total amount spent on Marcotte's behalf by the County and State GOP came to $43K, just over the $41K spent on Varian's campaign. In no way was Marcotte outspent.
• Marcotte had a $125/person fundrasier at Lake Isle on June 9. Checks that night were written to the WRCC 21st Century Fund, an arm of the County GOP, then sent on to the State GOP to be used for Marcotte mail. She raised about $14K that night. So add that to the $4K her own committee pulled in, and you could legitimately say that Marcotte was able to raise $18K.
• $43K spent minus $18K raised leaves $25K unaccounted for. But looking through the financial disclosure forms of the relevant GOP players shows a big $25K check written to the 21st Century Fund, then passed along to the State GOP to pay for Marcotte's direct mail. Who wrote that check? Legislator (and Supreme Court Justice candidate) Jim Maisano.
• For the math-impaired headline writers at the Journal News, $25K is a little more than fourteen times the legal contribution limit of $1,750.

Here's a better headline for the story:

Sheila Marcotte victory courtesy of $25,000 truck driven by Jim Maisano through campaign finance loopholes

Vote the New Way?

Okay, New York, you've had almost ten years to get ready. You're the last state in the country to comply with the Help America Vote Act of 2002. Now you have just six weeks to prepare 4 million voters who have been using mechanical lever machines for decades. To make sure the public service campaign is as clear as possible and that Election Day doesn't turn into a big bungling mess, you (a) hire one of NYC's premier graphic design teams to create fool-proof visuals and a compelling instructions, or (b) ask the BOE intern with a laptop to throw something together in Microsoft Word?

Oh no! You blew it!

Is Jim Maisano Sheila Marcotte's Fairy Godmother?

Maisano and Marcotte

Jim Maisano is the other County Legislator representing New Rochelle, from what was previously considered the Republican part of town. This past November he won re-election for a seventh 2-year term. He's also the Minority Leader of the Board of Legislators. He's also now running for Supreme Court Justice for the 9th Judicial District.

Looking at Friends of Jim Maisano financial reports, he's had a consistent, modest war chest for a while now. In 2009 he hardly raised or spent and money for his uncontested campaign. In his January 2010 filing (the most recent currently online), Maisano said he had $43,500 in the bank.

On April 9, 2010, Legislator Vito Pinto announced that he was resigning his seat representing Eastchester, Tuckahoe, and the (ahem) Democratic part of New Rochelle to take a job in the Astorino administration.

Three days later, Jim Maisano contributed $25,000 to the WRCC 21st Century Fund. This is the constituted committee that Rob Astorino used in 2009 to funnel campaign funds to the State GOP to pay for political mail. And it's the committee that this year was the unofficial fundraising arm of Sheila Marcotte's campaign for LD-10: when Marcotte held her June 9 fundraiser at Lake Isle, all those $125 checks were made out to WRCC 21C.

Is it normal for Jim Maisano to contribute more than half his reserves to the County GOP in a non-election year? Consider that he has contributed a total of only $1,125 over 5 years to the County GOP, and until 2010 had never given any money at all to the 21st Century Fund. This looks like a very targeted contribution.

But just to be fair, Marcotte did hold that June 9 fundraiser. Maybe she's a superstar and raised, all on her own, the money she needed for this campaign?



That adds up to only $13,725. But the WRCC 21C sent $37,500 to the State GOP during this time to pay for Marcotte mail (the only expenditures the State GOP had during this short window), and spent $1,800 directly on ads in the Hometown Media newspapers, for a total of $39,100. So for the WRCC 21C to cover its Marcotte debt, in addition to the June 9 fundraiser they'd need ... oh, just about $25,000.

In effect, Jim Maisano bankrolled Marcotte's special election to the tune of fourteen times the legal contribution limit of $1,750.

Two days after she was elected to sit next to Maisano on the County Board of Legislators, Marcotte attended the Maisano for Justice fundraiser at Dudley's in New Rochelle. She wrote his campaign a personal check for $150. At that rate, it'll take her an awfully long time to pay him back.

Following the Money in Westchester

It wasn't the County Republican Party, exactly, but the committee called WRCC 21st Century Fund that passed money to the State GOP to pay for Sheila Marcotte's winning campaign last month in Westchester. The State GOP filings incorrectly list "Westchester Co. GOP" as the contributor of over $100,000 this year, but the WRCC 21C filings match the amounts and the check numbers. Easy mistake, since the 21C committee and the County GOP operate out of the same office in White Plains.

As does Friends of Rob Astorino. In fact, after poking around the filings for Astorino and WRCC 21C, it's clear that Astorino last year turned this sleepy sub-committee into his conduit for campaign funds. Before his election in 2009, he pushed $138,000 through WRCC 21C to the State GOP; along with $64,000 from Dan Schorr, plus a little more from assorted other Republican candidates, there was $210,000 the State GOP used to pay for County-wide Republican campaigns.

Astorino contributed to WRCC 21C; 21C contributed to the State GOP; the State GOP paid for Astorino campaign mail. Which looks like the money was being laundered, except I can't yet figure out the reason for it. Why pass the money through so many hands? Why risk losing control of how it's spent? Especially since, in shunting so much money to one place, Astorino actually opened himself up to campaign finance violations — there's no limit to how much he can spend on his own mail, but there is a limit to how much he can contribute to a party or constituted committee: $94,200. He shot way past that in 2009.

Anyway, Astorino's contributions were already out of WRCC 21C hands by the time Vito Pinto decided to open up a legislative seat for special election, so Marcotte doesn't have Astorino to thank for her funds. Instead, someone else picked up the ball as soon as Pinto was out the door, someone determined enough to add a Republican to the County Legislature that he donated more than half of his own war chest to be used for the special election before an official nominee had even been named.

I wonder if Marcotte even knows who her benefactor is?