Golisano's 5 Point Plan for a Responsible New York

Tom Golisano, the billionaire political guru of Western NY has created a PAC that will be distributing money all throughout NY this cycle based on the following 5 principles:


■ Property tax reform.

■ A responsible budgetary process.

■ Campaign and election reform.

■ Ending unfunded mandates.

■ Government transparency.


This is great news to us... we here at UGOB think that those are fine principles to commit to and build support for. That is why today the UpState Good Old Boys are endorsing Golisano's vision for a Responsible New York, which is also the name of his new PAC.


Too bad for Darrel Aubertine that he doesn't fit the bill on any of these measures.

First off, David Renzi, his opponent, committed himself to a property tax reform publicly while Aubertine stood silent.

As for responsible budgetary processes, we never saw Darrel do much of anything in the Assembly to address the issue, except for doing his part to commit to continuing the unfunded mandates dilemma facing the NY State and the federal government.

Then comes campaign/election reform... here is where Darrel stood silently as the leader of his party, Barack Obama, flip-flopped on his promise to take public financing for the presidential election. We called him to task on that issue several days ago and got no response. Then again why would he respond when the mainstream media fails to ask the tough questions. Darrel, do you support Senator Obama's position to forgo public financing for the general election and ruin any chance of meaningful future election reform? Someone should ask him that flat out. He doesn't have a good answer. Just look at how much money he took from Albany for his special election -- he has been paying those favors back for some time now and will continue to pay them back until he gets called to task.

On the issue of ending unfunded mandates Darrel gets an F (minus). We don't even need to get into the mess he and his party have created for unfunded mandates in state government. He is an accomplice of the worse kind as far as unfunded mandates go in Albany.

Last, we come to government transparency... well Darrel, you hired your sister (illegally) for your government office. That moment really brought out the nepotism in you. Then you lied about being offered the NYPA job by Governor Paterson. Darrel does not past the smell test on any of these issues.

Mr. Golisano, with that said, we endorse your plan and we hope you look straight past Mr. Aubertine with your 5 million plus bankroll if you really hope to fix state government in New York and correct these obvious problems in our government. Thank you for your service and commitment, please don't let us down. The people are counting on you!

Relishing Our Victory This Week & Asking More Questions

Amigos,

Forget for a minute that Darrel Aubertine is pandering to the North Country's ATV crowd because it was a spectacular week for us here at UGOB! (For more on Aubertine's flip-flop on the ATV issue see tomorrow's WDTs.)

What is more important is that we have been relishing our latest victory - the firing of Darrel Aubertine's sister, Deb Wiley!

We just want our readers to know that we will be putting up a serious fight to ensure that Aubertine's sister does not get paid for the week she was illegally and unethically employed.

We are also seeking a copy of Wiley's resignation letter from Aubertine's office. There have been some rumors/speculation that Wiley never resigned and that Aubertine's Chief of Staff, Ed Gaffney, had to step into the middle of things earlier this week. (Apparently, Darrel didn't have the balls to fire his own sister because of their close relationship; Darrel fought the initial decision until Gaffney got intimately involved.)

If these rumors are true then it raises some serious concerns as to the way in which this case was handled; Aubertine may have flat out lied to the citizens of the 48th District if Wiley was in fact fired. There are some interesting twists to this story as we will see in the days to come.

On a side note, Aubertine is doing everything he can to spin the story and change the subject. Hence, his latest flip-flop on the ATV issue will appear in tomorrow's Watertown Daily Times. How can anybody trust this guy?

We will keep ya'll posted! Thanks for coming back for the inside scoop.