Category: Uncategorized

“Carl being Carl” means threatening Republican delegates. The Hill reports that Carl Paladino casually calls for the hanging of people with whom he disagrees, and throws the word “treason” around a lot. 

Stefani Williams, a vocal member of the Free the Delegates movement, told The Hill that Carl Paladino sent a menacing email in response to her pitch to the convention’s credentials committee. Paladino serves on that committee. 

“You should be hung [sic] for treason Stefani. There will not be a Republican Party if you attempt to replace Trump. I’ll be in your face in Cleveland,” Paladino allegedly wrote, according to an email that Williams shared with The Hill. 

The email’s sender matches an email address used by Paladino, a former New York gubernatorial candidate. 

“I was pretty taken aback that a delegate, for one, and a member of the credentials committee would send such a nasty, threatening email,” Williams told The Hill. 

“There have been some less-than pleasant emails I’ve received from delegates, but this was the top.” 

When reached by email Thursday, Paladino didn’t deny that he had sent the message. 

“What the person was proposing is to encourage violation of the rules of the Republican Party under which Donald Trump rose legally to be the presumptive candidate,” Paladino wrote in an email to The Hill. “The person is being treacherous to the party in doing so and as such the colloquialism is appropriate and if the person’s underwear is all bunched up over his or her sensitivity to my reaction then tell the person if he or she can’t take the heat of what he or she dished out, then get out of the kitchen.”

What Carl Paladino – a Trump surrogate and local developer with ties to myriad political figures – is saying here is that it’s perfectly normal and reasonable for him to call for the hanging of someone with whom he disagrees. For Mr. Paladino – a former and possibly future candidate for statewide office, and a current trustee on the Buffalo Board of Education tasked with overseeing a troubled school district made up of young people – disagreements over the arcana of internal Republican convention rules should be resolved through threats of murder. 

Hey, kudos to keyboard warrior Paladino finally learning how to spell “underwear”, though, right? 

I don’t really have a hot take for you in response to the news of yet another terrorist mass murder in western Europe. These attacks are horrific for their randomness, their senselessness, and their carnage. It doesn’t matter if it’s a pressure cooker bomb in Boston, a truck in Nice, an AK-47 in Paris, or a bomb in Istanbul or Baghdad – terrorism is not a new phenomenon, and hysteria is not a reasonable reaction to it. 

People who follow Donald Trump cheered his call for a “declaration of war” against ISIS or “radical Islamic terrorism”. Some took to Twitter last night to insist that President Obama doesn’t have the “will” to win a war against ISIS, and should ask Congress for a declaration of war, just like FDR did in December 1941. 

But ISIS isn’t Nazi Germany. It isn’t a real state with a real army. What happened in Nice wasn’t an act of war by one army attacking another. This was a slaughter of innocent people by mass murderers. You cannot declare war against jihadist intent. You cannot firebomb Paris or Brussels and slaughter millions in order to also get the bad guys. In fact, declaring war against ISIS plays right into that group’s hands, as it lends them the legitimacy they so deeply crave. 

It bears mentioning here that ISIS is losing in Syria, is losing in Iraq, and the ISIS jihadist fad is on the decline. Living in a brutal, totalitarian, merciless, homicidal pseudo-“caliphate” may sound appealing to a bored kid in the banlieues, but getting vaporized by a drone strike doesn’t hold the appeal for disaffected French North African millenials it once did. 

ISIS is a death cult attracting unemployed, disaffected Arab youth from Europe much like Charles Manson attracted unemployed, disaffected upper-middle class hippies in the 60s. The only thing that can be done is to invest more heavily and improve our electronic surveillance and expand our efforts to infiltrate these groups in order to improve our ability to predict where and when these will happen. Nothing we do – or refrain from doing – in the Middle East will stop these attacks in the West, which are perpetrated almost exclusively by citizens of the very countries being victimized.

These attacks are happening in Western Europe because those nation-states have almost no history or tradition of assimilating immigrants. Places like France were once homogeneous; never a melting pot of nationalities like the United States. We are far better at avoiding this because we have wider, better experience welcoming and assimilating people from different religions, ethnicities, races, and cultures. Not so for European nation-states. 

No wall will keep out a kid of Tunisian extraction with a French passport. No declaration of war will halt a bunch of Algerian twentysomethings from slaughtering concertgoers in the name of some perversion of religion. The unique social, national, and economic situations among Arab immigrants from former colonies in once-ethnically homogeneous European countries have no analogue here. The US should certainly be at the lead in this fight against jihadist terrorism, but by no means should we overreact or hand these murderers the propaganda victories they so desperately want. 

Senate District 60

Is there something in the water in the 60th? After jettisoning smart, brave, and competent Republican Mark Grisanti, the predominately Democratic district elected Marc Panepinto, who will only serve one term. So, it’s an open seat and it’s been a typically turbulent primary race throughout the spring and summer, as the Democrats couldn’t decide what to do after Panepinto quit the race. Although Parkside activist Amber Small has been running for months, Democratic HQ flirted with running someone like Assemblyman Sean Ryan, and others. In the end, Small was the only person left running, mostly because the Republicans are running millionaire developer and county clerk Chris Jacobs as their endorsed candidate. In a normal place, that would be the race: Small vs. Jacobs and let them have at it.

But the 60th Senate District isn’t a normal place. 

Democrat Al Coppola is running for perhaps the millionth time, and careful observers will recall that the turnout two years ago was so anemic that Coppola actually gave Panepinto a run for his money. Coppola reportedly submitted his nominating petitions on Wednesday, and was assisted in that effort by people who have ties to Steve Pigeon and Panepinto. Rumor has it that Panepinto is livid at Small for announcing a primary race against him well before he got caught up in a scandal and decided not to run, and this may be evidence of that. 

