East Greenbush GOP Dirty Tricks Come to Light

Times Union 11/06/2011, Page D06



Target sees dirty trick

Town’s GOP chief pays cash for ad listing seemingly fictitious writer

By BRENDAN J. LYONS

Senior writer

EAST GREENBUSH — The town’s Republican committee chairman, Chris DeFruscio, paid cash to publish a political-attack advertisement in a local publication that was made to appear like it was a letter-to-the-editor from a town resident.

The letter, which contained false accusations directed at a town official, was attributed to “Martha Andiago, East Greenbush,” which is apparently a fictitious name.

The advertisement appeared in Thursday’s edition of The Advertiser, a non-subscription weekly publication mailed to town residents. The letter targeted Toni Murphy, a Democrat seeking reelection Tuesday as East Greenbush tax collector. The letter accused Murphy of ordering an elderly man at a recent town meeting to “Sit Down!”

“While a senior citizen was trying to explain his disapproval of the way he was treated at the tax receiver’s office and the tax assessor’s office, Ms. Murphy was very vocal and rude in telling the elderly man to ‘SIT DOWN!’” the letter reads. “HOW DARE SHE, or any public figure ... try to silence people who are only looking for this administration to do the job they were elected and hired to do.”

Robert Wells, 75, who is the man referred to in the letter, said it did not happen. He said he went to the town meeting to appeal for a more fair process in resolving a tax issue and asked if he could sit while speaking.

“At some point, a female voice said something to the effect ‘Yes, sit down,’ or an offer was made to get me a chair and someone said ‘by all means, sit down,” he said, adding that he feels he is being “used” in a political fight.

Reached Saturday, DeFruscio sought to distance himself from the ad and repeatedly talked over a reporter. He refused to answer questions about his role in purchasing the ad or to identify the alleged author.

“You don’t understand, it’s not me. It’s not the committee,” DeFruscio said.

DeFruscio admitted paying $148 in cash to publish the letter when he went in-person to the office of The Advertiser on Oct. 28.

Susan St. Pierre, a sales rep for The Advertiser, said DeFruscio purchased several political ads and paid by check for all of the ads except the letter, which he paid for in cash.

On Saturday, DeFruscio, 49, told the Times Union: “I had an envelope. She (Andiago) was with us. She was outside. I went inside and dropped stuff off to Sue.”

But St. Pierre said she did not notice anyone else outside her office when DeFruscio was there. Under a standard verification process she called a number listed for the letter’s author and a woman confirmed her name was “Martha Andiago.” A search of public databases, including voter and property records, shows no one by that name in New York state.

On Friday, as questions surfaced about the letter, St. Pierre said she called back the number and the woman again confirmed her name is “Martha Andiago.” St. Pierre said she asked her to come to the Advertiser’s office with identification. “Then I said ‘May I ask your address’ and there was silence on the phone for a minute, and then the dial tone,” St. Pierre said.

St. Pierre said there were several “red flags” about DeFruscio’s ad purchase.

“He had told me that several people were pitching in to pay for that ad,” St. Pierre said. “My original email I received for that ad wasn’t signed by “Martha Andiago,” it was a different name but Chris changed it.”

She said DeFruscio asked her to make out a receipt for that ad to “Martha Andiago” while other ads were invoiced to the town GOP committee.

DeFruscio insisted the person who wrote the letter was real and that she would contact the Times Union to verify her identity. But no one called. DeFruscio also said her name was spelled wrong in the letter, but he declined to provide correct spelling or her telephone number. He also would not say how he knows the woman or why he had paid for her advertisement.

Murphy said the ad is part of a pattern of dirty political tactics by town Republican leaders.

“They’ll do anything at this point, you know elections,” Murphy said. “Usually my position isn’t contested like this. I just collect the taxes and don’t make decisions on who to hire.”

Murphy is being challenged for the job, which pays about $44,000 annually, by Corine Sheldon, a Republican. Sheldon could not be reached for comment.

“I’m angry because I was totally taken advantage of,” St. Pierre said.

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Southern RenssCo Dems sponsor forum on consolidation

The Democratic Committees of East Greenbush, Nassau and Schodack

                are hosting a forum and

Bagel Breakfast

Saturday, June 25, 2011 from 9:30 – 11 a.m. at the

East Schodack Fire House 3071 Route 150, East Schodack

What will Gov. Cuomo’s Consolidation Plan mean to you?

Guest Speaker: Mark Streb

Capital District Regional Representative for Governor Cuomo

Also Featuring Rensselaer County DA Rich McNally and Investigator Gary Gordon

We will provide the bagels, fixings and coffee

you provide the questions

$5 suggested donation plus a non-perishable food item to donate to the food pantry at Consens-U

For more information and to register visit www.schodackdemocrats.com

Guest Post from Daily Kos - Town Halls, then and now

The following post was grabbed from Daily Kos, with the permission of the author, devtob.

 Back in the summer of 2009, tea partiers, egged on by the Republican cable "news" channel and Republican astroturf groups, turned out en masse to disrupt town hall meetings, shout down Democratic Members of Congress, and denounce the pending health care reform bill.

