Village of Buchanan Where Patronage Lives
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- May
- 5
If you want to know why people are cynical about government, go no further than the little village on the Hudson River—Buchanan.
My spies tell me that the village’s part-time mayor, Al Donahue, rammed through a resolution last night to hire his own daughter as an “intermediate typist” at a salary of $71,343. This appears to be a circumvention of the state Civil Service Law which requires that the job should be open to a list of qualified candidates who have taken the Civil Service test.
No one else was considered for the post. No interviews were conducted. And the job may not be necessary since it had been vacant for eight months.
What’s most extraordinary is that Donahue didn’t recuse himself from voting on the resolution to hire his daughter, Cynthia Lynch of Montrose. And get this—he was the deciding vote! When the Board of Trustees deadlocked 2-to-2, Donahue broke the tie with a yes vote.
That’s chutzpah. Wait for a lawsuit on this one.
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, May 5th, 2009 at 1:59 pm by Phil Reisman.
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Phil Reisman is a veteran journalist and native of Westchester County. He began his career in 1977 as the head copy boy of a startup New York City newspaper that quickly went belly up. Reisman was not to blame for the newspaper's failure, or so he claims.
Politicians have become so brazen in their disdain for the public that they do whatever they want to do. We rarely hold them to account. Witness the congressman from Louisiana who was watched, taped, and found to have 100M in marked bills in his refrigerator. Nothing was done to him by his fellow congressmen, and in fact, they criticized the FBI, who they said had no right to search his office. The fact that the people let them get away with it, like some evil priests who know the worst thing that will happen to them when caught, is to be transferred to another church, makes these obscenities never-ending.
Surprised? A local PHA hired (read that as political appointment)an unqualified Exec Director at six figure. After running the PHA into the financial hole, the Exec Dir retired to Fla. No worries, the show continued. He was rehired (w/out HUD waiver)to be Exec Dir from Fla,....flying him back and forth several times a month. Money flowed between the PHA and its “not for profit” w/out any semblance of adherence to law or regulation. This Exec Dir and Co. continued to ride that gravy train and there’s no accounting.
This sort of nepotism, “political appointments” etc goes on all the time. It will continue because there is no accounting. The worst that happens is that sometimes the gravy train stops.
What is even more amazing is that this is the second time that this man has shown how ignorant he is of the rules that apply to favoritisim. A few years back when he was last Mayor he hired his son to a job that now pays in excess of $100,00 per year plus benefits. Now again, at the next meeting, the Deputy Mayor’s son is being “given” a job as Asst Camp Dir. over a person who had that job last year was given a good job performance and who was not even interviewed for the position again this year. Will Gail Richard vote for him?????