SamPratt.com

What good is red sauce without wine?

Local listings maven, radio personality, and Hudson 3rd Ward Supervisor Ellen Thurston informs this site that Dionysos restaurant in Athens has had its liquor license reinstated by the State Liquor Authority. The plight of the waterfront Italian restaurant with the Greek name had been the subject of a 400-signature Change.org petition. Dionysos will reportedly resume serving wine and booze tomorrow night.

TCI finally not a no-show

After many meetings at which TCI of NY was expected to appear, but did not show up, the company finally sidled into a Planning Board “application night” meeting on Wednesday. They were accompanied by their engineers at Crawford & Associates. Ghent resident and realtor Chris Bishop captured the audio:

Exclusive #2: Shannon’s resignation letter

This site has also now obtained a copy of a resignation latter submitted last night by one of the Register-Star’s reporters, shedding further light into what has transpired at the paper in recent days in the wake of the abrupt firing of reporter Tom Casey. The source states that “part of [management’s] reaction to the letter was to call one staff member at a time into a closed conference room for long talks about the matter.” The resignation letter is reproduced in full below:

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Dear Theresa and Roger,

I enjoyed my time at the paper, but don’t feel comfortable reporting here any longer. I feel, from talking with Francesca and a newsroom member who heard yelling in the conference room before she resigned, that Francesca was belittled into doing so. I feel this was due to her involvement with a letter signed by HCN reporters and editors. The letter, addressing our collective point of view regarding a prior matter, was very reasonably written, in my opinion, and did not deserve such a reaction from management.

Part of the irony here is that this is a newspaper, where freedom of speech is supposed to be championed, not quashed out. At Hudson-Catskill Newspapers, the reporters run on their integrity, their love for the job, their pride in seeking the truth and reporting what’s fit to print. It’s why we here accepted such dismal pay. In the end, I personally could not continue working in a newsroom where I might worry over whether I could always hold the freedom to report things I witnessed and saw as truths, without being fired, for what I simply see as doing the job of a journalist.

Not knowing whether I could voice my opinions on news judgments without repercussions in the future is the main reason I am resigning tonight.

As I said in the conference room today, I think it’s perfectly fine to have disagreements over what is news and what is not. The management has final say in those matters. But I feel here that a healthy questioning from the reporters on the front lines of the community and editors closely involved each night in news judgments was swiftly rejected. It’s tough to be submissive to the idea of such an environment, despite (but, ultimately due to) my love for reporting.

I agree with you both that it is unfortunate this situation escalated as it did.

Again, I had fun. It was a hell of a news team while it lasted.

Best of luck.

Billy Shannon

Exclusive: Reg-Star staff protest letter

This site has obtained a copy of a letter signed yesterday by all of the Register-Star’s top editorial staff (as well as the editor of the Chatham Courier) to management, protesting the firing of reporter Tom Casey. It is reproduced in full below:

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November 14, 2012

Dear Roger Coleman and Theresa Hyland:

We, members of the editorial staff at Hudson-Catskill Newspapers, request that you reinstate reporter Tom Casey.

Tom is an integral part of the newsroom at the Register-Star. He is an excellent reporter who covers his beat conscientiously, who thinks deeply about the issues involved, who has developed strong, fertile relationships with his sources, writes imaginatively and accurately and is a warm, intelligent and good humored presence in the newsroom. His record has been spotless and he has never turned down a difficult assignment.

Tom is a young man, a highly promising journalist on his first job after graduating from college. This could turn him away from a field for which he has a strong affinity and to which he could make a positive contribution.

Tom was fired for doing what any journalism professor would want him to do, stand up for the integrity of his own reporting. He was ordered by management to insert a paragraph about something he did not consider newsworthy and that was totally unrelated to the topic of his article, the city budget.

As journalists, we are watchdogs but can never be part of the story. Because no public outcry had occurred to date over Alderman John Friedman’s decision not to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, there was no reason to include this in the story. Adding an unrelated paragraph without context at the end of a story looks questionable to readers and gives the appearance of bias.

