Rochester's deputy mayor resigns after being invisible for two years.

Rochester's deputy mayor, Leonard Redon, resigned yesterday.
Damned well about time.
Nobody has seen him around Rochester much in the last two years, anyway. Not since he got his ass busted for DWI in late winter 2014.
That was merely yet another scandal for the new Warren administration to swallow and brush aside.
Every so often, at a big public event that the mayor couldn't be bothered to attend, you'd see Redon there. Then he would disappear again.
You could find him in his office only rarely. Phone messages to Redon went unanswered. Appointments with the deputy mayor were either cancelled or constituents were fobbed off on other officials who were doing Redon's job.
I assumed that he was in and out of rehab, drying out.
People began to wonder if he was still alive.
Yesterday, Redon announced that he had been diagnosed with cancer a year ago. That is the reason for his resigning at this time.
I am truly sorry that Redon has cancer.
I am also truly sorry that Redon didn't announce that fact a year ago and either go on sick leave or resign at that time.
The reason is simple: had he done either of those things, he would have lost his annual six figure income.
It was better for him to let other people handle his job while he was being treated for the disease and getting paid for it.
It underscores the opaque nature of the Warren administration's "transparency." They didn't want anyone outside of City Hall to know what was really going on, or that taxpayers were paying for a position that was effectively vacant.
Now that Redon has departed, the next question is: who will Mayor Warren appoint as her new deputy mayor?
Anyone she appoints will need to have David Gantt's seal of approval, like Scott Gaddy. Gaddy was supposedly looking for a residence in Rochester last year and said that he wasn't seeking an elected position.
The office of deputy mayor is one by appointment, not by election.
What better choice could Mayor Warren make than David Gantt's "son" and therefore her own "brother?"
We'll see.

Mayor Warren endorses Harry Bronson.

Big deal.
State Assemblyman Bronson doesn't represent the district the mayor lives in, so he's no threat to her. She doesn't want his job, anyway. That would necessitate taking a pay cut by nearly 50%. So the mayor could afford to be gracious and endorse Harry, which is completely out of character for her.
On the other hand, Bronson never needed the support of Lovely Warren or David Gantt before. Their support is negligible at best, or unnecessary at worst. Harry's base of support is the gay ghetto, not the black ghetto. It is also doubtful that the mayor will open up her campaign coffers to him. She saves them only for herself. Lovely's tepid support will cost her nothing and perhaps disarm one or two Establishment Demagogues.
Bronson is in the pocket of one the mayor's deadliest enemies, slick Joe Morelle pere. Warren can claim that she is building bridges between the two dysfunctional halves of the local Demagogic party.
Which is a lie. Neither faction wants to build bridges. They both wish to destroy the other.
Mayor Warren pissed off the Establishment Demagogues when she refused to endorse Sandra Frankel for Monroe County Executive. She continued to piss them off by not wholeheartedly supporting octogenarian Congresswoman Lulubelle Slaughter in her current bid for re election.
Some people thought the mayor wanted Lulubelle's seat. That was not the case. At least not this time around.
A gesture of sorts to promote party unity was necessary, especially with Mayor Warren running for re election in 2017.
But it is essentially meaningless. Harry doesn't need the Gantt-Warren faction for anything. Not when he has the gay vote on his side.
Who does the mayor think she's kidding? Her cheerleading squad?

David Gantt is at it again, according to David Andreatta.

Black racist State Assemblyman David Gantt has been up to yet another shady real estate deal with the City of Rochester. It is becoming a bad habit. Nobody dares to stand up to him or stop him, for the sake of political correctness.
Last summer, the D&C's rogue news reporter David Andreatta reported about Gantt's zombie property on Central Park. That bit of scamming cost the city $26,000 to demolish it.
Nobody can call Gantt a cheap politician when you figure out how much he costs the city for his real estate investments.
Today, Andreatta blew the whistle on Gantt's latest bit of con artistry in his well written and witty expose: "A slow clap for Assemblyman Gantt."
See the full story in the D&C for an in depth description of what transpired.
The following is a brief synopsis of that article, which will suffice for this blog.
Gantt has acquired yet another property on Lyndhurst Street ( he already owns six other properties there, most of which are under a limited liability company called LMG Management ) for nothing, thanks to a little known state law that allows people to acquire property belonging to someone else for nothing under something called the doctrine of "adverse possession."
The property is just across the street from his long time residence.
Furthermore, the city approved Gantt's application for money to fix up the property before he completed the "adverse possession" transaction, having begun to process it two years beforehand. The money Gantt is getting from the city is more than the property is worth.
Rochester mayor Lovely Warren is one of Gantt's numerous "children," so that should be no surprise.
Nobody in City Hall raised any eyebrows, despite the fact that Gantt has a history of property tax delinquencies, either paying them late or not at all. Nobody in City Hall dared to.
Mind you, it is all perfectly legal, if unethical.
But when white slumlords pull this kind of shit, there's all Hell to pay when the media gets their claws into it.
That's what political correctness is all about.
At least Gantt is providing inspiration to con artists everywhere, regardless of race, color, creed or national origin.

