Drawing the lines

Daily Point

If at first you don’t get an advisory opinion …

On May 19, Rob Trotta, a Republican Suffolk County legislator, former Suffolk police officer and tireless thorn in the side of local pols and the Police Benevolent Association, went to the county’s Board of Ethics looking for advice.

Trotta ostensibly wanted an advisory opinion on whether it would be legal and ethical for him to take a political contribution from the Suffolk PBA, which a Newsday investigation showed exceeds $5,000 annual limits on direct political contributions and contributions to its PAC. It also fails to pay taxes on money it spends on direct political contributions, a violation for nonprofit corporations. It collects $1 a day from the county’s cops for political spending, but officers say they have not authorized that paycheck deduction as required by law. Police reform groups and taxpayer organizations have accused the Suffolk PBA's super PAC of making illegal contributions.

The premise itself is laughable. The Suffolk PBA would never support Trotta, who has vehemently opposed fat police contracts. But the question is significant. No law enforcement agency has been willing to challenge the Suffolk PBA and its powerful leader, Noel DiGerolamo, even though the law seems clear.

On May 21, the Board of Ethics sent Trotta a letter saying it would not issue an opinion because the question is not in its purview, which Trotta disputes, and stating that the board referred the matter to the state attorney general, the IRS, the state comptroller, the state Department of Taxation and Finance, and the Suffolk County district attorney.

This last referral particularly got Trotta’s goat, as Suffolk County DA Tim Sini has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the PBA.

But according to Trotta, nothing ever happened as a result of those referrals, so Wednesday he went back before the board to try again: "There are millions of dollars being spent illegally on the upcoming election, and a lot of it comes from the hardworking men and women of the Suffolk County Police Department, who deserve a say in whether they donate it."

Trotta spoke to the board for about 12 minutes, and was asked no questions by members. But soon after the meeting ended, he says he received a call from board Executive Director Samantha Segal, who told him the board had voted to reconsider his request for an advisory opinion.

"I do feel a bit better, more hopeful," Trotta told The Point. "I don’t see how an ethics board can kick an issue over to a bunch of law enforcement agencies and claim they don’t know if it’s an ethical issue. I’d also hope the law enforcement agencies themselves will start taking this seriously, because it’s a travesty."

— Lane Filler @lanefiller

Talking Point

Dodging the ‘smoke-filled Zoom’

The first in-person gathering of the state’s Independent Redistricting Commission on Wednesday had the feel of your average legislative committee hearing: a Democratic chairman and a Republican vice chairman disputing certain points but agreeing to advance proposed district maps for the House, State Assembly and State Senate to the hearing stage.

The partisan divide on the commission is even, by design. Vice chairman Jack Martins, a Nassau County Republican, objected to the fact that a total of six maps would be submitted for hearings rather than one set of three maps that should have been agreed to by both sides. But Martins and other Republican members said they would vote to move ahead with this process in the hopes that they’d work out an agreement.

David Imamura, the Democratic chairman, said rushing to an agreement over the weekend as some expected would have been the product of a "smoke-filled Zoom" that wouldn’t be desirable. Martins, however, said the Democratic caucus of commissioners had earlier signaled they’d try to agree on a unified proposal in time for Wednesday’s statutory publication deadline — but then didn’t.

Martins was able to amend the approved motion essentially to say that putting these twinned "drafts" before the public would not mean endorsing any of them. He said his side’s maps had deviations in the size of districts of less than 2% while the Democrats’ maps had up to 10%. Even populations per district is always a standard of fairness and wide deviations are taken to suggest gerrymandering.

Imamura said the deviations in what he called these drafts allow for changes subject to public input at the hearings.

To Martins’ objections, commission member Ivelisse Cuevas-Molina replied: "This does not mean we will not have consensus maps at the end of this process." The mapping plan is expected to go to the State Legislature by the end of the year, where lawmakers can accept or reject it.

So the commission Wednesday afternoon posted on its website "letter" maps and "name" maps that identify the partisan differences. They also announced a round of hearings statewide, including a Nassau hearing on Nov. 22 at 4 p.m. at Nassau Community College in Garden City and a Suffolk session on Nov. 23 at 4 p.m. at Stony Brook University.

Almost immediately Nick Langworthy, the state GOP chairman, issued a statement condemning the "dual" process by blasting the opposing party now in tight control of both houses at the Capitol and the governorship.

"They are going to stonewall and drag this process out hoping New Yorkers aren’t paying attention so partisan legislators can draw their own maps. We intend to employ every legal and political tool in our arsenal to stop them and ensure New Yorkers are fairly represented," the chairman complained.

Over the next few days, those interested will be reviewing from afar just how independent and gerrymander-free these dueling early proposals might be.

— Dan Janison @Danjanison

Pencil Point

Fashion statement

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Final Point

Seasoned Suffolk jurist glimpses the Albany muck

C. Randall Hinrichs retired last year as a widely-respected prosecutor, state Supreme Court justice and administrative judge after 38 years in public service. This week, new Gov. Kathy Hochul named him to fill a vacancy on the state’s Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE), for which she has called for reform.

Suddenly, as he arrived on the commission, created under Hochul’s predecessor Andrew M. Cuomo, Hinrichs found himself in the glare of gnarly issues surrounding the former governor’s controversial book contract, for which he was paid a reported $5 million advance. That deal is still under investigation by Attorney General Letitia James.

When JCOPE met Tuesday, there was a motion to rescind a staff approval of the Cuomo book deal based on the grounds that it was granted on the false promise that government employees wouldn’t be involved with the project. But the motion was voted down, 7-6 — including by all five gubernatorial appointees. Hinrichs was one of two Hochul tapped to replace Cuomo picks who resigned. Three other "no" votes were holdovers from Cuomo’s tenure. And a "swing" vote against the motion proved to be Juanita Bing Newton, chosen by the Senate Democratic majority.

Criticism came from Republicans and progressives. Gary Lavine, a GOP appointee, had pushed the motion.

"It seems clear that the issue has to be looked at again," Hinrichs was quoted as saying afterward. It appears that he wants a finding of wrongdoing by Cuomo’s staff first. JCOPE has not yet determined as a body that there were "material misrepresentations" as alleged, he said.

The fireworks over that vote seem destined to be short-lived. But for as long as JCOPE is assembled the way it is, Hinrichs and the rest will have plenty more Cuomo fallout with which to wrestle. The commission on Tuesday also took another widely-noted vote: 11-1 to seek a criminal investigation into the 2019 leak of confidential information to Cuomo regarding his since-convicted former close aide Joseph Percoco.

For Hinrichs, it’s out of retirement, back in the procedural fire.

— Dan Janison @Danjanison

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