We here at the Troy Polloi love a political scandal. Nothing is better than public figures involved in a salacious, sex-lies-videotape scandal. The following promises to contain none of those things.

According to The Record, a former compliance auditor with the Temporary Commission on Lobbying will seek legal redress for being terminated by her boss, David Grandeau. Grandeau also happens to be a former Troy City Manager.

Patti Wade, a RensCo resident, was fired recently after a reporter from New 10 showed-up at the Schenectady Curling Club (the top-rated curling club in the Schenectady area) and asked Grandeau about his curling during work hours. Grandeau asked the reporter who tipped him, the reporter, off. When Wade returned from vacation, Grandeau sacked her. The Franco article indicates that Grandeau admitted to curling on state time. He also admitted the game was deadlocked at four-all.

Wade denies being the whistle blower.

To make things more ironic, Grandeau wants to be head of a future ethics/lobbying grand high council that will probably be created by the legislature sometime this year.

This is an extremely disturbing story. When elected or appointed officials are caught with their pants down, the pants should be down. Ice and brooms should not be involved (or hardly ever involved). No respectable scandal should ever, ever, involve curling. For those of you who are unfamiliar with curling, it's like ice-shuffleboard, only more boring. Hence the name...curling.

For those of you unfamiliar with David Grandeau, he was Troy City Manager in the early 1990's. Grandeau's fourteen-month reign is generally referred to as the Pax Grandeau, for the quiet, non-controversial tone of his tenure.

FREAR PARK RESTAURANT

On Thursday night, the Troy City Council awarded the Frear Park Restaurant contract to M&M Enterprise over Michael LoPorto. LoPorto is the colorful uncle-in-law of Mayor Tutunjian.

If accepted, LoPorto's proposal would have meant more money going back to the city. LoPorto was also going to invest more money in the proposed project. LoPorto also owns and operates a successful Troy restaurant. So, it's obvious why the Council went with M&M, whose restaurant experience is considerably less than LoPorto's.

We wish M&M success in their new endeavor.

STRATTON APOLOGIZES

In Friday's Record, Mayor Stratton apologized for criticizing the snow removal efforts of Troy and Albany. If you recall, Stratton stated that Schenectady's snow removal was head-and-shoulder better than Troy's (not hard to imagine) and Albany's efforts. Now he's apologized.

He also helped haul Harry's ass out of the fire over HUD money. I think we're square.