This could have been a teachable moment for our entire news staff. A story about the community's attitude on the pledge of allegiance could have been assigned the day after Friedman did not stand, but the directive to add the paragraph was given to Tom privately, and there was little opportunity for discussion. This was a perfect opportunity to ask for ideas and to listen to a newsroom with decades of collective experience and strong ethical standards.

It appears that more credence was given to an unnamed source who was also present at the meeting than to your own reporter. Is there any question that source is at odds politically with Friedman? Thus the newspaper appears to be speaking for a biased observer.

What we are looking for is some esprit de corps. You have a great group of reporters here. Just give them a little trust, and work with them.

The journalists at HCN are proud to uphold the highest ethical standards of their profession. The firing of Tom Casey undermines this pride and their belief in the integrity of their work and is highly detrimental to the morale of the newsroom. It also threatens to diminish our standing in the community.

We respectfully request to meet with you and discuss this issue, and request you reinstate Tom Casey as a reporter here.

Sincerely,

Karrie Allen, editor, Chatham Courier
David Lee, photographer, Hudson-Catskill Newspapers
Francesca Olsen, city editor, Register-Star
John Mason, reporter, Register-Star
Nathan Mayberg, reporter, Register-Star
Adam Shanks, reporter, Chatham Courier
Billy Shannon, reporter, Register-Star

Protest: Three more split with Register

Carole Osterink has the latest on the turmoil that is apparently worsening at the Register-Star, writing that the paper now also has lost an editor and two more reporters, in addition to the Friday firing of Casey:

http://www.gossipsofrivertown.blogspot.com/2012/11/ear-to-ground.html

Gossips suggests that these could be either resignations or dismissals. But a trusted source tells this site that “the latest three resigned in protest of Tom’s firing,” speculating that this may result in the "relocation" of publisher Roger Coleman.

Help wanted

A sharp-eyed reader spotted a job listing just posted today for what appears to be the Register-Star position filled until recently by Tom Casey, namely that of Hudson beat reporter.

The job description (to be filled immediately) claims that the paper’s “ideal candidate is someone willing to work hard and go beyond the ‘official story’”—even though repeating and reinforcing the official line has been the default position of the paper for  15 years or more, across multiple editors and publishers. (The listing does not mention that beat reporters may be abruptly fired for even mild backtalk or other perceptions of insubordination.)

The paper calls upon applicants to send a “cover letter, resume [sic] and at least three writing samples to Executive Editor Theresa E. Hyland, One Hudson City Centre, Suite 202, Hudson NY 12534. Or email to [email protected].”

UPDATE: Jim Romenesko’s well-traveled media site has picked up this story, and some interesting comments are cropping up there, for example from public-interest economics journalist Dan Mitchell:

Wow. 20 years ago, I worked for publisher Roger Coleman at a crappy daily in the west suburbs of Chicago (The Kane County Chronicle.) He never directly tried to interfere with any of my work, at least, though he certainly expressed his displeasure whenever one of his business/golf buddies at the Kiwanis or the Lions Club (or what the hell ever) got negative coverage.

I don’t recall any particular nutty right-wing/loyalty oath/redbaiting type stuff either (I didn't know him well, but he seemed more concerned with advertisers and wearing the correct tie than he did with 'murrica), but of course, times have changed in that regard, as they also have for newspapers and who wields power within them. I have little doubt that if Coleman could have done something like this to me back then, he would have.

Meanwhile, commenter Walt Yost notes that “Newspapers with a Guild contract often allow reporters the right to withhold their byline from a story. Guessing Register-Star isn't a Newspaper Guild paper.”

Facing facts, one week late

Assembly candidate Cheryl Roberts has finally conceded the 107th State Assembly race to Steve McLaughin, according to the Troy Record. Roberts’ grudging concession comes a week after McLaughlin declared victory on election night.

