COV E R STO RY in Mangano’s campaign.” Jacobs claims that the Hicksville club should be considered a duly constituted subcommittee of a county committee, which would place restrictions on what percentage of the contributions received could be used toward expenses related to funding a campaign, limiting the expenditure to not more than one cent per registered voter within the district where the committee is located. As this law applies to the hamlet of Hicksville—where there are over 28,000 registered voters— the maximum amount of money that could be spent would therefore be roughly $280, significantly less than the amount disbursed by the Hicksville committee. In response to an inquiry about the legal status of Hicksville’s committee, attorney John Ryan, of Ryan, Brennan & Donnelly LLP, who represents Mangano and Walker, wrote that the Hicksville Republican Club and the Hicksville Republican Committee are “two separate and distinct entities” and that the committee is a Republican Party committee “comprised of those Election Districts within the Assembly Districts of the unincorporated area of Hicksville in the Town of Oyster Bay, New York.” Whatever its status, questions arise as to whether the committee’s expenditures are legal. Henry Berger, a prominent state election lawyer, said that if the Hicksville club is indeed raising and spending money on behalf of Mangano, it could be considered a violation of state law. “If [Mangano is] using [the Hicksville committee] as a proxy to raise contributions that are then used to raise more money for him, it’s essentially a sham transaction,” said Berger. “If [the Hicksville committee is] making expenditures at these levels, accepting contributions for the purpose of raising money for Mangano and then making the expenditures to raise the money, it’s engaging in multiple violations of the law.” Jacobs’ complaint also details Hicksville’s campaign finance irregularities, along with a list of $110,000 in un-itemized expenses and $70,000 in corporate contributions that exceeded the $5,000 annual limit to which corporations are restricted by law. Responding to this complaint, Ryan, on behalf of Mangano and Walker, disputes nearly every allegation made in relation to Friends of Ed Mangano and the Hicksville club’s campaign finance disclosure reports, with the sole exception being what he explains as a typographical error in the date of two payments made from the Hicksville committee to KKL Associates. Ryan also denies that the Hicksville committee made any contributions to the campaign through the various fundraisers the club held, including the events at MetLife Stadium and Myrtle Beach. Ryan also claims that every dollar that the Mangano campaign accepted over the corporate contribution limit has been refunded to the respective companies—an adjustment that he asserts will be reflected in Friends of Mangano’s next filing. When reached by phone, a spokesman for the New York State Board of Elections declined to comment on the complaint filed by Jacobs and the response from Mangano and Walker, on the grounds that the complaint is currently under review.
FRIENDS OF MANGANO The common thread tying together the Hicksville Republican Club and Mangano’s campaign is Rob Walker. How did a relatively unknown former lawmaker rise to his current position of power in Nassau County?
CITY&STATE
One could say he came full circle. One summer, before his political career got off the ground, Walker interned for Mangano in the county Legislature. The son of longtime Nassau County politician Rose Marie Walker, who took over Mangano’s seat in the county Legislature after he became county executive, Rob later became an assistant to Oyster Bay Town Supervisor John Venditto, where he was director of traffic survey and constituent services. After, Walker served for three years as deputy parks commissioner for Oyster Bay before running for the Assembly in a 2005 special election, which he won. Walker’s tenure as the assemblyman representing Oyster Bay was of little note, though his lack of accomplishments can be attributed to his being a Republican in the Democrat-dominated Assembly, rather than being a reflection on Walker’s chops as a legislator. In 2008 Walker left the Assembly to run Mangano’s campaign. When Mangano pulled off his unexpected victory over Suozzi, Walker was suddenly in a prime position to play a pivotal role in running Nassau County. “Ed had never managed anything. He was not town supervisor or mayor, and some felt [Mangano] should’ve brought in somebody who had done that,” said an expert in Nassau County politics who asked not to be identified so as not to offend the county executive. “Rob was an assemblyman; you don’t manage anything as an assemblyman.” Multiple sources with knowledge of the inner working of county politics contend that the power dynamic between Mangano and Walker is this: Mangano is the figurehead for the county, the public official who attends the ribbon cuttings and public events, while Walker pulls the strings behind the scenes. As Mangano’s co-pilot and top deputy, Walker appears to be utilizing his network of connections to wealthy and connected donors to fill the Hicksville Republican