The Republicans have their own perennial candidate running a primary, Kevin Stocker, who lost to Panepinto two Novembers ago. Stocker will likely self-fund, and he’ll force Jacobs to spend some money before September. How he does in the primary should, in a normal place, inform Stocker’s decision to carry on in September. But, see above – this isn’t a normal place, and Stocker has already said he’ll run on a minor party line – whether it’s one he wins a slot on, or one he creates as a vanity party. If true, Stocker and Jacobs can split the conservative vote, and Small can benefit from the Democratic enrollment advantage. 

Assembly 144

My Assemblywoman, Jane Corwin, isn’t going back to Albany next year. She’s quitting, and it didn’t come to light until two days before petitions are due. This means that party bosses get to essentially hand-pick (technically, it’s done by a committee). This is all convenient because the Democrats didn’t bother to run anyone against the incumbent in a district with a 60/40 Republican enrollment advantage, but vacant seats are a different animal.

With public integrity and reform so high on people’s minds, the time is ripe for a genuine race in the 144th, but it’s too late for the Democrats to circulate petitions for anyone now. So, while Corwin seeks to score points for “term limiting” herself, she did so in a way that ensures that the democratic process is completely thwarted and the constituency is force-fed a candidate whom one party’s bosses select.  The only option now is a write-in campaign, which is tricky but not impossible. 

Assembly 143

Law Professor and former law clerk to a federal judge, Monica Wallace, is campaigning hard, and she’s had some very successful fundraisers. When mid-July campaign disclosures come out next week, look for her status as front-runner to be further cemented. Given her opponent’s 2013 “experience” as treasurer for the scandalous WNY Progressive Caucus, everyone will be examining the accuracy and timing of those reports. 

Maybe old Caucasian politicians should just stay off of Twitter. Maybe people should think or reflect before they Tweet. When you’re running for President, believe it or not, every retweet is, actually, an endorsement. When you’re a Caucasian member of the Board of Education in a school district whose population is overwhelmingly African-American, even a casual sensitivity to that fact would be expected – demanded. 

People like Donald Trump and his mini-me, Carl Paladino, make mistakes like everyone else, and mistakes can be forgiven. But that forgiveness is not an entitlement, but something earned. You have to apologize. You have to be contrite. You have to own it, and take some adult responsibility. Maybe – if you’re up for it – recognize how insensitive it seemed, and show some remorse or regret. Don’t offer an “sorry you were offended” non-apology – say something like, “I am horrified by this error I made, and I apologize for making it.” But Trump and Paladino are cowards. They’re so wrapped up in their reputations for being un-PC, that they can’t just man up and admit they were wrong. After all, if they admit fallibility, they succumb to the “PC crowd” itself, and lose their followers’ perverse respect. Instead, blame the media. Blame the millennial running your Twitter for you. Blame liberals. Blame Hillary. Blame Obama, Kenya, and long-form birth certificates. Blame progressives. Being Donald or Carl means never having to say you’re sorry. 

Donald Trump had already favorably retweeted several “alt-right” (which is the right wing’s politically correct term for neo-Nazi) Twitter accounts before his latest dalliance with anti-Semitism. It’s why so many accounts had (((echoes))) around them over the past few months. This isn’t just an accident – this is a deliberate appeal to a constituency that hates everything and everyone not white and male. It has its genesis in Trump’s ignorant, racist, and quixotic effort to prove that President Obama was born in Kenya. Trump went where few other mainstream Republicans would go; not satisfied simply accusing Obama of hating America and everything it stands for, Trump took the extra step of insisting that Obama wasn’t even one of us. He’s other. You can see it, can’t you? 

The support Trump now enjoys from the neo-Nazi and neo-Confederate fringes – the people with totenkopf and “88” tattoos, and the guys running rusted coal rollers with massive Confederate treason flags – don’t much care about Hillary’s emails or Trump’s policies. However, they love Trump’s anti-Mexican and anti-Muslim animus, and his ignorant pronouncements and promises of walls and exclusion. Trump’s desire for this support is proven by his cultivation of it. 

Late last week, Trump retweeted a neo-Nazi Twitter account that had a picture of Hillary Clinton superimposed on hundred dollar bills with a Star of David bearing words accusing her of being corrupt. Trump and his surrogates lurch between excuses: “It’s a sheriff’s badge!” “It’s in Microsoft Shapes!” to outright defense of the Tweet as recently as Wednesday night. Klansman David Duke loved the Tweet – especially the Star of David. 

But context is everything and Trump never saw where the original image came from – a neo-Nazi, anti-Semitic account. That is all the explanation anyone needs. But through his long-winded defiance, Trump solidifies his overt dalliance with the White Nationalists. They are his, and he is theirs, and this week underscored that simple equation. 

It’s true that Hillary Clinton has a big problem with trustworthiness, and this week’s mess of news about her private email server – the substance of which is for another time – has reconfirmed a lot of those suspicions for people on the right and left alike. But the Republican standard-bearer screwed it up. On the day the Republicans needed only to be sane, he was insane. On the day the Republicans needed to be concise and credible, he was neither. He blew it. Instead, the big headline was about Donald Trump praising a genocidal dictator for his skill at “killing terrorists”, perhaps ignoring if not forgetting the whole “gassing Kurds” and “invading Kuwait” thing. 

(One thing strikes me when listening to Trump’s interminably long, self-indulgent, petulant speeches: he is doing a low-rent, unfunny, racist impression of Howard Stern. You hear it in his tone of voice, when he exaggerates his Queens accent, in his syntax and diction. He thinks he’s being comedy-angry, like when Howard yells at Scott the Engineer over a mic that’s not working, or an intern who brought the wrong lunch. But Trump has no sense of humor and never got the joke; whereas Stern would have on KKK guys ironically to laugh at their ignorance, Trump seems to think it was a compelling set of interviews. Stern is an entertainer with a biting wit, whereas Trump is just a listener who doesn’t get it.)