A boring county executive race.

It is only a month until the November elections.
There will be very few surprises.
Most incumbents will probably win their seats. Again. Not because they have accomplished anything of note. They have name recognition. The few people who vote are accustomed to them. And their competition is just as unworthy as they are.
The race for Monroe County Executive is different. Maggie Brooks is termed out and can't run again.
Her understudy, Republican Cheryl DiNolfo, currently chief clerk and bottle washer in county government, has been waiting for twelve years to step into Ms. Brooks' three-inch pumps.
Mrs. DiNolfo's opponent, Establishment Demagogue Sandra Frankel, ran for county executive before. And lost.
Mrs. Frankel never received the financial and moral support of her party four years ago. She still hasn't got it because the MCDC is in a state of chaos, with incompetent leadership as its fatal flaw.
Frankel does not have the open support of the Black Demagogues, who have no loyalty to the dictates of the MCDC. They see this contest as one between two white women, and will probably flip a coin to decide who they vote for. Or they will do as they are bidden by David Gantt.
Apart from that, this year's campaign has been a bore.
Both ladies have been too busy social butterflying it around the area to mount anything approaching a political campaign. They are counting on party loyalty alone to get elected.
Certainly, Frankel has been whining about Republican corruption and the county's fiscal stress from time to time. That card is worn out. She played it before and lost.
Nor has she expressed her solutions in anything but the most vague and general terms, leaving undecided voters bewildered and confused. Which leads one to believe that she doesn't have any solutions other than to increase taxation, liberalism's usual panacea for all of society's ills.
DiNolfo hasn't risen to the bait and sought to make an issue of Frankel's accusations. If she did, she would be forced to come up with answers of her own. That would stir up a kettle of fish DiNolfo and her handlers would rather avoid, especially in the city of Rochester.
DiNolfo knows she has the county, which is dominated by Republicans. She can afford to be less concerned about Rochester, which is split between black and white Demagogic factions. The fact that Rochester mayor Lovely Warren has refused to support Frankel is a feather in DiNolfo's cap.
As for the Green Party candidate, Rajeesh Barnabas, he has been remarkably silent as well. As the candidate of a third party, he won't count for much in the upcoming election.
They all seem to be waiting for public forums sponsored by WXXI, WROC and the League of Women Voters and the Rochester Rotary to get their word out.
Those events will probably not be well watched or well attended, because the voters won't be swayed so late in the game. They will probably vote for their own party's candidates, with Barnabas getting a few hundred votes that might have gone to Frankel.
That's what the political parties want. Not to elect the better candidate, merely their own.
Which is why they haven't wasted any time talking about issues.
And shame on the Rochester Rotary for involving itself in politics.

There are two Demagogic parties in Rochester.

Demagogic candidate for Monroe County Executive Sandra Frankel lunched with Rochester mayor Lovely Warren yesterday.
Ms. Frankel was seeking Mayor Warren's public support for her lackluster campaign against Republican Cheryl DiNolfo.
If Ms. Frankel was counting on Demagogic loyalty to get Mayor Warren's endorsement, she was sadly mistaken. Mayor Warren was reported as saying that she didn't want to put Rochester into the middle of this race. She also said that could work well with either DiNolfo or Frankel as County Executive.
This was bullshit.
I have already written why the mayor has ignored Frankel's campaign. As it now stands, Mayor Warren is the top ranking Demagogue in Monroe County. Any Demagogic County Executive would outrank her. That is something Mayor Warren's over inflated ego could not endure.
As for counting on Demagogic loyalty, Ms. Frankel seems blissfully unaware of the fact that there are two Demagogic Parties in Rochester. Mayor Warren belongs to one, and Ms. Frankel to the other.
Even the current chairperson of the MCDC, Jamie Romeo, refuses to concede this fact. Romeo is living in a fool's paradise wearing rose colored glasses. She is clearly incapable of bridging the chasm that exists between the two parties. Nobody with even half a brain could or even would dare to try. She prefers to believe that there is still only one Demagogic party over which she has authority.
The Black Demagogues are headed by none other than David Gantt and the mayor herself. Their focus is the ghetto, where their word is law. It does not extend beyond it, though they have tried to expand their authority into other districts of the city and failed. Conversely, they do not respect the authority of the MCDC over them. Why should they? They have succeeded without it.
The Establishment Demagogues, led by Joe Morelle and the notorious Molly Clifford, have a distinctly white elitist membership. They see themselves as the natural leaders of the party within the City of Rochester, never mind the fact that they will burn the rule book when it suits their purposes, especially in regards to the Gantt-Warren faction. The MCDC is slightly more useful to them, and then only at the county level, since the battle lines have been drawn along racial lines in the city.
The Demagogic primary election in 2013 finalized the divorce between the two parties. Ms. Warren won the primary. Clifford continued to run Tom Richards on the Independent line. Morelle, then chairman of the MCDC, refused to help finance Ms. Warren's campaign as he should have done.
Ms. Warren won, and has been fundraising separately from the Establishment Demagogues ever since, much to their displeasure. Mayor Warren owes them nothing.
Paybacks are a bitch.
The Establishment Demagogues owe Mayor Warren nothing, either. This will be made patently clear in 2017 when she runs for reelection.
This is the background into which Ms. Frankel thrust herself, begging for Mayor Warren's support. She didn't get it because she is too white, too suburban, too naïve and not apologetic enough to suit Mayor Warren. And because she wasn't a charter member of the David Gantt fan club.