In the Record article, a McLaughlin campaign spokesman barely conceals his annoyance with Roberts’ lack of grace in defeat:

“It was very clear on election night that Assemblyman McLaughlin won re-election and was given the honor to serve another term in the state assembly... There was certainly no need to drag this out an additional six days when the obvious had already been stated when Steve had won by a margin far exceeding any need for a recount.”

Roberts had previously insisted that all absentee ballots be counted before she acknowledge the result, though numbers gathered from various Boards of Elections by this site a week ago made it obvious that the challenger had virtually no chance to catch up. The challenger would have had to garner almost 4 out of every 5 absentee ballot filed, even though 3 out of 4 of those ballots came from Rensselaer County, where McLaughlin won handily on the machine.

Roberts was cited for circulating dishonest literature against McLaughlin by the League of Women voters’ non-partisan Fair Campaign Practices organization. She campaigned as an environmental champion, despite having advocated one-sidedly for the interests of Swiss industrial polluter Holcim and notorious Connecticut construction firm O&G Industries over thousands of citizen concerns about the future of Hudson’s South Bay.

Nevertheless, Columbia County Democratic officials cynically promoted Roberts’ green bona fides using the (now-disproven) rationale that “she can win”—the same reason given for the party’s switch of its allegiance from progressive Congressional candidate Joel Tyner to CIA lawyer Julian Schreibman. Roberts reportedly wasted more than $100,000 in campaign funding from the Democratic Assembly Campaign Committee, while Schreibman ran through $1 million on his race, not counting expenditures by outside groups.

Firing roils the Register

UPDATES: The Register has now posted a job listing for what appears to have been Casey’s position. And welcome to Romenesko readers; if you’re looking for some background on the peculiar dynamics (and myriad failings) of local media, here’s a PDF of my piece in Our Town, guest edited by Jacob Brackman.

Reporter Tom Casey has been fired by the Register-Star, according to more than one well-placed source.

Casey’s Reg-Star profile picture

According to these sources, Casey’s firing was precipitated by his refusal to let his byline run over a story he’d submitted about a recent Common Council budget meeting—combined with the eagerness of higher-ups to make an issue of one Alderman’s principled stand.

An article about the meeting appeared on Friday, but was attributed only to “Hudson Catskill-Newspapers” rather than to any reporter.

The bone of contention is said to have been two paragraphs tacked onto the end of Casey’s article by an editor, claiming that there was some unspecified “upset” at the meeting over “Alderman John Friedman’s decision not to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.” While standing for the Pledge is customary at Council meetings, it’s not actually required by the City’s Code. Indeed, the City Code doesn’t even require Aldermen to show up.

According to sources, Casey had been under pressure by higher-ups at the paper to make an issue of Friedman’s choice, which the Alderman had exercised at some but not all previous meetings. Getting the matter into the body of a news story would give the paper’s management a predicate for writing an editorial about it. The day after the dispute, Casey was reportedly fired by editor Theresa Hyland at the insistence of publisher Roger Coleman.

Coleman and Hyland (Source: Register-Star)

“Theresa made it clear that the decison came from above,” according to one source, who added that management had “asked Tom to let her know the next time he didn't stand [for the Pledge]. They wanted a particular instance that they could pinpoint for a forthcoming editorial. Roger sent somebody else to the meeting to check on whether John stood.” When word came back that Friedman had not stood, but the topic was not addressed in Casey’s article, a confrontation ensued.

“It's a very rare situation,” according to one Hudson-Catskill Newspapers insider, observing that “I’ve never seen it before that someone said straight up that they didn't want their name on their article.”

The situation appears to be all the more rare to the extent that Register-Star articles are seldom copy-edited or substantially changed before publication. Reporters’ texts typically fly straight from their own keyboard into print, with little or no editorial oversight. “It’s kind of frightening, really,” said one source familiar with the paper’s production system,” saying that “typically, they are so hands off, the news runs itself... Theresa and Roger don’t get involved with the copy.”