Locally, we have home-grown Trump surrogate and depraved notable Carl Paladino. Wednesday morning, he Tweeted the image shown above, “Lynch @LorettaLynch let a grand jury decide”. The tweet was taken down after 30 minutes, and replaced without the first Lynch, (and in such a way that only people who follow both Paladino and Lynch would be able to see it). Michael Wooten at WGRZ caught it and got Paladino’s account to tweet this: 

I inadvertently called for the genocidal vigilante hanging of the sitting African-American Attorney General. “My bad.”

Paladino quickly blamed his employee, former Assembly staffer Jackie O’Bannon, for sending the first Tweet with the first “Lynch” inadvertently added. Funny for the almost-septuagenarian Tweeter to let the millennial take the fall, rather than just be a man and take the hit. While the ghoulish Paladino hasn’t Tweeted much, he’s had an account since 2009 – seven years. 

If Carl Paladino was a normal human being, he’d perhaps be entitled to the benefit of the doubt. We might take at face value that this was just an innocent screw-up by a staffer who runs his Twitter, rather than an aborted call to hang Loretta Lynch from a tree with a rope around her neck. But Carl Paladino long ago forfeited that doubt, and doesn’t have the courage or character to show contrition for something he says was an inadvertent mistake. (You don’t just get to say, “I didn’t mean it.” You have to say, “I’m sorry”.  At least, that’s what I teach my kids.) 

This is a guy who, when he’s not sending his buddies blatantly racist garbage (in one case even being called out for it by one of them), is busy dancing around the fringes of racial animus, going as far as the public and media will permit. To date, that well of tolerance has proven to be deep and wide. This is a guy who sent around pictures of President Obama and his wife as a blaxploitation pimp and whore. Paladino sent a picture showing a plane seemingly landing on top of a group of running Africans with the caption, “run, niggers, run!” On what basis does this guy deserve the benefit of this doubt? 

So, no, I don’t buy that this was an innocent mistake. Past being prologue, I think it was affirmatively typed out that way for a reason, and Paladino doesn’t deserve people buying his blame-shifting excuse. His cowardly flailing about, blaming the help and liberals, would be pathetic even for a middle-schooler. Paladino told CNN, 

I intended to say to Lynch to send the FBI report to the grand jury to decide criminality which she is legally obligated to do,” Paladino said in an email. “I have never personally tweeted. We are novices. My assistant tried to send it directly to Loretta Lynch by adding ‘@Loretta Lynch.’ It was a well-intended mistake that the progressive press wants to take out of context.”

It wasn’t “well-intended”. It was objectively ill-intended. He’s been on Twitter for 7 years, so the time for rookie mistakes long ago came and went. Here’s what he emailed to ABC News: 

To be clear, that’s a millionaire developer college graduate and elected member of a Board of Education who can’t spell “Loretta” or “underwear”. 

The main reason we know the “Lynch @Loretta Lynch” tweet wasn’t a novice mistake or inadvertent is that Paladino won’t apologize for it. Like Trump, he is physically, psychologically, and intellectually incapable of admitting he did something wrong and saying, “sorry”. Trump isn’t sorry he – perhaps inadvertently – retweeted an anti-Semite’s anti-Semitic image, and Paladino isn’t sorry he – perhaps inadvertently – called for the genocidal vigilante murder of the Attorney General. (I don’t believe either one was inadvertent, nor does either man deserve that indulgence.) So, what that all means is that some people matter to Trump and Paladino, but others don’t. They’re ok with that, and their cult-like followers aren’t just ok with it, they’re proud of it. This is making “America great”. This is #AmericaFirst. Blame “liberal progressives”, and retreat to your safe space – right-wing talk radio. 

Hillary Clinton is perceived as being dishonest, so the Republicans trot out men who are more full of shit than an overextended septic tank to run campaigns against her.  Donald Trump and Carl Paladino are liars, too, but they’re more bombastic and unapologetic about it. 

I don’t have a problem with Republicans attacking Hillary Clinton for her trustworthiness, honesty, or policies. That’s all fair game. But the appeal to Nazis and racists is shameful, and the local Republican committee has absolutely nothing to say about it, lending instead tacit approval. If you think America isn’t already great, and needs to be “great again”, behaving like a reasonable human being would be a good example to set. 

Pigeonism is over. No longer can that individual credibly participate in any electoral process, anywhere. He owes more than three Teslas’ worth in unpaid federal taxes, he is under arrest – although free on bond – accused of nine felony counts, including grand larceny by extortion. Right now, two races are testing the scattered Pigeonistas’ ability to continue the patronage gravy train without their depraved guru. In the Assembly 143 race, the former treasurer for the WNY Progressive Caucus (“AwfulPAC”) is running as a Democrat, despite being a major player at the epicenter of the events that led to Pigeon’s downfall. The acting District Attorney, Michael Flaherty, has surrounded himself with Pigeon operatives, and had the nerve to comment on the Michalek conviction Wednesday despite the fact that Flaherty and his predecessor/mentor failed and refused to prosecute the alleged crimes that led to the Pigeon/Michalek bribery counts. 

The word is chutzpah, and we have a glut of it here in western New York. Flaherty has the chutzpah to comment on a conviction his office could have – and should have – prosecuted. Mazurek has the chutzpah to try and make it a scandalous trifecta in the A-143, after the disgraces of Gabryszak and Wozniak. Pigeon and Michalek had the chutzpah not only to devise a jobs-for-fixing-cases arrangement, but were so brazen as to memorialize it all in writing, believing they’d never be seen or caught. Sure, you can tell in some of what’s been released that Pigeon was uncomfortable discussing the ongoing corrupt behavior in emails, but Michalek had no similar qualms. These were two men who were sure this would never be revealed. 

