Rochester Smoke Out

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– Jon Dogar-Marinesco

A self-photo, usually taken with a cell phone and posted online to blogs and social networks is called selfie.

The Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year 2013 is… selfie.

“…and that underscores the notion that we’re fast becoming a wired-up, dumbed-down society of egomaniacs.”

– Jon Dogar-Marinesco

The First Thanksgiving 1621, by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris

May your Thanksgiving be filled with Peace, Love, and Harmony!

– Jon Dogar-Marinesco

May the warmth of this Hanukkah season bring you happiness and blessings.

– Jon Dogar-Marinesco

As opposed to the regular visitors to this blog – who read the latest post and the pertaining comments – I have the advantage of the software letting me know when comments are made to older posts.

Case in point: the plea below was submitted in reply to the “Good riddance! Now we need to get Len out of the Fire Department” comment posted on BREAKING NEWS: Archer in, Bernardo out.

Anonymous says:
November 22, 2013 at 8:23 PM

Good luck getting him out of the Fire Department!!!….Lynn you really need to go to a meeting at the Accord Fire Commisioner’s monthly’s…so much damage being done to the town by him not knowing ANYTHING fire related…and putting people and fire fighter’s in harm’s way!!…please!!!…Lynn Archer help us fire fighters and people of the community before it is too late and we have a law suit and the town will suffer and pay!!!….I voted for you to make a difference and please hear me and others who are afraid who have been warned by the Bernardos to keep shut or else!!!….this could get ugly if nothing is done and we expose him..after begging for your help!!!…PLEASE LYNN ARCHER….YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN CHANGE WHAT HAPPEN’S IN YOUR OWN BACKYARD!!….THANK YOU KINDLY!!……MAKE THE STEP FOR OUR SAFETY!!!

For the record, Len Bernardo’s running for the Fire Chief position was not his idea. He was advised to do it – after he lost the County Executive race – for the purpose of herding the firefighters into a loyal voting block for him and Terry.

Who do you think gave Bernardo the advice? You get one guess only:

– Jon Dogar-Marinesco

By the time I finished reading the above resignation letter I was taken back about 30 years, remembering Michael Steinberger, the owner of Latour – a tour operator to South America. Michael – one of my advertising agency’s clients – was always struggling to pay his vendors, and this was his modus operandi:

• Cut a check for the amount due
• Make a xerox of the check and file it
• Shred the actual check
• Send an empty envelope to the vendor
• Upon vendor’s complaining, send the xerox of the check
  to prove that payment was made
• Complain about the postal service
• Rinse and repeat

Given my past experience with David O’Halloran and letters sent to the Board of Elections, the association is not far-fetched. Moreover, while David’s letter shows that Commissioner of Elections Tom Turco was copied, Tom Turco tells me that he didn’t see it. They can’t both be right…

Assuming that O’Halloran’s resignation was genuine and returned him to the Republican rank and file, I’m baffled by Shane Ricks‘ candid question voiced at the Republican Committee meetings: “What should I convey to Dave?”

– Jon Dogar-Marinesco

On August 12, 2013 – at the end of the Republican Caucus – David O’Halloran announced his resignation as Chair of the Rochester Republican Committee, effective immediately.

A bunch of recent articles by Hugh Reynolds still identify David O’Halloran as Chairman of the Rochester Republican Committee. Is Hugh Reynolds ignorant of what’s happening in Rochester, or is he informed strictly by David O’Halloran? I’m putting the question also because a few weeks back David ask me to abstain from using the word “former.”

So, did David O’Halloran resign or not? For once, I decided to follow Terry Bernardo‘s precious advice: It’s not what you expect, but what you inspect!

While in Kingston last Monday, I went to the Board of Elections and FOILed David O’Halloran’s resignation letter. Yesterday – during a call from Commissioner of Elections Tom Turco – I was informed that the Board of Elections doesn’t have any such resignation on file. It turns out that Election Law does not care how a vacancy is born. It only cares how a vacancy is filled:

NYS ELECTION LAW
§ 2–112.
Committees; organization

1. Every state committee shall within fifteen days after its election, every county committee shall within twenty days after its election, and all other committees shall within the time specified by party rules, meet and organize by electing a chairman, a secretary, a treasurer and such other officers as they may by their rules provide.
Within three days after their meetings all state and county committees shall file in the office of the state board of elections a certificate stating the names and post office addresses of such officers. County committees and any other committee contained therein shall file a copy of such statement with their county board of elections.

Leon Smith was elected Chairman of the Rochester Republican Committee on September 26, 2013 but, as of yesterday, November 19, no certificate was filed with the Ulster County Board of Elections.

