Paul Monachino was a sergeant in the East Rochester Police Department on June 14, 2011. After an evening celebrating the appointment of the new police chief, while in his personal car, he caused a motor vehicle accident and was arrested for DWI.

In December, 2011, Susan Walsh was the director of the Greater Rochester International Airport. After an evening of drinking, while driving her county vehicle, she caused a motor vehicle accident and was arrested for DWI.

Monachino and Walsh both resigned their jobs.

Monachino plead guilty and received a sentence of six months in jail with five years probation.

Walsh plead guilty and received a sentence of 100 hours of community service, a $750 fine, and will have an interlocking device installed on her vehicle for a year.

The circumstances of both offenses are virtually identical. One offender receives the maximum sentence and the other receives a slap on the wrist. Why?

Walsh has powerful political connections in Monroe County. Monachino does not. Did politics play a part in the differences in sentencing?

The Rochester Tea Party organizers have scheduled another outing for all of us that oppose the big spending, high taxing, big government. There was a hugely successful gathering last year and they hope to make this year’s even larger and louder.

Date: Thursday, April 15, 2010
Time: 11:30 am EDT to 1 pm EDT

Location: Genesee Crossroads Park

The park is located in downtown Rochester, NY, on the west bank of the Genesee River north of Main Street and south of Andrews.

Further information can be found at the Rochester Tea Party website.

Photos from the April 15, 2009 Rochester Tea Party

The lovely wife and I got a nice surprise last Saturday. New York State sent us a check for just over $500. It is marked as part of the STAR program for property tax rebates but the explanation with the check also refers to income taxes paid.

I was surprised because I know that New York State is running a deficit of some $1.2 billion.

I wasn’t too surprised because I am very familiar with the corruption of the New York State legislature. These checks arrive about three weeks before the election. Does anyone find that curious? No, I didn’t think so.

Members of the State Assembly and Senate are nearly invulnerable to defeat at the polls. The Republicans control the Senate and the Democrats the Assembly. The only thing they can agree upon is sending out a bribe to the taxpayers three weeks before the election.

How can any responsible elected official justify sending out this rebate? It’s cost to New York State? About a billion dollars.

New York State Assemblyman Sam Hoyt has been caught by the online news site PoliticsNY.net. He stands accused of having affairs with two different interns while serving in the State Assembly. Later reports from old media seem to show that they were adults, though still state employees.

Powerful politician, state employees in their early twenties. Hmmm… Misconduct? Sexual harassment? If I had done it in a private sector business, it would be. Goose and gander, Sam, goose and gander.

His statement:

Recently, accusations and slurs have been made online about my personal life; and like a lot of things on the Internet, much of it is false.

Here’s what is true. Several years ago, my wife and I had a difficult time in our marriage. Since that time, my wife Connie and I have worked hard to put this behind us, and believe the episode to be a painful but private matter best left in the past.

While my past actions were unfortunate, and for which I have expressed to my family my sincere apology, one blogger has alleged that official rules or laws were broken. That simply is not true.

It’s sad that my political opponents have chosen to resort to the lowest tactics by dredging up a private matter from years ago just 21 days before an election. The timing is no accident. They would rather wallow in this type of politics than debate the challenges that face our community. I am disappointed, but frankly, not all that surprised given the players involved.

I leave this in the voters’ hands. It’s my view that the people of Buffalo and Grand Island face more pressing issues than this. My family, who are more important to me than anything, has gone through a great deal to put this in the past where it belongs. We ask only for the privacy that any other family would be granted under these circumstances — nothing more, nothing less.

What in the Sam Hoyt?!? reports:

Last year, before the self-destruction of Sam’s good friend Eliot Spitzer, another local Assemblyman was pinched for violating the Assembly’s rules on fraternization.

Mike Cole (R-Alden) of the 142nd District, was censured for just spending the night at an intern’s apartment as he claimed he was too drunk to drive and slept on her floor.

Reports stated that Assemblyman Cole had been attending a get together at an Albany Bar to watch a Buffalo Sabres playoff game. What many reports don’t state, was that the get together was organized by Assemblyman Sam Hoyt.

I’m not trying to blame Sam for Mike Cole’s indescretions, what I’m trying to do it illustrate the Albany culture that after 16 years Assemblyman Hoyt has become a part of and in fact promoted.

The Buffalo News is reporting that they were adults, not interns.

Two women believed to have been romantically linked to Assemblyman Sam Hoyt were adults and not interns when they were allegedly involved with the married legislator, according to records from the Assembly and the state comptroller’s office obtained by The Buffalo News.

The information, which could exonerate Hoyt of legal or rule violations, came as an Assembly ethics committee with broad investigatory powers began a lightning-fast probe into the allegations against the eight-term assemblyman, just weeks before a crucial primary election.

The Buffalo Bean has more.

Oh, yeah. Democrat.

The East Rochester Volunteer Ambulance Corps has been in existence since 1938. We were incorporated as a New York membership corporation in 1949.

Up until about four or five years ago, the Corps had a contract with the Village of East Rochester to provide EMS and ambulance services to the Village. The Village discontinued the yearly contract and we were told that it was unnecessary and / or improper.