What it says to me is that this was likely how people generally operated with Pigeon. All of it was corrupt horse trading of influence for jobs. It all boils down to how the patronage gets dealt, and to whom.

You scratch my back, I subvert one of the foundations of our pluralist democratic republic – an independent and impartial judiciary. 

Ultimately, this all reveals quite clearly that Steve Pigeon was the strongman of a shadow banana republic that operated quite freely and openly for a couple of decades. Pigeon might have been deposed, but his diehards continue their insurgency in A-143, with Flaherty, and perhaps even with Republican state Senate candidate Kevin Stocker, based on rumors I’ve heard. 

I think that it’s becoming clear that what’s left of the Pigeon faction is not going to find great success this election season. They are rudderless and will find it harder to fund their campaigns without Uncle Steve miraculously coming up with hundreds of thousands of dollars in shadily-sourced, seldom properly disclosed funding. The best Flaherty’s Pigeonista ally Jim Eagan can do is buy a Flynn-sounding URL and redirect it to Flaherty’s own site. Weak sauce, shady, savage, salty, are all terms the kids would use for that idiot tactic, and it does nothing to promote the candidate. It simply demeans the office and the process. 

The Republicans, who so often conspired with Pigeon to screw the Democrats, have been uncharacteristically silent, given the disgraceful fall of two prominent local (nominal) Democrats. You’d expect them to be howling, but in this case, Pigeon was oftentimes the greatest gift they could ever have. For instance, it was Pigeon who engineered the 2010 coup in the County Legislature, that transformed a majority Democratic body into a rubber-stamp for the execrable Chris Collins. Just months earlier, he had manipulated a similar coup to transform a Democratic state Senate Majority into a Republican one. That one earned Pigeon a patronage job under convicted felon Pedro Espada. 

In the Preetsmas series of articles, I coined the phrase, “Pigeoning: pi·geon·ing ˈpi-jən-iŋ: (n) the action of using money and influence, oftentimes pushing the election law envelope, to actively sabotage and undermine the Erie County Democratic Committee.” As you might imagine, this oftentimes required the Republicans, but especially the obsequious fusion parties – “Independence” and “Conservative” alike – to conspire with Pigeon to advance not just candidates, but their committees’ access to patronage jobs.

Nothing that Steve Pigeon ever did brought about real reform or good government. Nothing he touched had anything to do with policy, or helping the community – it was all about enriching Pigeon and the pilot fish who clung to him. Western New Yorkers of every party, of every race, of every nationality, of every class deserve so much better than what Pigeon and his cult offered. 

For many, including me, the Michalek bribery charges were anti-climactic. There’s got to be more. What happened to the election law crimes? Former DA Mark Sacha, who is also running for DA, and was instrumental in pushing the allegations of Pigeon’s criminality to the authorities, says that there remain election law-related felonies that could still be prosecuted. He suggests that they’re being swept under the rug because of politics. I hear rumors of other state court judges who have lawyered up. The FBI confirmed yesterday that a federal investigation is ongoing, and Attorney General Schneiderman made it clear that the state’s own investigation is also “ongoing”. There will no doubt be more. In fact, the FBI called this bribery investigation as only “one prong” of a multi-faceted, ongoing investigation. 

There has to be more. I suspect that the Michalek bribery case is just the amuse bouche – the low-hanging, easy to reach fruit that can be pushed through quickly to reassure an impatient public that progress is being made. All the while, law enforcement continues to build its other cases against Pigeon and others. 

(Bonus: read Ken Kruly’s retrospective and analysis here). 

This is all great for western New York generally, reasserting control over our political process and restoring some integrity to the process. But don’t overlook what a huge victory this is for the Erie County Democratic Committee and its chairman, Jeremy Zellner. Every time he’s been disrespected, dismissed, insulted as “young and inexperienced” by Pigeonistas and pundits, he’s maintained his professionalism. He’s taken his licks, and he’s come out on top. Every time someone disrespects him as a “boy”, he can simply wave a copy of the Pigeon indictment around and silently claim victory. Not victory as in, he’ll win every race he backs, but the victory of being the only chief of a Democratic faction who’s not under arrest facing nine felony counts of bribery and extortion. 

Pass the popcorn, because we’re just watching the trailers. 

Unc Steve, how’d you do with the Gov???? – former Supreme Court Justice John Michalek asking G. Steven Pigeon about his efforts to help Michalek ascend to the Appellate Division, 4th Department

Bombshells fell on Buffalo’s legal and political circles Wednesday when it was announced that Supreme Court Justice Michalek would plead guilty to charges relating to bribery and filing a false instrument, and that former Erie County Democratic Chairman and Pedro Espada patronage hire G. Steven Pigeon would appear in court on similar allegations on Thursday. 

On May 28, 2015, state and federal law enforcement executed search warrants at the homes of Pigeon, former Buffalo Deputy Mayor Steve Casey, and Chris Grant, former chief of staff to Congressman Chris Collins. The raids stemmed from allegations of campaign finance illegalities arising out of a failed political committee run by Assembly candidate Kristy Mazurek in 2013 called the “WNY Progressive Caucus”, or as I call it, “AwfulPAC”. (Click this link to see the complete compendium of Preetsmas/AwfulPAC posts since 2015).

Since then, Western New Yorkers have wondered what was going on with this investigation, especially as the statute of limitations for campaign misdemeanors came and went. We now have part of the answer: The first domino to fall will be Judge Michalek, a well-regarded straight-shooter of a judge. A huge cache of emails from Pigeon’s computers revealed a scheme to engage in bribery: 

State prosecutors will contend that an “understanding” existed between Michalek and Pigeon that the judge would engage in “official misconduct which advanced Pigeon’s interests,” according to the source who is familiar with the felony charges. The charges will accuse Michalek of “accepting and agreeing to accept benefits from Pigeon,” the source said.

