WESTCHESTER GUARDIAN: Spano’s Misuse Of Funds Hurts Westchester Communities

Spano’s Misuse Of Funds Hurts Westchester Communities

Schorr Demands DiFiore Investigation King Andrew’s Castle Falling Down Republican DA Candidate Schorr Calls For Investigation Into Mismanagement Of Federal Housing Dollars Andrew Spano and his Svengali, Larry Schwartz, ought to be grateful they’ve made it this far; four years in the County Clerk’s Office and twelve up on the Ninth Floor, working the switches and pulling the strings. Sixteen years; one would think they’d quit while they could, while they were ahead. But stepping down isn’t easy for Spano, who actually lost 11 elections in a row until control-freak Larry came into his life. Larry; the man who would go around scaring elderly drivers who didn’t get out of his way quickly enough, telling them he was “the most powerful person in Westchester,” certainly was, and probably still is. And, if fixing the outcome of elections, controlling the purse strings of the Democratic Party, and the employment and lives of some 5,000 County employees and their families wasn’t enough, there’s the hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts over which he presided with no real oversight or veto power to worry about from his bou ht-and-paid-for County Legislators; Democrats always in the majority, the last several years a super-majority rubber stamp. Just consider some of the stunts this tag-team of con men have gotten away with; always with a mind for consolidating and strengthening their control. Not only did they buy the legislators with campaign contributions and getting out the vote; but they also bought favorable television coverage, going forward, way back in March of 2000, nearly 9-1/2 years ago, by giving Cablevision a $22.5 million no-bid gift contract for a failed communications system by their wholly-owned subsidiary Lightpath. Amazing how much silence $22.5 million will buy, and still does. Then there’s that little matter of solid waste disposal; a $70 million renewable, five-year contract with a company that was admittedly doing a “good job.” But Larry had other ideas. He would literall y twist the Legislators’ arms, one at a time, there in the hallway on the 8th floor of the County Office Building, until they okayed a new contract for $17 million dollars more; $87 million with a company “the City of New York would not do business with.” What the hell; it was only the taxpayers’ money. As badly as the mismanagement and squandering of taxpayer funds was over the past several years; worse, still, was the Spano Administration’s mishandling and misappropriation of some $52 million in federal housing aid between 2000 and 2006, failing miserably to comply with the Fair Housing mandate that accompanied the federal grants; in fact, totally misrepresenting Couny efforts to integrate. Three years ago, Th e Anti-Discrimination Center of Metro New York got wise to Spano and Schwartz, and commenced a legal action that will now cost the taxpayers of Westchester, the constituents who, three times, blindly put them at the controls, dearly. Because of their mismanagement and manipulation of some $52 million, we stoood to lose more than $180 million in federal funding. As it now stands, not including three years of County legal fees to defend the case which probably exceed the $2.5 million spent by the Anti-Discrimination Center, the County is compelled, under the terms of the agreement signed last week to give the federal government some $21.6 million, to then be returned for the construction of affordable units while setting aside an additional $30 million for further construction through 2016, as well as paying $8.4 million to the government in fines and opponent’s legal fees; a total of more than $65 million for the misuse of $52 million, or a constructive penalty of some $13 million. We make no overstatement in recognizing that Westchester taxpayers are very upset, not merely over the waste of money at a time when households are struggling, but more importantly over the notion that a federal monitor, much like the situation in Yonkers years ago under Federal Judge Sand, will now be in control of the placement and construction of low-income housing units across the length and width of Westchester. The monitor, of course, is deemed necessary because the federal government can no longer trust Andrew Spano and County Government to do the right thing with large sums of money. Despite Spano’s, and Chairman of the County Legislature, Bill Ryan’s immediate efforts to put a spin on it, there is no question that the homeowners and taxpayers of Westchester have been dealt a raw deal; the kind of thing likely to occur when a governmental subdivision such as a county, has been under the tight-fisted, tyrannical control of an executive office that has methodically eliminated the checks and balances of oversight and veto that ordinarily reside in the legislative branch, but have been corruptly eliminated with cash and carry politics. We can but wonder; the federal government’s civil action, having found such a vulnerable and culpable target in Westchester, can federal indictments be far behind? We intend to stay on top of this situation as well as other misdealing and mismanagement committed under the Spano Regime, but covered up by DA Janet Di-Fiore, a fact not missed by Republican DA candidate Dan Schorr. After all, one must question what motivates people entrusted with control of hundreds of millions of dollars to deliberately act against their constituents’ best interests; for example, to spend $17 million more of taxpayers’ money for solid waste disposal unnecessarily? Given the political implications of such financial recklessness, it’s not unreasonable to imagine the passing of envelopes, filled with cash, in such sweetheart deals.