On Thursday the Democrat and Chronicle editorialized that Democratic Chairman Joe Morelle's "Proposal to disband the Water Authority is premature."
It occurs to us that if Morelle had intended this as a serious policy initiative, he'd have done his homework to show, for example, how abolishing the Monroe County Water Authority might affect the price of water paid by Monroe County consumers. Since the county's water rates are "among the lowest in the Northeast," according to the Democrat and Chronicle, maybe this was too tall an order for Little Joe, at least from his perspective out on the Albany Ponderosa.
So we'll have to take the proposal as undoubtedly it was intended, as a political shrapnel bomb meant to sow confusion, disorder and to deflect attention from the gnawing embarrassment that County Democrats don't have a candidate for County Executive. Hence its release mere hours before the Republican convention to renominate Maggie Brooks.
But that's not the interesting part.
What captured our interest was the rhetorical question the D&C chose to headline the editorial: "Where's the State Audit?" When, it pondered, will we ever see the second State Comptroller's report of its audit of the Water Authority's practices before 2004? The editorial tells us it "was completed months ago but withheld."
Now, here on the Street we like the D&C's editorial page a lot more than its news operation. Yet we wonder: can these people be as obtuse as their question suggests?
They really don't know when the Comptroller will release the second report?
We do. We know exactly when.
It will be released the weekend of November 3 - 4.
See, Election Day is November 6. Releasing it just before the election will allow Monroe County Democrats to carp about the Water Authority (even though it was the Republicans who cleaned it up) without giving Republicans time to respond before the election.
That's the least Comptroller -- and former Democratic Assemblyman -- Tom DiNapoli can do for his old Assembly comrade-in-arms Joe Morelle.
And if that's too difficult for you to figure out, look at the bright side: you have a future writing editorials for our Newspaper of Record.
Showing posts with label 2007 Elections. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2007 Elections. Show all posts
