To Cleveland and Back

Dear Nieces and Nephews

Our County Executive, Steve Neuhaus aka Stevie Thunder, has been very busy lately. Not busy with work for the County but with political doings. He was a delegate at the Republican National Convention!!! And he was quite vocal. He didn’t take too many chances while stating the he was originally for Kasich but will now support Trump. And he didn’t take too many chances praising Former NYC Mayor, Rudolph Guiliani, who held NYC together after 9-11 and also cleaned the city up, especially Times Square. (and for those of you who say Mr. Guiliani sanitized Times Square by removing the drug dealers, hookers and thieves, Auntie says: Too bad! ) http://www.recordonline.com/news/20160723/fray-cruz-should-have-skipped-gop-convention-neuhaus-says

While Stevie was hobnobbing with Republican elite, The Times Herald Record’s Chris McKenna, was taking a “look at the books” You see, while Orange County has a “Pay to play law” Stevie’s pals in the legislature weakened the law by making exemptions for the Trade Labor Unions. Why?

STEVE SAID “They back me up, and now you are seeing me back them up”

 

http://www.recordonline.com/news/20160723/loopholes-compromise-oranges-pay-to-play-law-for-political-contributions-database-search

“Neuhaus, in an interview last week, said he had no objection to the limit on contractors' donations, other than the large amount of time the county's attorneys and other employees spend on paperwork to enforce the law. “-McKenna THR

What is the implication here? That it is an unnecessary expenditure to enforce a “pay to play” law?” He pointed out that all of his contributions are publicly disclosed and said he would never jeopardize his reputation and livelihood by steering a contract to a donor, making the new law irrelevant in his case. All contributions to EVERY candidate are transparent to the extent that they are posted on the board of elections website IF reported. And his attitude is the equivalent of “I am the government, trust me”.

   

Todd Dioro, Labor Union Leader with CE Stevie Neuhaus

No bias here! Keep smiling, boys…

if the law states a there is limit on the contributions, then contributors should not exceed that limit through a loophole in the law, even if “transparent”. While many candidates would say, is that “Ah well, it was legal” just think how you felt when Andrew Cuomo received $250K through 4 LLCS from the big KJ real estate developer, right after the DEC decision in favor of KJ!  Exploiting the loopholes goes against the intent of the law. And the legislators that passed the weakened legislation which created the loopholes (where there should be none), go against the intent of decency.

“As it was originally written, Orange County's pay-to-play law would have limited the trade unions' contributions in the same way as contract-holding businesses, since the project-labor agreements that unions typically secure for county building projects qualify as contracts. But Republican lawmakers explicitly exempted trade unions from the law before the final version was adopted”. McKenna (Please note that it was Republican Mike Anagnostokis who sponsored the law.)

TODD (Diorio) said “The money's there to spend on candidates — that's the way we look at it,"

That about sums it up.

Eddie Diana the former County Executive is good to his “friends” too, using monies donated to his “treasure chest” campaign fund (You know, the one looted by Carmen Dubaldi) for payouts to various candidates running for office. He dispenses money to various Republican Candidates as he sees fit.

Diana still sitting on $331K in campaign cash

“Former Orange County Executive Ed Diana has been out of office since 2013 and hasn’t gotten any campaign donations since 2012, but he still has around $331,000 in unspent loot in his account, according to the semi-annual disclosure report that his treasurer filed this month.”- McKenna THR 

http://blogs.hudsonvalley.com/fray/2016/07/22/diana-still-sitting-on-331000-in-campaign-cash/

WHY are former campaign committees allowed to keep these monies designated for a campaign after a candidate is no longer such? When individuals, businesses and corporations donated to the campaign for Eddie they did not contribute so the money could be doled out to someone of Eddie’s choosing. WHY are they allowed to hoard this money even when they are neither running now, nor will they be running for office again? Shouldn’t there be a statute imposing a time limit on retention of campaign cash? Allow the candidate to keep it for 2 years and if they do not run again, the money must go to charity?  A valid 501c3? Let's change the Election Law. And all of our Nieces and Nephews should be asking Assembly and State Senate candidates if the would be willing to do it!

When Steve returned to Orange County and his Monday morning radio show where he spoke of the Democratic Convention in Philadelphia this week, he was full of opinions!

STEVE SAID:” I hope that Philadelphia has (updated) their public urination laws” 

We all know the incident to which he refers, but is bringing it up in this context necessary? 

No, it is actually very immature.

Thanks Steve, we missed you.