We operate out of a forty year old temporary building owned by the Village. The Village allocates, in its general budget, a sum of money from which the Village pays operating expenses for the Corps. That includes building utilities and maintenance, ownership and operating expenses for two ambulances, and supplies used in our operations such as bandages and splints.

In 2005, at the request of the Village administration, the Corps undertook the effort and expense to begin billing our patients for services. The reason given us for this pressure from the Village was that certain senior citizens were being billed by ALS providers and Medicare was not paying that bill. Medicare will not pay billings for paramedic services if the transporting agency does not bill for basic level services. While we had no figures on how many people this affected, we were pressured into beginning billing.

In March 2007, the Village administrator, Tony Argento, and the Mayor, Dave Bonacci, approached our leadership with a demand. Account for the money that we had received by billing and turn any balance over to the Village. The implied threat was that the Village would cease its support of the Corps, and it was openly discussed that a commercial organization could be contracted to perform the same services. The Corps surrendered about $105,000, and since that time we have continued to turn over billing moneys. The latest balance is about $160,000. From that sum the Village has paid certain expenses for the Corps but the unused balance has continued to increase. I cannot find this sum set aside in the published budget for the Corps’s use and I believe it is included in general revenues and is being used by the Village as a new revenue stream.

The Village’s 2006-2007 Budget provides for the sum of $75,221. for the Corps, 1.25% of the total budget. This breaks down to $45,000 for general expenses, $21,573 in debt service [the replacement for a 14 year old ambulance three years ago] and the sum of $8,648 for Worker’s Compensation. The Corps costs the average taxpayer in the Village less than $15 a year.

Since March, the Corps has had to retain attorneys in an effort to obtain a contract from the Village. That contract has not been finalized.

The Corps is alerted roughly 800 times per year. We have an average of 25 people running duty. As so many other Corps have found, certain times of the workday or overnight typically do not have a crew signed on. The Corps is part of a county-wide mutual aid agreement that provides that other agencies, including commercial ones, can be summoned to calls in East Rochester if we are unable to respond. By participating in this plan, the Corps ensures that a call to 911 for an ambulance will always have a response. 100% of our calls are responded to by our Corps or another agency.

Of the 800 calls yearly, about half do not require us to transport the patient to the hospital. We do not bill for calls where we do not transport.

Each of our volunteers run 12 plus hours a month. Many run 20 plus. We provide over 6,000 unpaid hours of service to the community each year. This amount does not include training hours. Training to the Basic level of EMT is over 130 hours of work, and that NYS certification must be renewed every three years with a 60 plus hour set of courses and classes. In addition, from the Corps level on up, there are various mandated yearly training courses that add up to about 20 additional hours per member. All of this is at no cost to the taxpayers of East Rochester.

We also offer CPR and First Aid courses to the school district and the public, operate blood pressure clinics and provide other services at little or no cost.

The Village administration clearly knows what it would cost to pay to provide ambulance coverage for the Village. Our Police Department is budgeted at over $1 million for the year, to put two police officers on the street 24/7. This is approximately what it would cost to do the same for the ambulance. The Civil Service rate for a Basic level EMT is over $18 an hour.

Nearly all of the fire departments in the county provide First Responder services for the ambulance agency covering their area. That means that when certain call criteria are met, the fire department is also alerted to an ambulance call. Very often this means that a fire truck will arrive at an ambulance call before the ambulance, and the firefighters will be providing basic EMS care until the ambulance arrives.

The East Rochester Fire Department does not respond to ambulance calls. Obviously this leaves a gap in emergency services that other localities have. The Fire Department in the 2006-2007 Village budget received $407,000, costing the average taxpayer just over $78 a year.

Several conversations between Corps Officers and the Mayor or the Village Administrator have been inconclusive in resolving a host of problems created by the various actions by the Village over the last several years. As an independent corporation, how can we be a department of the Village as the Administrator maintains? Under what authority did the Village seize money from the Corps that was not the Village’s by contract? Has the Village Board voted for appropriate resolutions and authorizing these actions taken by the Village Administrator and the Mayor?

The voters and taxpayers of East Rochester should ask themselves if they are being well served by the current administration. The Mayor and Village Administrator have been highly critical of a group of volunteers who give over 6,000 hours a year to the Village at an average cost per household of $14.41. The Corps has provided for contingencies and arranged for coverage from other agencies in time of need. The Corps has operated without the assistance of the Fire Department, which the neighboring ambulance corps of Pittsford, Perinton and Penfield all enjoy.

The Village of East Rochester enjoys first rate ambulance service 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at a minimal cost to the taxpayers. The Village administration, the Mayor, Administrator and the Board would find it impossible to replace the Ambulance Corps at the current cost to the taxpayers. Indeed, the replacement cost could well amount to more than ten times the current cost.

No one likes to be strong-armed by the government. Right now the East Rochester Volunteer Ambulance Corps is being strong-armed by the Village. Pretty soon, it may be the taxpayers of the Village that get strong-armed if the current administration continues its present course.