In exchange for Pigeon’s help in finding jobs for two of Michalek’s relatives, and Pigeon’s help recommending Michalek for a seat on the Appellate Division of the 4th Department in Rochester, Michalek would make rulings on cases that were favorable to Pigeon’s interests, and went so far as to have Pigeon appointed referee on an Amherst foreclosure, which would have netted Pigeon a few hundred dollars. 

Here, it should be noted that it was Pigeon’s once supposedly tight relationship with Governor Cuomo that likely would have prompted Judge Michalek to reach out for help getting an “App Div” appointment in 2012, and Pigeon responded, “I will start talking u up.”  

According to one of the seized emails, Michalek assigned Pigeon to work on a foreclosure, with more emails between Pigeon and Michalek illustrating the judge’s official misconduct and the benefits that Pigeon provided to the judge and his family members, the source said.

In March 2012, Michalek emailed Pigeon regarding a lawsuit pending before him, providing Pigeon with nonpublic details concerning a motion filed by a nonparty to the litigation seeking a protective order from a subpoena served by one of the parties, the source said.

In a written decision issued about two weeks later, Michalek denied the motion for a protective order, just as Pigeon had requested. Michalek then sent Pigeon an email with a copy of the decision attached and thanked Pigeon for “his efforts” on behalf of his first relative looking for a job, the source said.

Pigeon responded by email a short time later with an offer of additional assistance to the relative.

Small potatoes stuff—this is the political equivalent of nabbing Al Capone on tax evasion. But it’s a start, and we’ll wait and see what’s in the Pigeon indictment, and whether Schneiderman might have more cases still left to unpack. 

Statement on today’s public corruption proceedings in #Buffalo: pic.twitter.com/n3e5n27cVd

— Eric Schneiderman (@AGSchneiderman) June 29, 2016

While at first blush a lot of this seems like just a guy helping his buddy’s relative get a job or two, there are concrete allegations that there was a series of quids pro quo between Michalek and Pigeon—at least enough to get them both disbarred. This is the tip of a massive iceberg—think of all the petty corruption you suspect or know about that never gets reported, much less prosecuted. Michalek has pled guilty, so it’s safe to say that Michalek agreed to manipulate the outcome of cases before him in exchange for the use of whatever influence Steve Pigeon might have had at the time regarding a handful of jobs and patronage appointments. 

A sitting Supreme Court Justice just pled guilty to two felonies related to bribery, and will be sentenced in late September. He is cooperating with law enforcement, and Steve Pigeon is next to appear in court regarding charges arising out of the same set of facts—possibly more. 

Query why then-DA Frank Sedita didn’t pursue the complaints made by his deputy Mark Sacha around 2009, or the AwfulPAC allegations in 2013. 

It looks like Preetsmas is finally here, and that there’s quite obviously much more to come. And it’s been a long time coming. 

Here, courtesy of WGRZ, is the text of the indictment against Michalek. 

Michalek Indictment – From New York State Attorney General’s Office by WGRZ-TV

Political operative G. Steven Pigeon appeared in state Supreme Court in Buffalo Thursday morning before Justice Donald Cerio to be arraigned on an indictment alleging nine felony counts. Pigeon pled not guilty. 

The special grand jury that had been meeting in Buffalo for many weeks returned its sealed indictment on June 28th. Assistant Attorney General Susan Sadinsky from the Public Integrity Bureau unsealed and served the indictment on Pigeon and his counsel, Paul Cambria in court Thursday morning. 

The grand jury indicted Pigeon on bribery in the 2nd and 3rd degree, six counts of rewarding official misconduct in the 2nd degree, and grand larceny in the 3rd degree. If convicted, Pigeon faces a sentence of 15 years in prison on the grand larceny charge.

The charges are related to those that brought down former Supreme Court Justice John Michalek on Wednesday, but here it is alleged that Michalek appointed a Pigeon associate to a lucrative receivership, selecting an attorney of Pigeon’s choosing who was absent from a court list of qualified receivers. To secure the appointment, Michalek filed a document with the Office of Court Administration falsely claiming that he required that attorney’s expertise in handling that receivership. In turn, Pigeon is alleged to have committed grand larceny by extortion by illegally extracting a $5,000 “consulting fee” from the receiver who had refused to hire several of Pigeon’s “cronies.” 

In a press release, Attorney General Schneiderman characterizes the Pigeon-related corruption inquiry as “ongoing.”

Assistant AG Sadinsky sought that Judge Cerio impose $25,000 bail to secure Pigeon’s future attendance in court, citing his penchant for international travel and the seriousness of the charges. Cambria argued that Pigeon vehemently denies the charges, and that Pigeon is not a flight risk due as evidenced by his presence in court today, his law license, and his ties to the community. Judge Cerio imposed $10,000 cash bail and $25,000 bond, which Pigeon arranged for immediately after the arraignment. Motions will be heard in mid-September.

Afterwards, Cambria addressed the press and indicated that he was not aware of any ongoing law enforcement inquiry into the matters that led to the Preetsmas raids of May 28, 2015. 

Former Assistant District Attorney Mark Sacha, who is running for the office this year, also addressed the press. Sacha was disappointed that none of the underlying election law violations that led to the 2015 raids were being pursued, and confirmed that some of them were still ripe for prosecution. He suspects that political concerns are playing a role in letting those charges go. 

Schneiderman will be in Buffalo this afternoon to address the press and provide an update as to the status of these corruption investigations. 

Courtesy of WGRZ, here is the text of the indictment against Pigeon: 

Pigeon Indictment by WGRZ-TV

District Attorney candidate John Flynn issued the following press release: 

Today’s indictments are exactly the reason community members and leaders from both law enforcement and the legal profession asked me to run for Erie County District Attorney.

