One Measure of Corruption in Ramapo

November 2, 2011

In an Oct. 31 letter to the Journal News editors, a reader in Orangeburg complained about the contributions that Orangetown Supervisor Paul Whalen accepted from businesses that do work for the town. Rightfully, the reader, Pearl Samuels, pointed out, “This puts a business person in an impossible situation — how do you say ‘no’ when it may affect your livelihood?” I think it also carries with it the malodorous pay-to-play taint that functions as that special species of bribes-after-the-fact here in Rockland. In Ramapo, however, $9,000 would be a pretty paltry sum compared to the hundreds of thousands paid to Supervisor St. Lawrence. His take in the last five years rounds out to $705,752.00 in political donations.
 

Check the record. In the last five years Supervisor St. Lawrence has squeezed about $141,000 a year from vendors and employees. Makes Whalen’s $9,000 look like the work of an amateur. In fact, St. Lawrence can make up in two checks what his counterpart in Pearl River gets for the year. On July 12 of this year, Morano Brothers, the out-of-county construction company wrote him a check for $5,000. Holt Construction in March also cut him a single check for $5,000. And these are not the only contributions from these two companies. They worked on the ballpark, and paid their way along with a number of others producing a total of more than $50,000 in donations to St. Lawrence just from those involved in the ballpark.

And many of these companies are on an apparent payment schedule that runs from year to year. Toshiba Business Solutions gave the Supervisor $5,000 in 2009, $2,500 in 2010, and $1,500 in 2011.

It all adds up--to more than three quarters of a million in the last five years. And then there’s also the campaign collection that he took up for his aborted attempt to run for Lieutenant Governor. That was more than $30,000.

If there is a politician in Rockland who wrings more cash out of vendors and employees, we haven’t seen it.  

Click this link to look at the record:  http://www.elections.state.ny.us:8080/plsql_browser/CONTRIBUTORA_COUNTY?ID_in=C22727&date_From=&date_to=&AMOUNT_From=&AMOUNT_to=&ZIP1=&ZIP2=&ORDERBY_IN=N&CATEGORY_IN=ALL