Stockport lawyer-turned-baker Louise Roback—who has been attending many of recent CEDC and County EDC meetings—has sent the following letter to her Town supervisor and others in County Government, reacting to the news that development czar Ken Flood has been pushed out of one of his three positions.
DEAR SUPERVISOR MURRELL AND SUPERVISOR MEMBERS OF THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE:
I wish to share my comments on the “reorganization” of the CEDC announced as a result of its Board retreat yesterday.
That’s pretty terrible if the extent of the “reorganization” is to push Ken Flood out and not:
Remove the conflicted board members, hire new counsel who knows what conflicts of interest are and so instructs the board members, impose term limits on board members, and open up the organization—and its board of directors membership—to public oversight and monitoring, including pledging to fully cooperate with the review of loans to be undertaken by Supervisors Reilly and Baer.
It is atrocious that David Crawford remains on the board, the executive committee and will oversee the operations of the CEDC. Mr. Crawford should step down, as should Mr. Better and Mr. Sherwood, the Kinderhook Bank president, per the ABO findings. The Board should apologize to the County taxpayers for misappropriating public funds, years of making money for themselves and their friends at our expense. Mr. Better should return the money he made while a Board member to the taxpayers, and resign.
Mr. Crawford should not stay on the Board and have a part in administering the odoriferous Ginsberg’s public funds giveaway when he properly should not have been involved in the authorization of this boondoggle, per the ABO.
And the Board needs to answer to the Authorities Budget Office and Columbia County residents as to how it will resolve the systemic self-dealing found by the ABO. Merely looking for a new ED as announced in the press release is woefully inadequate. It is not a restructuring of the organization or the Board—whose conflicts the ABO addressed its report -- but merely superficial, and insults th public who pays for the CEDC’s operations.
If significant reorganization of the CEDC Board and operations does not occur immediately, Ihope the Board of Supervisors exercises its responsibilities and de-funds CEDC. Enough!
LOUISE ROBACK
Stockport
