I note that Assemblyman Jim Tedisco has backed away from a bill to undermine Schenectady’s public safety commissioner and mayor as they attempt to impose some order on a disordered police department.
He had previously voted in favor of the bill, as had his colleagues Paul Tonko and Hugh Farley, in one of the more shameless displays of selling out one’s constituents that I have witnessed, but now, with the spotlight on him, he has had a change of heart.
Well, good for him. I salute him.
But I do get a kick out of how he presented the issue in his press release yesterday announcing his change of position.
He said Schenectady Mayor Brian Stratton and City Council President Mark Blanchfield (both Democrats) had “refused to lead” and that therefore “the State Legislature must step in and solve this problem,” which turns the situation exactly on its head.
It was the city administration under Stratton that seized the initiative, based on a court decision, and announced that it would henceforth discipline its police officers directly, without recourse to state arbitrators, who all too often side with the cops.
In direct response, the police unions backed new legislation to overturn the court decision and make Schenectady’s assertion of authority impossible, and that’s what Tedisco, Tonko and Farley all slavishy voted in favor of last year (and Farley again this year).
To characterize that as Stratton’s failure to lead is really a hoot.
On a related matter, I referred earlier to the Assembly sponsor of the anti-Schenectady bill as “the public-safety unions’ reliable water-carrier,” Peter J. Abbate of Brooklyn.
Now, thanks to the power of the Internet, newly available to me through this blog, I can direct you to the attorney general’s Web site, Project Sunlight, where you can peruse for yourself the long list of contributors to Abbate’s election campaigns and see how many of those contributors are Sergeants Benevolent Associations, State Troopers PACs, Uniformed Fire Officers Associations, and so on, and decide for yourself who the guy works for. Click here to see the list.
If his bill was written by anybody but a police union lawyer, I’ll contribute a dollar to his favorite charity.