sam i am
11-29-2003, 11:00 AM
Just incase anyone cares...
Taken from todays Times Union Newspaper.
NYRA hire's firm has ties to Pataki
Albany-- New security director's current bosses are campaign donors
By JAMES M. ODATO, Capitol bureau
First published: Saturday, November 29, 2003
The new director of security for the New York Racing Association, who contributed $10,000 to Gov. George Pataki's campaign last year, is coming from a firm whose principals have been friendly to Republicans and strong advocates and financial supporters of the governor.
Kenneth T. Cook, 53, was chosen by NYRA to lead the beleaguered racing association's security operations after a review by members of a committee led by NYRA appointee Stuart Subotnick.
Subotnick and his wife are particularly generous donors to Pataki's campaign funds, and Subotnick was appointed to the NYRA board by the governor.
Cook has been director of public safety solutions at CMA Consulting Services in Latham since his retirement from the State Police in 2001. His bosses include Kay Stafford, who operates CMA. She is the wife of Pataki ally and fellow Republican Sen. Ron Stafford, who retired at the end of last year after 37 years in the Legislature.
Kay Stafford donated $21,000 to the governor's campaign fund last year.
Her top officer, CMA Executive Vice President Kenneth Romanski, donated $20,250 to the governor and was host for a fund-raiser for Pataki at his home in Delanson last year.
Rachel Leon, executive director of Common Cause New York, said that selection of a Pataki contributor to a post at a quasi-public authority is part of a troubling trend.
"It's business as usual for the governor," she said. "We have these repeated examples of this small, elite group gaining a lot at the same time they are giving."
"It just raises all these questions about how these decisions get made," she added.
Cook has said that his contribution to the governor played no role in his getting the job. Pataki spokesman Joseph Conway said questions about whether the governor had any influence in Cook's hiring, "are absurd and don't merit a response."
Officials with NYRA, a private, nonprofit corporation, were unavailable for comment.
Cook has been very friendly with Stafford, a Plattsburgh Republican, for years, according to those acquainted with Cook.
During his 29-year career with the State Police, Cook was the commander of State Police Troop B in Ray Brook, which includes some of Stafford's former district.
Subotnick is in charge of a NYRA committee formed this summer in the wake of reports about widespread abuses by its tellers. The association runs the Saratoga, Belmont and Aqueduct thoroughbred tracks under an exclusive state franchise.
The committee is supposed to be looking at ways to address concerns raised by Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and others. Spitzer has described NYRA as an example of how New York's shadow governments and public authorities are out of control.
NYRA is facing a criminal probe by the U.S. attorney's office and an indictment is imminent, according to some sources familiar with the probe.
Pataki has sent his former chief counsel, James McGuire, before federal investigators to support NYRA's claims that an indictment would be harmful to the state. The probe has derailed NYRA's ability to install thousands of video lottery terminals at the Aqueduct track.
David
Taken from todays Times Union Newspaper.
NYRA hire's firm has ties to Pataki
Albany-- New security director's current bosses are campaign donors
By JAMES M. ODATO, Capitol bureau
First published: Saturday, November 29, 2003
The new director of security for the New York Racing Association, who contributed $10,000 to Gov. George Pataki's campaign last year, is coming from a firm whose principals have been friendly to Republicans and strong advocates and financial supporters of the governor.
Kenneth T. Cook, 53, was chosen by NYRA to lead the beleaguered racing association's security operations after a review by members of a committee led by NYRA appointee Stuart Subotnick.
Subotnick and his wife are particularly generous donors to Pataki's campaign funds, and Subotnick was appointed to the NYRA board by the governor.
Cook has been director of public safety solutions at CMA Consulting Services in Latham since his retirement from the State Police in 2001. His bosses include Kay Stafford, who operates CMA. She is the wife of Pataki ally and fellow Republican Sen. Ron Stafford, who retired at the end of last year after 37 years in the Legislature.
Kay Stafford donated $21,000 to the governor's campaign fund last year.
Her top officer, CMA Executive Vice President Kenneth Romanski, donated $20,250 to the governor and was host for a fund-raiser for Pataki at his home in Delanson last year.
Rachel Leon, executive director of Common Cause New York, said that selection of a Pataki contributor to a post at a quasi-public authority is part of a troubling trend.
"It's business as usual for the governor," she said. "We have these repeated examples of this small, elite group gaining a lot at the same time they are giving."
"It just raises all these questions about how these decisions get made," she added.
Cook has said that his contribution to the governor played no role in his getting the job. Pataki spokesman Joseph Conway said questions about whether the governor had any influence in Cook's hiring, "are absurd and don't merit a response."
Officials with NYRA, a private, nonprofit corporation, were unavailable for comment.
Cook has been very friendly with Stafford, a Plattsburgh Republican, for years, according to those acquainted with Cook.
During his 29-year career with the State Police, Cook was the commander of State Police Troop B in Ray Brook, which includes some of Stafford's former district.
Subotnick is in charge of a NYRA committee formed this summer in the wake of reports about widespread abuses by its tellers. The association runs the Saratoga, Belmont and Aqueduct thoroughbred tracks under an exclusive state franchise.
The committee is supposed to be looking at ways to address concerns raised by Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and others. Spitzer has described NYRA as an example of how New York's shadow governments and public authorities are out of control.
NYRA is facing a criminal probe by the U.S. attorney's office and an indictment is imminent, according to some sources familiar with the probe.
Pataki has sent his former chief counsel, James McGuire, before federal investigators to support NYRA's claims that an indictment would be harmful to the state. The probe has derailed NYRA's ability to install thousands of video lottery terminals at the Aqueduct track.
David