In addition, the firing is said to have been denounced by senior reporter John Mason, said to have characterized Hyland’s move as “McCarthyite.” Staff now fear that Mason might in turn be punished, with many threatening to walk out en masse if that were to occur. Some staffers have drafted a letter of protest to the Johnson family in Watertown about Casey’s treatment, but it remains to be seen who will go out on a limb and sign it.

“This just emphasizes the point that some good reporters have worked under really crummy circumstances there,” said one source sympathetic with both Casey and Mason.

Regarding the apparent eagerness of some to make an issue of the Pledge, Friedman writes:

“Sometimes I say it, and sometimes I don’t. I simply don’t like the government—any government, including one I’m part of—telling me what and when to say something. [It’s] not a very interesting issue to me, especially with the budget before us.”

Historically, the Register has some history of problematic relationships with its reporters. A decade ago, a crackerjack writer was pressured to resign after his excellently detailed reporting on the Columbia County Board of Supervisors incurred the wrath of then-chair Gerry Simons. More recently, a young reporter was fired for alleged “insubordination” after insulting his editor, though eventually he was rehired.

A newer article appeared in the Sunday edition of the Register about Hurricane Sandy relief work with the joint byline of Billy Shannon and Tom Casey. But the end of the article says “To reach reporter Billy Shannon, call 828-1616 ext. 2499 or emai [email protected].” The omission of Casey’s contact info perhaps suggests that Casey began the story, but Shannon finished it after his departure.

Requests submitted on Sunday for comment from Hyland, Coleman and Mason have not been answered. Casey still had a voicemail account at the paper as of Monday, but this would appear to be just a lack of thoroughness on the part of management.

Meanwhile, in other Hudson-Catskill Newspapers news, publisher Coleman has moved from Hudson to Ghent, where he voted last Tuesday.

You’ll want to read Sunday’s Times-Union

UPDATE: The article discussed below is now live at the T-U’s website. Also, Pflaum has posted a new synopsis of his ‘Sleepergate’ research.

The front page of today’s Albany Times-Union leads with an explosive investigative report by former local reporter Jamie Larson.

Larson’s research finds that attorney Tal Rappelyea often billed area government for as much as 70 or 80 hours of work per week, reaching a peak of more than 90 hours—and on two occasions, what looks like more than 24 hours in a single day.

Larson’s article independently confirms much of the reasearch of Stuyvesant activist Will Pflaum, who is quoted at length in the article. Rappelyea, County Attorney Rob Fitzsimmons and others offer various explanations or justifications for the seemingly impossible billing. D.A. Paul Czajka, who Plaum elsewhere says he briefed in detail on the allegations, says he cannot comment on whether there is an investigation.

All this also assumes that Rappelyea had no non-governmental clients. If he had any private clients during this time, his workload would be even more superhuman. The attorney states that the 24+ hour days can be explained by the way his 30-hours-per-week for the County are billed: He says he does a total of 30 hours per week of work, but the County bills it at six hours per day, inflating the perceived daily totals. Yet even if one subtracts six from a high of 26 hours, that still makes for a 20-hour day—working continuously from 4 am to midnight. Plus those subtracted six hours would have to be added to some other day.

But if you want to read the story, you’ll have to either buy the Sunday print edition, or wait until later in the week for it to go online.

Plaum reacts to the piece in an email to this site:

I’ve been jumping up and down waiving invoices in front of Ron Knott, Pat Grattan and Paul Czajka for a year. The comptroller, the AG, the IG, the BAR association, the Joint Commission on Public Integrity, the state police: no one has taken the credible complaints about ongoing fraud seriously. It is still going on. The total damage to the taxpayer from the no show jobs at the county attorney's office is over one million over several years.

We are not talking about [one] lawyer. There are many no show jobs, just like Rappleyea. We are talking about a systematic failure county wide, state wide. We need comprehensive ethics reform covering local and municipal government.