Over the past several years, allegations of illegal campaign finance schemes and transactions were brought to then Erie County District Attorney Frank Sedita and First Deputy District Attorney Mike Flaherty.  Both looked the other way when it came to Steve Pigeon for one reason: he was their political ally.  Obviously NYS Attorney General Eric Schneiderman thought there was enough evidence to investigate the complaints and as a result found extensive criminal behavior which was outlined in court over the last two days.

Steve Pigeon and other bad actors could have been stopped years earlier, and crimes prevented, if only Mike Flaherty and the DA’s office had taken an interest in political corruption.

It is time for a change in the DA’s office.  Today’s indictment combined with the fact that Steve Pigeon associates are running Mike Flaherty’s campaign are reason enough why Flaherty is not a credible candidate for Erie County District Attorney.  As District Attorney, I will follow the evidence wherever it leads and work to restore confidence by changing the culture of the DA’s office, and taking politics out of the decision making process.

Attorney General Eric Schneiderman held a press conference in his Buffalo office Thursday afternoon to discuss the conviction of former State Supreme Court Justice John Michalek on corruption and bribery charges, and the arraignment earlier today of political operative G. Stephen Pigeon. 

Schneiderman expounded on the charges against Pigeon, and provided some more detail about underlying facts of the case, and Pigeon and Michalek’s allegedly corrupt relationship. Notably, a representative from the FBI confirmed that there also exists an ongoing, parallel federal investigation into Mr. Pigeon’s dealings – an investigation that hasn’t yet brought about any charges. Mr. Schneiderman also would not confirm or deny whether a special grand jury was considering any additional charges, but confirmed that the investigation is “ongoing”. He would not comment on whether any additional charges might be brought arising out of the underlying election law violations that gave rise to this investigation in the first place. 

Mr. Schneiderman would not identify the owner of the Sabres’ box Pigeon invited Michalek to use, nor would he identify the receiver from whom Pigeon demanded a “kickback”, because that person, in the end, was a victim himself. Schneiderman did let slip that this attorney had only been practicing law for a short time. A review of approved Erie County court receivers finds Mr. Pigeon is listed. 

The violation of public trust was something about which Mr. Schneiderman was obviously angry, and he said that every American should be outraged by these allegations. He said he believes in laws and in an independent, impartial judiciary, and that it is offensive to every American when a judge sells his office for cash and benefits. As to Michalek’s misdeeds, the Office of Court Administration has begun looking into cases that were assigned to him, and dealing with any evidence of impropriety through its own process. Mr. Schneiderman described the “scheme” concocted by Mr. Michalek and Pigeon as, “extremely disturbing” and “un-American”. 

 

I received word over the weekend that food trucks were having a tough go of it in Williamsville. A proposed statute had been crafted that would have imposed very heavy fees and untenable restrictions on food trucks, effectively banning them from operating in the Village of Williamsville, which is a separate taxing entity overlapping the towns of Amherst and Cheektowaga. 

I wrote about it here. Actually, I essentially re-crafted correspondence that the food trucks’ lawyer had sent to the Village, objecting to many of the proposals. The goal was merely to inform the public about the completely outrageous restrictions and rules being proposed in Williamsville, and to criticize them. I did not attack – by name or otherwise – any specific public official. 

Based on the reaction from three of the Village’s elected officials, you’d think I had insulted all of their mothers. 

Here is a comment from the Village’s attorney, Chip Grieco: 

First, by way of disclosure, I am the attorney for the Village. I realize this is an “opinion” piece and not a “news” article, but its important to point out that this is little more than a re-print of piece written by the attorney for the food truck association. While the author has every right to agree with the association attorney, as a journalist (as well as a lawyer, by the way) he might have wanted to at least reach out to someone at the Village or done a modicum of research before parroting these mischaracterizations.

I’m not a journalist, nor am I a lawyer representing any party in any case. I helped the food trucks fight similarly short-sighted proposed restrictions in other municipalities in the past, and am happy to help them earn the right and ability to safely and fairly ply their trade in the Village of Williamsville – a right that was at risk, based on the draft proposal. Because this is commentary, and because everything I wrote was accurate, there was no need to contact village officials. There are 44 cities, towns, and villages in Erie County, and these food trucks need to go through this costly and time-consuming process in each and every one of them in which they wish to operate. In some towns, trucks need to deal with a village government that is contained within one or more towns. 

Kevin Gaughan made a thing of this a decade ago with “the Cost”. At that time, he explained how much village governments and redundant taxing districts cost Erie County taxpayers. At the time, Buffalo had 45 local governments employing 439 elected officials. The Baltimore area, which had 77% more people, had 3 local governments with 95 elected officials.  

Williamsville did not re-write the script, and the draft local law is, substantively, nearly identical to the Town of Amherst’s law (which law does not and cannot cover the Village) in terms of application procedures and permit restrictions (except that draft the Village law stripped away the protectionist provisions and expanded the permissible hours of operation). With respect to the supposedly nefarious Myaor’s permit, the author may have wanted to take the 10 minutes of free online research it would have taken to learn that virtually all non-building code permits and licenses are issued by the Mayor under the Public Order Chapter (Ch. 73) of the VIllage Code. Why is that? Because New York State Village Law Section 4-400(1)(m) designates the Mayor as the “licensing officer” of the Village and authorizes the Mayor to “issue all licenses” in the Village. The law allows the Mayor to designate the Village Clerk as the licensing offer, but it is not the least bit unusual (and certainly not improper) for a Village Mayor to serve this statutorily-conferred role. And there is clearly a good reason for the “licensing officer” of the Village to retain discretion to ensure that the locations at which food trucks operate are safe, particularly in a highly coingested area such as Main Street in the Village of Williamsville. Another 5 minutes of online research would have also answered the author’s other critiques regarding enforcement and penalties. Chapter 1 of the Village Code clearly provides that, unless otherwise provided, all violations of the code are punishable by a fine of up to $250, imprisonment of up to 15 days, or both.

