Published: June 26, 2008 03:42 pm            

CHRISTY: Another unnecessary kick to your wallet

Another major expense at the New York Power Authority — completely unrelated to the generation of power — has been uncovered by the media. It costs you a lot of money each year, is highly suspect as to why it’s needed, and should actually scare the pants off of us as we continue to learn how NYS Government really operates. But all of that isn’t even why this latest revelation is note worthy.

What we should focus on is how this information continues to come to light, and whether we shouldn’t simply cut state government expenses by turning over all records of the state or local governments to newspaper reporters and reduce elected official government staff to skeletal levels. In fact, downsize it completely and send all office calls to India to be redirected to the appropriate state agency which could handle any complaint or request for information.

First, back to the information that was uncovered by the media.

When certain employees leave the New York Power Authority they have been required to sign nondisclosure agreements prohibiting them from ever speaking about their employment, termination or the fact that they’ve signed such agreements. Talk about transparency — this is the exact opposite of transparency. It’s as if NYPA bought the Berlin wall on eBay and had it erected inside their HR Department at their White Plains headquarters.

These silencing agreements are drafted by NYPA lawyers and apparently date to a time about ten years ago — which just about coincides with the decision of Governor Pataki to create what has now become known as Troopergate — the situation where a former trooper was hired by NYPA to dig up private and possibly embarrassing secrets about politicians for possible use against them. Of course, the real threat is that there is a dirty tricks office in existence at all. In the private sector this would be considered blackmail — to have information on someone and threaten to release it if you didn’t play ball so to speak. In state government it’s apparently called a public authority.

Remember — we’re talking about a state government Authority charged with generating power for state citizens — not a Federal government CIA operation. Apparently only 19 employees were forced to sign such agreements and most, if not all, had disagreements with the head of the dirty tricks department.

Now that we know about government lawyers working to cover the tracks of Troopergate, it’s important to consider how we find all this out week after week.

This information isn’t brought to light by overzealous Assemblymen or Senators digging for ways to decrease power costs. They work for us, but apparently didn’t order their paid staff to be searching for ways to decrease electric rates by addressing corruption inside NYPA. There are at least 2,000 staff members on the Assembly payroll, and another 2,000 staff members on the Senate payroll. Not one of them uncovered this expensive oddity.

It took one man on a private payroll who apparently thought NYPA’s activities are out of line with what government should be about. Of course, when the Times brought the strange practice to Richard Brodsky, an Assemblyman from Westchester County, and John Flanagan, a Senator from Long Island, they immediately filed legislation. Don’t farmers have a saying about closing the barn door after the horse has escaped? What does CYA stand for again?

New York state government is in the worst shape of anyone’s lifetime. We’ve never seen a time when the state was laid bare — when we see just how poorly the elected talent is throughout all sectors of the state. Our Governor resigned in shame and hypocrisy earlier this year; his replacement got out the Ten Commandments and started ticking off the ones he’s violated. The Senate Majority Leader quit — with only two days remaining and at a time when all important legislation gets considered — he just quit. Saying it was completely unrelated to the FBI investigation into his handling of State money is as damning as if it were related to a criminal investigation. He quit with two days remaining? It just shows how childish and petty our current crop of elected officials is.

When you press the toaster down this morning, or turn on the TV, just imagine that the fee you are paying for that electricity is being used to pay for lawyers drafting nondisclosure agreements and employees involved in political dirty tricks. And that the newspaper your reading — and others like it — are actually exposing these practices and educating you about where your highest-in-the-nation taxes are going.

And if you’re a working man or woman who has been downsized, consider the opportunity to outsource the 4,000 plus legislative jobs we’re paying for that are apparently not working on reducing our energy costs.

Tom Christy is the founder of FAIR Government, a non-political and non-editorial educational foundation dealing with local government issues. www.fair-government.org. He encourages communication and can be reach via e-mail at aim1986@mac.com.

        

• Click to discuss this story with other readers on our forums.