Pflaum’s original post on what he’s dubbed “Sleepergate” (since it would appear Rappelyea gets very little shut-eye) is at this link.

TCI is a no-show in Ghent—again

According to a resident who arrived early in Ghent for the Planning Board meeting, TCI is not coming tonight... No word yet on whether the company cancelled once the news leaked out, or anticipation of their presence was a mistake (sources on the rumor included one in Town Hall).

Either way, this leaves unbroken TCI’s streak of failing to show up for public questioning.

Absentee math strongly favors McLaughlin over Roberts

In the 107th Assembly District race, GOP incumbent Steve McLaughlin declared victory late Tuesday night, with results (as reported by three County Boards of Elections) showing him ahead by 2,282 votes.

However, challenger Cheryl Roberts refused to concede, based on some theoretical possibility that absentee ballots could alter the outcome. But could they, really? Basic math suggests a reversal in her favor is extremely unlikely.

Calls to area Boards of Elections indicate that the number of absentee ballots issued to voters for this race totals about 4,600. So far, approximately 3,900 of those have been returned. If postmarked by election day, some additional ballots may be received. Generously, maybe 4,150 will come back. Of those, a few ballots will be deemed invalid for some technical reason, while other voters will be found to have skipped over the 107th Assembly race—or have written someone else in. Reasonably and for argument’s sake, let’s estimate that there a total of 4,000 more votes will be counted toward this race.

So does Roberts have a shot? With McLaughlin already ahead by 2,282, the raw numbers suggest her remaining chances are a longshot at best.

Years ago while handling a similar dispute for a Hudson candidate, I devised the simple formula pictured above for quickly computing how many votes a candidate who is behind in an election needs to get from the remaining voters to come from behind to win.

By that basic math, Roberts would have to get 3,141 of those 4,000 absentee ballots just to tie McLaughlin—3,142 to win. McLaughlin would have to garner only 858 of the 4,000 absentees to lose.

In other words, 78%.5 of all the absentee ballots would have to break for Roberts, and only 21.5% to McLaughlin. By contrast, the machine votes broke 52%-48% for McLaughlin.

In other words, Roberts would have to increase her tally +30%  among absentee voters than among Election Day voters just to make this close. In my experience of contested absentee ballot races, the ballots generally follow the same pattern as the rest of voters, and even when they deviate, they rarely if ever deviate more than 5-10% from the “machine” votes.

Furthermore, the demographics of those absentee ballots also do not favor Roberts (whose chances were diminished during the campaign when she was cited for dishonest campaign literature by the non-partisan Fair Campaign Practices organization). 73% of the absentee ballots received so far come from Rensselaer County, which McLaughlin won easily by about 7.5%; whereas only 24% of the absentees come from Columbia, which Roberts won by a similar margin. Washington County was a dead heat, and only a handful of absentees will come from there in any case.

In other words, for Roberts to win she’d not only have to do significantly better than on Election Day, she’d have to do so in the less-friendly territory of Rensselaer County. While the general perception is that in Columbia County, absentees come more heavily from liberal weekenders than from longtime Republican residents, as one moves northward a higher percentage of the absentees emanate from nursing homes and more conservative retirees.

It thus would be remarkable, verging on highly improblable, for McLaughlin’s margin not to hold up. But that may not prevent Roberts’ more rabid partisans from mounting a long, exhausting and expensive ballot fight.

TCI live tonight; DEC stonewalls

Though the Town of Ghent has not announced it, according to two sources TCI of New York has arranged to be on the Planning Board’s agenda tonight. The Board meets at 7 pm at Town Hallon Route 66. If so, this would be the first time that the company has attended a public meeting since its catastrophic fire on August 1st and 2nd.

Meanwhile, after three months the New York State DEC has still not responded to a Freedom of Information Law request regarding TCI's permits, filed in early August. Previously, DEC stated that the information would be available on October 16th, already a significant delay.

Since that deadline passed, FOIL officer Ruth Earl has not responded to email or phone messages regarding its status.