This is all a very important recitation of Village law, and the problem with discretion is that it can be abused, and any such abuse is only rectified through costly court action. According to the Buffalo News, the Village “opted out” of Amherst’s law, implying that there was a choice there. If the News is right, then the Amherst law can cover the Village, it just chose not to. But either way, the Village could have simply duplicated Amherst’s already-extant statute and simply offered trucks the predictability and uniformity they sought. Mr. Grieco’s snark seems misplaced, but speaks volumes.  

It may be true that village mayors can issue permits for yard sales and bonfires, etc., but it is essentially unprecedented and untenable for any one elected official to retain potential veto power over a business. It’s my understanding that at the public hearing held Monday night, the fee process will be revamped, the inspection scheme will be streamlined, and the Mayor will evidently issue the annual permit once those criteria are objectively met, without the possibility of arbitrary denial. Also, it appears that the proposed $50 fire prevention fee will now instead be a no-fee notification requirement that trucks fill out a form alerting the Village as to when they’ll be operating in the town. This would provide notice to fire and police services, and ensure that trucks aren’t conflicting with block parties or major events like Old Home Days.

One wonders why that sort of thing wasn’t included in the first draft, instead being a compendium of wild ideas proposed in some cases by individuals, businesses, or groups with overt hostility towards food trucks. 

The Village “Code Enforcement Officer” (crazy, right?) enforces violations of the Village Code. Amherst Police enforce violations of State law (including the V&T law) or other laws of general applicability. Last point, this is a DRAFT law, and Village welcomes input from interested persions. That is how the process is supposed to work.

No one was assailing the process. I was criticizing the substance of the proposal. But it’s notable that Mr. Grieco and Mayor Brian Kulpa (see below), opted so vigorously to defend the process, because the substance of the proposed law was apparently as indefensible as I suggested on Sunday; little more than a compendium of redundant or dumb ideas. But what of the process, now that you mention it? Perhaps it might be as flawed as the substance? Sure, the food trucks and their attorney reached out to me because they believed that they were being treated unfairly and were under assault. Monday night’s meeting went differently in part because of the efforts of people defending the food trucks, who seem to run into similarly ignorant battles with local leaderships throughout our myriad and sundry taxing districts in the region. 

A village in a region with a recent history of population shrinkage needs its own code enforcement officer, given that said village is almost wholly enveloped by a town whose own government has its own codes and its own code enforcement officer. What a chronic waste of money and effort. 

Village of Williamsville Deputy Mayor Chris Duquin had this to say, 

The Williamsville Village Board laid on the table legislation to regulate food trucks that contained a lot of provisions, inspections and fees, why? Because we wanted public input from residents, food truck owners and business in the Village about how to best protect public safety. This is exactly what government should do! In an open and transparent way we laid legislation on the table for public comment. We will listen again tonight to that public comment and will keep the public hearing open for even more public comment in the future. At some point, when we feel that we have heard allinterested parties we will deliberate in public and decide on how to best protect public safety in the Village of Williamsville. The Village board does NOT regulate commerce. We clearly understand this and will not include anything in the final legislation (unlike Amherst that tries to regulate commerce by having distances from brick and mortar restaurants, which is clearly illegal.) To be vilified in the article is disappointing. To suggest that we have not studied the City of Buffalo and Town of Amherst law is ridiculous. To suggest that we are in any way trying to protect our restaurants or stop competition in 100% false. The Village of Williamsville board is one of the most progressive in the region. We are open and transparent in everything we do. We understand that operating in this way opens us up to people with their own agendas disseminating patently false information. We will continue to live with the haters misinforming the public. Everyone is welcome to come to the Village Board meeting tonight at 7:30pm and tell us how you think we should protect public safety in the village through reasonable legislation. And when we finally approve legislation we will hope that all those that clouded a real exercise in in open government will report fairly on what we approve. – Chris Duquin, Deputy Mayor

LOL agendas. What do you think my “agenda” is, exactly? I’ll answer that: my agenda is “Lloyd’s should have the ability legally to sell tacos from a designated public parking spot, subject to reasonable fees, inspections, and time, place, and manner restrictions”. That’s my agenda, and I use Lloyd’s only as an example – the same should be true for every food truck. Quite literally anything that deviates from that simply stated “agenda” is nonsense and surplusage. It doesn’t matter how open and transparent you are if the end product is illegal, odious, or excessive. It doesn’t matter if the deputy mayor demeans criticism from denigrated “haters”, or hurls accusations of misinformation. In the end, no one said that what I wrote about the substance of the proposed statute was false – only that it was part of a “process” on which I was “hating”. 

All of this overreaction smacks of either personal animus or Williamsville considering itself to be some special geographical snowflake; that it can protect its public in a way that Amherst or Buffalo won’t or can’t. Incidentally, I don’t know whether it is illegal for municipalities to require food trucks to be a certain distance from brick and mortar restaurants – it hasn’t been tested in the courts in New York that I’m aware. But Amherst and Buffalo have this as part of their statutes, and the trucks go along with them (as long as they’re reasonable) because it’s fair, and they don’t want to be accused of poaching business from a restaurant, choosing instead to coexist peacefully with them. 

As for the bleating about openness and transparency, that’s all very laudable, of course, but it doesn’t justify or legitimize stupid provisions contained in a proposed law. So, we turn to the Village Mayor, Brian Kulpa, who engaged me on Twitter. Note the bit where he accuses me of playing “I got you”, which I wasn’t doing. Funny, given his colleagues’ condescending snark.  

