Christopher St. Lawrence, Carpetbagger

June 11, 2009 What do you do when you are faced with the first difficult primary challenge of your career, and your bloc might not be able to pull your bacon out of the fire? Well, for Christopher St. Lawrence, the answer was obvious--high-tail it over to the opposition. Send enough of your Monsey base over to the opposition party's convention, and if you can't get your own party line, steal theirs. And what about loyalty to your own party? Forget it--no place for that when it's your own fat you smell in the pan. Republican candidate Christopher St. Lawrence will soon be seeking your endorsement on the Republican Party Line. Sounds odd doesn't it, especially when you think here's a guy who never misses an opportunity to remind you that, as a kid, he spent hours licking envelopes working on his father's campaigns.
 

Actually, St. Lawrence's political career looks a lot like what you might expect from a "legacy student" at a prestigious ivy league school. The legacy student gets in only because of his parent's name and or money (often they're alumnae). Similarly, St. Lawrence originally was not elected to the position of Ramapo Town Supervisor. He was appointed after the current supervisor died in office.

Since then, I don't know how many times I have heard people say they voted for him back at the beginning, thinking that they were voting for his father--a career politician in the County.

As you might expect, the legacy student often has to cheat in order to stay in a school that he was back-doored into. Well, here too, St. Lawrence fits the profile. In his first campaign to keep the position he was just given, he provided the Journal News the following personal information:

A BA and a Master's Degree from Harvard--very impressive. Impressive, but not true. Harvard would inform the newspaper several years later that St. Lawrence did not have a master's nor did he have a bachelor's degree from their school. He attended the school for seven years and left with. . .well, with the same high school diploma be brought with him when he started. St. Lawrence repeated the same lie about his academic qualifications in the next election, and then changed it to just a bachelor's degree in the following election, and then just dropped it completely (even from the town website biography) when the correct information was revealed to the press.

The cheating of this "legacy politician" continues today with denials about the dangerous condition of infrastructure, lies about taxes in Ramapo, the unprotected state of open space purchases, fraudulent FBI data on the number of crimes in Ramapo, and so on. He's left the school but continues to crib the truth.

St. Lawrence has long since climbed off the good ship Joseph St. Lawrence and has been pulled on board the bloc barge that is currently plotting a down-the-river course for himself and his administration.

Loyalty?
Despite all that envelope glue that was ingested by the youthful St. Lawrence, his loyalty to the Democratic Party seems based on power and advantage rather than loyalty to the principles of the party itself. Facing the real possibility that he would lose the Democratic line to Bruce Levine and his reform slate, St. Lawrence had his operatives grab the Republican line for Supervisor this week at the Republican convention in Nyack. That is, he has the line if he can get volunteers to circulate his petitions and get the signatures he needs from registered Republicans. It will be interesting to map the signatures that appear on the petitions.

In today's Journal story, a number of Republicans expressed doubt about the petitions as well as anger over the vote. Here are some of the comments:

"As a Republican, I feel we should support Republican candidates," said James Giannettino, a former Suffern mayor.

Giannettino faulted GOP leadership for not getting more committee members to attend the town committee's convention, which could have countered the Monsey area's pro-St. Lawrence contingent."

Instead, Republican Larry Weinstein's nomination was rejected by a vote of about 24 to 17.

"I didn't think it could just be given away to the competition," Joseph Brennan said, "If that's the case, what's the purpose of the two-party system?"

Robert Romanowski, a Republican from Monsey, was "discouraged", saying, "I'm not carrying any petitions for Christopher St. Lawrence," citing opposition to the supervisor's zoning and development policies.

Former Airmont mayor, Ralph Bracco said, "I find their giving Chris the line sneaky and underhanded."

Well, the carpetbagger has arrived. The first welcome wasn't too warm, but time will tell when the first papers are collected and the public can look over who has signed on to Christopher St. Lawrence's Republican campaign.

Michael Castelluccio