Swamp fever
New York State Sen. Todd Kaminsky, left, after listening to testimony by Amtrak officials during a New York State Assembly Committee on Corporations on May 11, 2017. Credit: Charles Eckert
Good afternoon and welcome to The Point! While the judge in the Larry Nassar sexual abuse case impressed us, what’s going on in Nassau County does not. Make sure to read our editorial later on newsday.com/opinion.
Reference Point
#TBT: The long-suffering LIRR commuter
Those 46 years just flew by.
From Newsday’s Jan. 25 editorial: “To many Long Islanders, the railroad is like an overbearing mother-in-law or an unsympathetic boss: a fact of life, implacable to reason, persuasion or change.”
That what’s we said in a 1972 editorial headlined “Railroading the Public,” which called out a fare hike “charade” that used riders as pawns in a “political equation.”
Thursday’s Jan. 25, 2018, editorial, “A breakdown inside the LIRR” shows today’s commuters aren’t faring much better.
Amanda Fiscina
Pointing Out
Secret plea’s revelations
It turns out restaurateur Harendra Singh wasn’t the only one involved in the corruption cases of former Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano and former Town of Oyster Bay Supervisor John Venditto to plead guilty a while back. And he wasn’t the only one to allegedly make out a lot better from the dealings than Venditto.
We now know former Oyster Bay Deputy Town Attorney Frederick Mei pleaded guilty in 2015 to “receiving bribes and kickbacks” related to the same cases.
Oyster Bay was a guarantor on tens of millions of dollars in loans related to the concessions Singh operated for the town. That explains why Mei got $50,000, expensive travel and money to pay his BMW lease — but it doesn’t explain why Mangano allegedly did so well in the deal, or why Venditto didn’t.
Will the pair’s upcoming trial solve this mystery of a quid without much of a quo, and vice versa?
Lane Filler
Talking Point
Antics of a MTA hearing
After two months of lousy service and increases in delays, cancellations and suspensions on the Long Island Rail Road, Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chairman Joseph Lhota found himself on the hot seat as he testified at a state budget hearing Thursday in Albany.
But most of the questioning focused on the subways, buses, congestion pricing and fares.
That might be because the only one of Long Island’s nine state senators there was Todd Kaminsky. And it wasn’t until Kaminsky took the mic that Lhota found himself having to answer significant questions about the railroad.
Kaminsky displayed a chart showing that LIRR cancellations had spiked in his district from 81 to 273, when comparing the October-to-January periods from 2016-17 and 2017-18. And he read comments from LIRR riders.
“You have my word that this will get fixed,” Lhota said, adding that the “lack of urgency” bothered him.
And Kaminsky wasn’t the only one with props. Nicole Malliotakis, a Staten Island Assembly member, showed a photo from Madonna’s 1986 “Papa Don’t Preach” video, noting that the borough’s Stapleton station doesn’t look much better than it did then.
Malliotakis, of course, shares common ground with Lhota, as they’re the two Republicans who ran against Mayor Bill de Blasio — Lhota in 2013, Malliotakis in 2017. And needless to say, Lhota hasn’t forgotten.
At one point, Assemb. David Buchwald asked Lhota to analyze Mayor Bill de Blasio’s perspective on congestion pricing.
“I know you are not the mayor of New York City,” Buchwald said.
“Oh yeah, I know that,” responded Lhota.
Randi F. Marshall
Daily Point
#ReleaseTheMemo
If you’re into “deep state” theories, then you’re up to speed on the “release the memo” fever gripping some quarters in Washington. For those of you trying to avoid the actual flu as well as the political one rampant now, here’s a tip about Long Island’s GOP members in the House of Representatives: Lee Zeldin has been infected pretty badly, while Pete King still appears healthy.
The “secret” memo was written by staffers to Devin Nunes, chair of the House Intelligence Committee, to discredit the investigation of the FBI and the Department of Justice into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. The memo is basically a litany of conclusions that Nunes staffers have reached about classified documents used in federal surveillance courts. Their claim is this: If there was no legitimate basis to start looking at Russian meddling in the election, then any surveillance evidence turned up about Donald Trump and the Kremlin would be illegal and should not be pursued by special counsel Robert Mueller.
King, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, actually might have been the House member who disclosed the existence of the memo because he spearheaded a motion to allow all House members to have access to it. That measure passed.
But King opposes the public dissemination of the memo because it could compromise FBI sources and methods. “You don’t want the enemy to know that,” King was quoted as saying by Politico. “This is not to protect the guilty but to protect the innocent.”
But more extreme House members, such as Steve King of Iowa, started a social media campaign called #releasethememo to discredit the investigation. Zeldin was one of the first to join the effort, speaking Friday on the House floor to demand the memo be made public. He has since repeated his position in media interviews, Facebook posts and tweets. Zeldin’s tweets on the topic were retweeted by Donald Trump Jr.
It seems that swamp fever is very contagious.
Rita Ciolli
