SCANDAL ROCKS CITY HALL

Scandal rocked City Hall on Friday as three Tutunjian appointees were accused of using a city office, vehicle, phone and County employee to lie to city voters. The allegations came from Colleen Regan, a former Rensselaer County employee. In her affidavit, Ms. Regan describes a county government steeped in a culture of intimidation and arrogance.

If you haven't read anything about Intimigate, catch-up here and here. You can also catch the video, here.

Although moderately scandalous, Intimigate, much like David Grandeau's Curling-gate, leaves something to be desired in a top-notch scandal. For instance, when the Brits have a scandal, someone involved looks like this:

Here in Troy, not so much.

Anyway, without further ado, the notorious paragraph 19 of Ms. Regan's Reply Affidavit:

Those are the allegations that directly relate to Troy. Our initial observations:

1 - We have reviewed Ms. Regan's Affidavit in it's entirety. It is highly detailed as to date, place and time. The fact her allegations are in affidavit form raises the stakes. An affidavit is sworn testimony and any materially misleading statement could result in perjury charges;

2- As of this writing, Troy City Hall has not commented on the allegations. Why? Upon hearing of the allegations, Mr. Crawley and Mr. Buell could simply comment, "yes, it's true," or "no, it's false." Are they scrambling for the phone records? The call was sent to voters beginning on Wednesday, November 2, 2005. It was probably recorded sometime during the prior week. It may take time to get those records.* But, if it didn't happen, why not say so;

3- Mr. 3Job was on Channel 10 Friday night. He described all the allegations as false, calling Ms. Regan a "disgruntled, former employee." Will he sign an affidavit? Whether he will or not, the denial is interesting. Why not simply say, "I don't know what occurred in Crawley's office because I wasn't there." As for Ms. Regan being disgruntled, if the allegations in the remainder of the affidavit are true, she has every right to be disgruntled;

4- If the message service was paid via credit card, Buell, Crawley and Mirch could simply allow a credit service to run a check on all their cards and have the results for mid-October through early November sent to an independent third party. Presumably, such a service would receive payment via a credit card. Perhaps an account was already set up;

5- Paragraph 9 does have the stink of truth. Why would Regan toss this event into an affidavit that otherwise concentrates on County shenanigans? If she had wanted to merely create waves, she could have said that Tutunjian, and perhaps Bauer, were also present. Would Regan jeopardize her actual complaint by throwing in a superfluous event that is easily disproved by phone records (legitimate, undoctored records)? If the City can establish to everyone's satisfaction that no call was made from that phone, from that office, the remainder of Regan's allegations are in serious trouble;

6- The events alleged in paragraph nine detail the typical uninspired, pedestrian and boorish behavior we expect from our local political hacks. Does anyone really doubt that this could have happened?

7- When will council President Bauer call for an investigation? Part of the function of a legislature is to keep an eye on the executive. With a possible run for DA in the near future, can Bauer afford to ignore these allegations?

8- A word about criminality. The events alleged are despicable, improper, unethical and worst of all, lacked style. However, you'll have to point out some criminal statute that was violated. We don't think this behavior is literally criminal. There are some statutes that almost cover these alleged acts, but fall just short of applicability. Perhaps a special prosecutor could investigate to determine if anything criminal occured. **

9- Perhaps the most disturbing allegation was paragraph 22, where they repeatedly call the Peter Ryan campaign and ask if he has Prince Albert in a can.

We'll all have plenty of time to discuss all these things and more. This story has legs as long as Christine Keeler's.

Finally, a note of levity in all this nonsense. From the affidavit:

Swartz stood by his affidavit and Laura Bauer, the District 1 County Legislator, is expected to back his claims tomorrow at a press conference.

*At this point, any records produced by City Hall will be suspect. It's been sufficient time to have them doctored. The lack of an official denial within the first twenty-four hours is telling.

**Illegal, maybe. Criminal? Very unlikely, with one caveat, which we'll discuss later.