1.22.2007
A Bit of Smoke But No Fire?
It started with President Richard Nixon and the Watergate Scandal. Some bungling burglars broke into the Democratic campaign headquarters at the Watergate Hotel and they were caught, leading to a series of events that drove “Tricky Dick” from the White House after he won re-election.
The last syllable from Watergate was used as a convenient suffix to describe other political debacles that came down the pike after Nixon’s resignation: Irangate, Koreagate, Billingsgate, and so forth.
But scandals aren’t limited to the big boys. There might be a ‘gate here in Plattsburgh: Firegate, if you will.
The Press-Republican (news)paper reported that the new burghomaster, Mayor Donald Casper-Zack, is upset that the city fire department has been shredding documents related to its financial activities. (Sunday, Jan. 21, 2007.) The burghomaster also ordered that the computer files of all city departments be copied, noting concerns about the sabotage of data and problems with "secrecy."
The fire chief contends that nothing suspicious is going on; it is only shredding documents as part of its regular schedule to handle accumulating files. And he also stated there was no “sabotage” coming out of his department. [ LINK ]
This follows a PR editorial (December 7, 2006) that stated that during a budget hearing with the fire department, it was revealed that no city department was keeping track of expenditures, especially overtime, during the four months the city had no chief financial officer to oversee spending. (Why this was mentioned in an editorial and not an article is puzzling. After all, some readers skip over editorials and only look at hard news stories.) [ LINK ]
The new burghomaster is concerned about overspending and rising taxes. It has been said that a previous mayor from many years ago, Carlton Renal, gave away too much to the fire department during contract negotiations. When asked about the alleged “giveaway,” Renal stated after he left office that it wasn’t true, the fire department got a fair shake from him. He was quoted in the (news)paper after a reporter contacted him at his retirement home in Florida. (Remember: Plattsburgh is a great place to live.)
So is someone blowing smoke? I’m waiting to see if this turns into a five-alarm story.
In the meantime, if the fire department runs a professional shredding operation, maybe it should raise some cash for the city by providing its services to other organizations such as the National Security Agency.
On second thought, maybe that wouldn't work. After all, the NSA is in the secrecy business. If the fire department learns some neat tricks with data records and shredding, such knowledge might not benefit the taxpayers.
# posted by Stan Spire @ 11:47 PM 