One more time, did David O’Halloran resign or not? Either way he’s sending out curious messages. He’s trying to resuscitate his chairmanship of the practically non-existing Republican Club, which didn’t have a meeting – mandated by its by-laws – in years. He hosted a rally at Pinegrove the Sunday before election, rally to which only about 20 people participated – a few candidates and their families, rally at which he did not show up.

O’Halloran’s need to control elected officials is made obvious by his efforts to get elected people who can be manipulated. He got burned by Terry Bernardo, while Rochester got burned by both of them.

O’Halloran wants to distance himself from Terry Bernardo, but it’s too late for that.
It’s time for David to take five, and I mean years. Let the good people do the right thing.

– Jon Dogar-Marinesco

In my previous post I mentioned two of the more substantial community pillars who played equally important roles in Terry Bernardo’s rise to power: David O’Halloran and Jeremy Blaber.

At yesterday’s session of the Ulster County Legislature – one of the last two displaying Terry Bernardo front and center – one of them proved to be a loyalist:

Jeremy Blaber – aiming to entertain the Legislators as well as the web-streaming audience – rendered The celebration of Terry Bernardo’s life as a politician.

One can only hope that David O’Halloran will follow suit.

– Jon Dogar-Marinesco

UPDATE

I just received this Facebook screen grab showing without doubt that Jeremy Blaber is a food foot soldier in the Bernardos’ army:

Terry and Len Bernardo (pictured above in 2007) couldn’t leave well enough alone,
so they dived into politics.

After failing miserably in his attempt to become the first County Executive in 2008, by 2009 Len already left his dirty fingerprints on Ulster County politics as the initiator of the deal that assured his wife a seat in the Legislature.

In 2011, with support from community pillars like David O’Halloran and Jeremy Blaber, Terry Bernardo become a Legislator again.

In 2012, she was installed as the Chairwoman of the Legislature. As you see above, David O’Halloran rushed to exhibit some industrial-strength brown-nosing.

Looking stiff in her Chanel suits, Terry Bernardo started to take herself seriously. I chuckle every time I see the above photo. Terry holds the mike while Mike holds the audience’s attention!

On a flying trapeze or not, every time Terry Bernardo opened her mouth people saw her for what she really was: a clown looking for a circus.

Once she found her circus, Terry Bernardo believed the jackpot was hers.

More and more people realized that she’s a lemon.

David O’Halloran came clean for about 20 minutes, then soiled himself again while trying to replace Terry Bernardo with John Dawson.

As a result of the November 2013 election, Terry Bernardo will be carted away on January 1, 2014, with O’Halloran’s credibility in one of the trash bags.

– Jon Dogar-Marinesco

Lynn Archer‘s victory in the 2013 Election marked the end-of-the-line for Legislator Terry Bernardo‘s political aspirations. For me, it prompted browsing through the handful of visuals that Robin Vaccai had so graciously hosted on her blog – Liberty Coalition – for the last two years. I picked a few to illustrate Terry’s meteoric fall from the political sky.

As it became well-known in the County, Terry Bernardo got to be a Legislator by some devilish means, being “appointed” – not exactly elected, considering the dirty deal of 2009. Trying to deflect my accusations of foul play, she actually attended a Republican Party event sporting red horns (above) and telling everybody “Yeah, I’m the devil (wink wink nudge nudge)!”

Len Bernardo’s deals – made from the perch of Independence Party’s Chair – reached the apex when Terry, a back-bench Legislator, became the first Chairwoman of the Ulster County Legislature, “elected” to that position by all her fellow Legislators except Donalson and Loughran (Rodriguez was absent during that vote).

Rumors of Terry Bernardo behaving as a witch (especially towards the legislative employees) were quickly proven to be true. Not even Sundae – her dachshund – spoke to her anymore.

After a first rough year as Chairwoman, at the beginning of 2013 Terry Bernardo jumped on the 2nd Amendment popularity bandwagon – her Mickey Mouse way to rally a substantial number of voters.

Meanwhile – back at the ranch – the Industrial Development Agency started to make noises about Bernardos not paying their fair share of taxes.

After conflicts with David O’Halloran, the former Rochester Republican Committee Chair, the 2nd Amendment/NY SAFE Act issue remained her only hope for energizing an important – and easy to stir – group of voters.

With a crown way too big, heavy and overpowering for her stature, Terry also claimed to be – in her own words – “absolutely the best qualified” Casino Queen.

In the pre-election candidates’ debates she bet everything on bragging about her imaginary friends among the New York State policy makers. No wonder a KO was in the cards, as she discovered a few days later.

– Jon Dogar-Marinesco