On Monday Williamsville held a public hearing on the proposed food truck statute described in my piece last weekend. I wasn’t there, but apparently my name came up in the work session prior to the public hearing. Kulpa complained to Village Trustees that he and others spent a good portion of the morning having to, “set Alan Bedenko straight on Twitter”. I’m glad that my article had that impact, highlighting the Village’s proposed law and the ways in which it was unfair, onerous, and untenable. That’s why just about all of the most objectionable items will not exist in whatever follow-up statute is crafted. The earliest that the Village will vote on that won’t be until late July. Amazing, though, that I needed to be “set straight” although I accurately described what the Village was contemporaneously proposing. 

I re-read my original piece to see what I might have written that would have engendered such vituperous reaction from no fewer than three of Williamsville’s elected officials. When not offering condescending lectures about obscure laws governing redundant taxing strata, they were adamant about the fairness of their open government and transparent process. I guess here, the Village talks about it, then proposes a codification mirroring the demands made by people who voted to advocate for a ban on food trucks, then talk about it some more. Let the people decide and deliberate everything, and government merely acts as scribe and wind vane.

The only people playing “I got you” here are employed by the Village. Use whatever process you want, but when the resulting work-product is garbage, don’t be surprised when people complain. 

In 2012, the battle over the legalization of food trucks in the City of Buffalo was joined, and an uproar from average citizens helped prompt the city’s leaders to codify reasonable regulations that protected the rights of truck owners and brick & mortar restaurateurs alike. It came down to a fair fee and inspection protocol, and reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions on truck operations. 

The trucks are now engaged in a similar battle in the Village of Williamsville, and the proposed ordinance there is outrageous in its inequity. The proposed local law, which was the subject of a June 13th public hearing, would dramatically change what already exists within the town of Amherst, in which most of Williamsville is situated. While Village representatives suggest that their proposal is, “the same as the Town of Amherst, but without the proximity restrictions,” its licensing and fee requirements are more onerous, and the location where a truck can operate is left to the sole discretion of the village’s mayor. The Village proposal differs vastly from the Town’s ordinance in several respects — in particular regarding the licensing process, the annual fees charged by the municipality, and the apparent sole discretion of the Mayor of Williamsville in determining who, when and — presumably — where food trucks may operate within the Village.

Amherst charges an initial fee of $400 for the first truck, and $200 for every additional truck, and renewal is $200 per year. Originally, the town wanted to charge $500, and the food trucks objected; after all, the fifty largest metros in the country charge around $50 to $250 per business (not per truck). The license fee should technically cover a municipality’s cost of operating its licensing and inspection scheme – not a new revenue source. 

Williamsville, however, proposes an annual registration fee of $200 per truck (not per business), plus a $50 “fire prevention permit fee per event on private property”. At the Village’s public hearing, Ms. Rebecca Donahue of SS. Peter & Paul Church noted that a food truck operating weekly on their private property over the summer would pay upwards of $650 of weekly fees — in addition to the annual fee of $200 — for a gross Village fee of at least $850 for only three months of operation—not including the additional $200-$400 annual Town of Amherst fee.

Yet food trucks undergo—and must pass—fire inspections, so this $50 per private event fee is redundant and unjustified. It serves simply to deter trucks from operating on private property, and is a naked money-grab. As it happens, the trucks that serve tacos and burgers on Church property kick back 10% of their gross receipts to the church. The Village’s outrageous fee scheme would harm this—and other—charitable organizations. 

But that’s not all. Williamsville is also proposing that trucks pay a “Mayor’s Permit Fee as determined from time to time by the Village Board of Trustees.” Food truck require and deserve some predictability of costs, and this merely acts as a threat of additional, arbitrary fees and taxes to be imposed on these businesses. There is no rational basis for such a provision in any statute. 

Amherst and Buffalo—indeed, most food truck laws—require that payment of the fees and passage of inspections entitles an operator to a license to operate, issued by the town clerk. Williamsville, however, would empower its mayor to issue the license at his sole discretion. Furthermore, the village permit would require the applicant to specify where it intended to operate, a silly requirement for a mobile vendor. In every other jurisdiction, licensed and inspected food trucks may operate wherever they can obtain a legal parking spot, within the bounds of DMV regulations and any codified local time and proximity restrictions. 

Williamsville’s proposal is vague and subject to arbitrary application, and certain Williamsville businesses opposing food trucks argue that these mobile vendors be prohibited from working on public streets, or be permitted only in certain designated spots, or in rear parking lots. This isn’t based on any rational health and safety argument, but merely an attempt by brick and mortar restaurants to punish and restrict food truck operations. 

It was argued that Main Street in Williamsville is too congested to allow for food trucks to operate, yet food trucks have operated for years on Main, Allen, Hertel, and Elmwood in Buffalo, and on far more congested streets in bigger cities throughout the country. These arguments are false on their face. The Buffalo experience is instructive here—the city has reduced the initial and renewal fees for trucks, and the food truck scene has a dynamism that a Williamsville should seek to emulate. 

The Williamsville Board of Trustees’ sole function is to pass legislation that protects the health and safety of its constituents without unduly regulating or favoring one form of business over another.  The Williamsville Business Association is publicly lobbying to ban food truck operations on Main Street as well as on all other public streets in the village. The village wants trucks to undergo a separate inspection and purchase a separate fire inspection permit, but all of them are registered with the state, most with the DOT, they must meet all applicable safety regulations, and undergo extant health, safety, and fire inspections in contiguous, surrounding, and overlapping jurisdictions. Williamsville should either honor those identical certificates, or include the cost of any duplicate inspections within the permitting cost, rather than adding a separate fee. Furthermore, the village doesn’t specify who will enforce its code, or what the penalties for non-compliance might be. 

Regulating food trucks isn’t a new thing anymore, and Williamsville doesn’t have any need to re-write the script. If it feels the need to duplicate the towns within which it is situated, then it should simply do so, and rather than institute punitive regulations, it should do the minimum required to ensure residents’ health and safety.