PROGRESSIVE ROCKLAND

Investment Opportunity for My American Friends

Dear American:

I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.

I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of $800,000,000,000 US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.

I am working with Mr. Phil Gramm, vice-chairman for UBS investment bank, who will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As Senator, you may know Mr. Gramm as the gracious leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s and the great creator of the Enron loophole in 2000, which deregulated energy resources. Understand that Mr. Gramm is an honorable man and this transaction you make is 100% safe.

This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.

Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@ustreas.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.

Yours Faithfully,

Minister of Treasury Paulson

McCain Wants Andrew Cuomo for SEC Head

He just got David Paterson's vote

Edwin Day Kills Another Tree

Rockland County Legislator Edwin Day, (R – 5th LD) issued yet another press release this week, his 10th since the beginning of the year, entitled Legislator Day Continues in the "Parents as Reading Partners" Program.

This was, we hope, the final installment of his continuing Parents as Reading Partners series.  Previous installments were Legislator Day Takes Part in "Parents as Reading Partners" Program, issued February 9th, and Legislator Day Joins in "Parents as Reading Partners" Program, published March 5th.

Parents as Reading Partners is the sequel to last years critically acclaimed Listening Tour trilogy: Legislator Day Announces District Wide “Listening Tour”, published June 6th 2006, Legislator Day Continues His District Wide “Listening Tour,” issued June 29th 2006, and Legislator Day Resumes his District Wide “Listening Tour”, published September 22, 2006.

Last year Legislator Day issued an astounding 26 press releases, earning him Progressive Rockland’s Montgolfier Award.  Day is on track to win it once again.

Ed Day – Deforesting the planet one press release at a time.

LEGISLATOR DAY WINS MONTGOLFIER AWARD

By a wide margin, Edwin J. Day, Rockland County legislator from the 5th Legislative, blew past the competition to claim the first Rockland County Montgolfier Award, which will be presented annually to the local politician generating the most hot air.

In the course of 2006, his freshman year on the lege, Day has demonstrated a propensity for rodomontade that would do proud a politician with decades of experience.  In his first year, the representative from the fifth district has produced an astounding 28 press releases, which if typed as one document would amount to 12,426 words, running 54 pages in length.  Not surprisingly, the most commonly used word was “Day”, occurring 170 times by our reckoning.  The dear lord only knows what the cost to the taxpayers was for this blizzard of words

And, not one to slack off, the indefatigable Day has already issued 6 press releases in 2007, nearly 1 per week, on track for a new record.

NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT

While hundreds of direct care workers working for county contractors languish in poverty, due to his veto of the 2005 living wage bill, Rockland County Executive C. Scott Vanderhoef has announced a re-jiggering of positions in his department and some of his cronies are up for major increases in pay.

The erstwhile senior advisor of intergovernmental relations, Sean Mathews, is now tapped for the No. 2 spot, behind Vanderhoef. He’ll be knocking down an additional $18,500, bringing his annual salary to $95,000. C. J. Miller, the spokeswoman for the county executive’s office, is anticipating a raise $11,100 raise. She remains the spokeswoman, but will have more of an advisory role when dealing with Vanderhoef. Her new yearly compensation will be $82,500.

Gerry Walsh, the Stop-DWI coordinator, will now be the department’s director of administration with an $85,000 salary—that’s up from $77,660.  Some might remember that Gerry Walsh took a beating from Ryan Karben in the 2002 NYS Assembly election, and then lost to Denise Kronstadt in the 2003 campaign for the county legislature.  Some might also speculate that this position was a thank you for loyal service to the Republican Party

And now Assistant Stop-DWI Coordinator Leslie Chernin will ascend to coordinator with a raise of just under $5,000.

The raises and new positions must be approved by the County Legislature before they can take effect. Though the new salaries total about $50,000 more than the old, Vanderhoef maintained that the money will come out of another account in his department and that no extra tax dollars will be spent.

How about using that spare $50,000 to provide raises to those folks who actually need and deserve them:  those direct care workers providing services to some of Rockland County’s most vulnerable residents; the developmentally challenged, the elderly and infirm, and children.

A SAD ANNIVERSARY APPROACHES

A few days from now will mark the anniversary of the County Executive's cruel veto of the Rockland  Living Wage Ordinance, a law that would have provided decent, family sustaining wages for hundreds of hard working Rockland County residents who provide direct personal care to the most vulnerable members of our community;  seniors, the developmentally   disabled, and children.

Thanks to our feckless County Executive hundreds of families will  remain in poverty this holiday season.