MONDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2006. Cape Vincent planning board chair Richard Edsall told the Watertown Times, “we have the right to outside professional expertise, and we intend to use it.”
The Law firm Whiteman Osterman & Hanna (WO&H) has been providing their "professional expertise" to the Town of Cape Vincent ever since that time, assisting with the wind development site plan process.
Payment for the "professional expertise" of Whiteman Osterman & Hanna was arranged through two escrow accounts set up by the Town of Cape Vincent, Acciona and British petroleum. All expenditures from these escrow accounts are dependent upon approval By Acciona $ British Petroleum.
Additionally, July 8, 2008 ,Whiteman Osterman & Hanna rendered a developer friendly legal opinion about the Cape Vincent board members conflicts of interests.
However, there is no copy of this opinion on file with the Town of Cape Vincent and an invoice for this legal opinion does not exist.
If the Town of Cape Vincent commissioned this legal opinion, there should be a copy on file and an invoice for services rendered, but neither exists. Why isn’t there a copy on file? Did someone other than the Town of Cape Vincent commission this legal opinion? Did the developers commission this legal opinion?
In the legal opinion, Whiteman Osterman and Hanna wrote that for the Town Board, there appears to be no prohibited conflict of interest and the full town board may deliberate and vote concerning a draft law of general applicability to regulate wind projects in the town.
The Whiteman Osterman and Hanna opinion states that the law would affect all proposed and future wind development projects making it a law of general applicability.
Jefferson county senior planner Michael Bourcy attended the private zoning amendment committee meetings and he expressed his concerns about the zoning amendment process to Supervisor Reinbeck in a fax dated April 7, 2006.
Excerpts: I have not heard anyone on the Committee talk specifically that these impacts are mitigated by the proposed setbacks. The discussion has always been who will or will not benefit depending on which setback is used. County Planner Bourcy's statement that the discussions at these committee meetings centered around who will or will not benefit depending on which setback is used gives credence to the fact that the law that they were developing was based upon personal benefit of those people involved in the zoning amendment process and not a law of general applicability.
This is what Supervisor Hirschey had to say about Whiteman Osterman & Hanna's accounting records.
Very soon after taking office I looked into the Escrow accounts which up to then were not available to the public. Over the course of the next few months, I took steps to make accounts more transparent and to have more than one signature approving the invoices. Nonetheless, the brevity of the documentation astounded me. There was neither a correspondence folder nor one piece of written correspondence pertaining to the expenditure of over 100000. Billed by lawyers and engineering Company on the SEQRA process! Upon making inquiries to Whiteman Osterman and Hanna, I was told that there was not much written communication and that it was mostly just talk. Nonetheless, they would send me what they had. To this date even after several reminders, I have not received any copies of emails or written correspondence.
Urban Hirschey
~~~~~~~
Additionally all the payments were authorized by Rienbeck with no accounting of the specifics of what was done and the costs.
Link here for the legal opinion written By Whiteman Osterman & Hanna
Acciona ~SLW~ Escrow Account Document
British petroleum escrow account document
15 comments:
Tom Reinbeck is a piece of crap that should be locked up for what he did.
Pandora, my guess is that an updated summary of these escrow invoices will show that WOH's consulting activity ceased just before Edsall quit. The whole wind show in the Cape is now in the administrative crapper.
...also, how could Acciona for example approve $18,000 in payments to WOH on 6/19/09 with the kind of description provided in these summaries?
Some organized crime syndicates use two sets of accounting records
I THINK SOMEONE SHOULD BE IN JAIL FOR THIS KIND OF BEHAVIOR !!! IF WE TRIED TO DO SOMETHING LIKE THIS WE WOULD BE IN SERIOUS TROUBLE !!! IT LOOKS LIKE THE BOOT JACK WIND THUG CARTEL MEMBERS GET SPECIAL TREATMENT !!! THERE MUST BE A WAY TO MAKE THEM PRODUCE THESE RECORDS, AND I'M SURE IT WOULD VERY DAMAGING TO SOME OF OUR PAST AND CURRENT TOWN AND BOARD MEMBERS !!!
and Boom goes the dynamite.... great job Pandora. So many questions and none seem to have any answers... yet.
I said it before. According to the ethics laws, the same conflict of interest laws apply to any legal firm already involved in the same conflict of interest with town board members. That includes any law firm that has even advised these conflicted individuals. According to the Dirtrict Attorney's own duties, when notified that ethics have been violated with conflicts of interest, and conflicted members do not recuse themselves, the DA has to appoint an independent attorney to investigate. An existing town attorney cannot determine its own conflicts of interest. Mr. Hirschey, who has no apparent conflicts of interest should be able to notify the local DA and have her investigate. There should be plenty of evidence already on file to show conflicts with town board members and the town attorneys. Read the law. It states clearly that town attorneys must also recuse themselves from these very investigations, since they represent the confliced members of the town. Also, and this is important as well.The law states that it is a misdemeanor not to recuse yourself, and that it a RISK that you do so if you don't. The risk itself is the fact that anyone can file charges that you should have recused yourself. If no charges are filed with the DA, the DA can't very well do an investigation if no one tells them. Why this hasn't already been done a long time ago is either someone isn't reading the law or are ignoring it. Also, WOH managed to charge $77,000 to provide a printed copy of the very law this refers to. The very same law I downloaded for free from the BOE and DA websites. That's a lot of money for an answer to a simp,e question, and then you let them control the very diatribe withing the letter. The OPINION is based on RISK. Evidently, they don't see any risk of anyone actually reporting this the the local DA's office. Why? Makes no sense why this goes on and on.
You want documentation? You get it with subpoenas. Who issues those? The DA. Stop half stepping and call her office. otherwise, all I see is smoke and mirrors from everyone involved.
just look in their toy boxes.
4:14,
District Attorneys have broad discretion. They can pretty much ignore what they choose to ignore.
District Attorney is an elected office. DA's make political decisions.
No matter how you slice and dice all this it still comes back to what the people are willing to accept or not accept.
All elections have consequences
As I also said before, local DA's are elected as well. "Without the rule of law, all you have left is chaos". That goes both ways. If the government refuses to enforce its own laws then those laws must be enforced by the people. To enforce laws that only protect the government and corporations, we live in a dictatorship. Taxation without representation. As Richard Haas of the CFR said, economic policies will make an end run around democracy.
I have written to the BOE requesting information as to the procedure for addressing these COI issues directly. I will publish their comments when I receive them as well as my initial request. We'll see whether or not it's them who aren't doing their jobs or if no one is even bothering to ask them to. There is an old saying about "when the rooster crows". We'll see.
4:14 , Although you are quite correct, it would be cynical to do nothing. I have been told many times in life how some things can't get done, but I don't pay much attention since I have always been someone to get things done regardless. It's always been a matter of basic physics. Ink to paper.Once the government puts it in writing, they have to be held to the same laws. It's not the government you go after for accountability, but the individual in office. This is the age of the pen.
"Some organized crime syndicates use two sets of accounting records"
Even the "official" set of books for organized crime groups are probably more detailed than these!!
Gee, maybe someone removed a few documents. "It sucks dosen't it"
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