Club’s coffers. Many of the people who have contributed to the club include individuals who have had long-standing relationships with Nassau County, some of whom are employed by the county or who have been contracted by it to provide various services. In April 2012, Aly and Keith Lizza—vice president and general manager, respectively, of Carlo Lizza & Sons Paving—contributed a total of $90,000 to the Hicksville committee. Their company later received $4 million in contracts from the county to assist in tree removal and other miscellaneous post-Sandy work. The single largest donation to the club in 2012 was $50,000 from James Hagedorn, the CEO of Scott’s Miracle-Gro and a board member, along with Walker, of the Friends of Sands Point Preserve, which manages the property. In a report by Newsday in September 2012, Hagedorn indicated he was aware that Hicksville planned to use his contribution to help purchase the luxury box at Giants Stadium, saying he thought it was a smart way to “build financial horsepower.” Other large contributions to the committee include $10,000 from former MTA and Port Authority board member David Mack, currently the assistant Nassau police commissioner, and $25,000 from Donald Codignotto, whose brother, Robert, is also an assistant police commissioner with the county. The committee also received $10,000 from Joanne Smith, a secretary and treasurer of Standard Valuation Services who is married to its president, Matthew Smith. Standard Valuation Services is a property appraisal company that has been contracted several times by Nassau County since 2010, the year Mangano took office. Frank Intagliata, an employee with the county Office
Ratepayers Shorted by New “Straw Proposal” By William I Jacobs The New York State Public Service Commission (PSC), in its continued effort to fast-track its plan to replace Indian Point, recently issued a revised breakdown of how the nearly $1 billion dollar price tag will be repaid and which ratepayers will be responsible for shouldering the cost. This “Straw Proposal” attempts to reconcile the concerns of upstate ratepayers over who would pay for the projects developed as part of the PSC’s contingency plan by placing the entire cost burden on downstate New Yorkers. Rather than dividing the contingency plan’s costs amongst all New York ratepayers (which is admittedly unfair to utility customers who won’t receive any benefits from the projects), the Straw Proposal puts geographic limits on who will share the burden. Under the new plan, the impact on ratepayers in the Westchester and New York City region will be more than twice the initial estimate. To add insult to injury, the new filing still doesn’t clarify whether ratepayers will be responsible for funding the plan’s “transmission solution projects” even if they are never completed. In all likelihood Indian Point will continue to operate, as it should, rendering most of these projects unnecessary. Yet the Straw Proposal provides no guarantee that ratepayers won’t be asked to reimburse developers for the cost of unfinished projects. The PSC’s plan also fails to disclose the cost difference to ratepayers between “load zone deficiencies” and “load zone violations” which would result from an insufficient amount of power to replace the 2067 megawatts (MW) produced by Indian Point. The proposed cost models will likely force residents of one zone to pick up the tab for ratepayers in a different zone because they assign a similar per-megawatt price for either the power itself or energy delivery. Despite the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission giving Indian Point high marks once again in its annual review of the plant’s safety and operations, the PSC is pushing this plan ahead with New York ratepayers’ checkbook in hand, ready to spend at least $811 million – a very conservative initial estimate for a plan of this magnitude. Indian Point’s virtually emissions-free electricity supplies nearly one-third of New York City’s power each day, and would be very difficult and costly to replace. The PSC’s urgency to expedite an Indian Point contingency plan regardless of its impact on the economy, ratepayers, and the environment is reckless. As the expression goes, “The Devil is in the Details,” and once again the bureaucrats in Albany are mandating that taxpayers provide them with a blank check and complete authority over critical New York energy policy decisions that will impact our state for decades to come. William I Jacobs has 30 years of experience in finance, corporate development, strategy and other areas of administration. He specializes in financial technology, payments, insurance, collections, energy and capital markets. S P E C I A L
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New York AREA’s membership includes some of the state’s most vital business, labor and community organizations including the New York State AFL-CIO, Business Council of New York State, Partnership for New York City, New York Building Congress, National Federation of Independent Business and many more. W W W. A R E A - A L L I A N C E . O R G www.cityandstateny.com | JUNE 17, 2013
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