Paul Tonko, a solid progressive who was then a freshman representing NY-21, got the treatment at Elm Avenue Park in Bethlehem, just south of Albany -- lots of delusional Constitution questions and the sign at right.

Tonko more than held his own, explaining the obvious need for HCR and liberally citing the general welfare clause, to the frustration of the tea partiers.

About 600 people attended that town hall, about equally divided between tea partiers and HCR supporters.

Today, Tonko held a town hall in East Greenbush (just east of Albany), and the scene was very different -- about 100 people in a firehouse, only a handful of them tea partiers.

Tonko was at the Clinton Heights firehouse to announce an $87,000 federal grant for portable radios, a thermal imaging camera, and other emergency services equipment, and to present a flag that flew over the Capitol.

But mostly he discussed what's happening in the new Republican-dominated House.

Tonko noted that he's on a new committee -- Budget -- so he's on the front line of the current Continuing Resolution battles. 

There is a proposal in the House to cut spending by $100 billion that has raised concerns for many. The original package presented by Speaker Boehner was for about $32 billion. There is a group, primarily newer elected officials if not the newest, that suggested it should be deeper than $32 billion, it should rise to $100 billion.And if you ask a number of people, why $100 billion, many will suggest it's a number they tossed out in their campaigns.

My problem with that is this was done in a whimsical fashion, there was no calculus, they had not served in Congress, but a three-digit number like 100, billion sounded good. But we have to be careful, because those cuts can be rocking the comeback of the economy.

Since March of last year, we have added 1.5 million private sector jobs. The think tanks around this country are suggesting that the $100 billion cut in domestic programs could cause unemployment of 700,000 to 800,000. So that would wipe out half of the progress made. Setting us back 700,000 to 800,00 jobs is a frightening thought.

Tonko added that the cuts would come entirely from domestic discretionary spending (a small percentage of the overall budget) -- cuts to all forms of education aid, cuts to technological innovation, cuts to public safety, cuts to clean air/clean water regulations, etc.

He noted that the Ryan Roadmap, named after the new Budget Committee chairman who proposed it, is the still GOP's budget blueprint, and that it would privatize Social Security and turn Medicare into an inadequate voucher program (at $11,000 annually, growing by just 2 percent a year, and impoverishing sick seniors).

Tonko said that his top priority is job creation, since he believes that our lingering high unemployment "drives our deficit" and the only effective way to reduce the deficit is to create jobs.

He noted that House Republicans have not introduced even one jobs bill in any committee.

Tonko also explained that the Republicans have not proposed any cuts to the tens of billions spent on military contractors, and have proposed nothing to limit the $100 billion (that number again) in special tax treatment for oil companies, or the tax policies that encourage outsourcing of American jobs.

In the Q&A, most questions reflected concerns over what the radical House Republicans are up to, but there was one bona fide tea party question, asked, naturally, by a guy who obviously receives Social Security and Medicare benefits.

It was long and rambling, deficit/debt/grandchildren blah blah, but here's the essence: 

I find it incredible that out of a $3 trillion budget, we can't find $100 billion to cut.

Tonko replied:

We need to make certain we look at waste, inefficiency, outmoded programs. We need to look at the handouts to oil companies, we need to look at corporate loopholes, we need to look at the Defense Department. I agree with you there are ways to reduce the budget, but in significantly less painful ways. When we start cutting some of these programs they announced, ... 700,000 to 800,000 jobs lost is not what we need right now.

We need to do it in a way that doesn't take an ax to the budget, but a scalpel.
As to our children, the greatest burden we're placing on them is unemployment. Because without a job, there is no hope.

Tea party types tried, albeit half-heartedly, to turn out people to today's town hall.

It's probably natural, after winning the House majority and six (almost seven) seats in New York alone, that tea partiers are just less white-hot angry now than they were in the summer of 2009.

They still don't like Tonko at all, but realize that their candidate against him got trounced in 2010, and that berating Tonko in public would do little to change that result next year.

Indeed, some of them seem more annoyed with their 2010 darling, Chris Gibson of NY-20, than they are with Tonko.

After all, they don't expect Tonko to ever vote the way they want, but they expect Gibson to be with them on every vote.

And when he's not, he's accused of having: 

a fast and loose a la carte interpretation of the Constitution as evidenced by yesterday’s bizarre support for unconstitutional NPR funding and previous support for continued arts funding.

There really is no pleasing hard-core tea partiers until Ron Paul is President, with Paulite supermajorities in both Houses of Congress, and they all drown the federal government in Grover Norquist's bathtub.

Which will never happen.     

TONKO TO HOST TOWN HALL MEETING IN EAST GREENBUSH SATURDAY 3/17

This just in from Congressman Tonko's office:


ALBANY – Congressman Paul Tonko will hold a town hall meeting on Saturday, March 19, from 1pm to 3pm, at the Clinton Heights Fire Department on Sherwood Ave. in East Greenbush.

Congressman Tonko will give brief remarks, including an announcement regarding a federal grant for the fire department, and then take questions from constituents on federal issues.

What:  Congressman Tonko holds Town Hall Meeting

When: Saturday, March 19, 1pm-3pm

Where: Clinton Heights Fire Department, Community Hose Fire Company, 65 Sherwood Avenue, East Greenbush