Re-enter Scott Gaddy.

Rochester's liberal newsrag, the Demogogue and Comicon, has reported that Scott Gaddy is looking to establish residence in Rochester.
Gaddy, it may be recalled, was the leader of the PAC ( Political Action Committee ) that got Lovely Warren elected mayor.
Their connection runs deeper than that.
Both regard themselves as "children" of Assemblyman David Gantt. Gaddy was once Gantt's aide in Albany, and his wife is an old law school chum of Mayor Warren's.
On becoming mayor, Warren promptly hired Gaddy's firm to shill for Rochester in Albany.
Gaddy claims that he is no longer connected to that company.
Gaddy also claims that he isn't moving to Rochester to seek elected office.
This, of course, is bullshit.
For right now, he doesn't meet residency requirements to run for anything local.
But what about next year?
Many people are concerned about the Gantt succession.
Gantt is merely mortal, and won't live forever.
Plenty of aspiring black politicians are hoping to step into Gantt's shoes when he finally gives up the ghost.
Who better than his own "son?"
In the meantime, the mayor can always create a high paying job for her "brother" in her administration to tide him over until that eventuality occurs.
I wonder what job she'll give him or create for him.

Thumbs up, David Andreatta.

Rochester's local liberal newsrag, the Democrat and Chronicle, has a weekly "Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down" column.
Anything that even hints of liberal bullshit or insincere "mea culpas" to the black community will get a "Thumbs Up."
Correspondingly, anything that attempts to haul a crooked black politician onto the carpet will get a "Thumbs Down." If the D&C would mention it at all. It would be too inflammatory. It would not be in keeping with the pseudo liberal agenda they wish to promote.
Until now.
D&C columnist David Andreatta wittily exposed the tax dodging antics of State Assemblyman David Gantt in his column yesterday.
It is indeed worth reading.
Gantt owned a dilapidated house on Central Avenue. In the ghetto, a place filled with abandoned houses that are both eyesores and dangerous.
Rather than fix it up, he allowed it to deteriorate. Then he refused to pay the taxes on it, so the city had to take it. And now the city has to demolish it. Courtesy of the taxpayers.
Gantt whined that he paid the taxes on his other property. Since Gantt can shed crocodile tears at the drop of a hat, I am curious to know if he turned on the waterworks when confronted by his latest scam.
Most of us who live in Rochester are disgusted with slumlords. Especially the black community.
Yet the black community has not complained about David Gantt's slum property because he is one of their own and he is a celebrity. Gantt is the surrogate father figure, mentor and political boss of Mayor Warren: the power behind the drone.
He is also one of Rochester's most divisive political personalities, Molly Clifford being another.
It is fortunate that the two of them never mated.
Had Gantt been white, the black community would have complained about him a long time ago.
That's the ugly truth of the matter.
It's not politically correct to say so.
Mr. Andreatta suggested that when Gantt's property is demolished, it should be turned into a neighborhood "parkette" and named after Gantt.
A trash strewn empty lot in the middle of the ghetto would be a fitting tribute to David Gantt.
And "Thumbs Up" to David Andreatta for having the balls to write this story and film the video.
It takes balls of steel to tackle both Gantt and the D&C's editorial staff.

Bill Johnson to get key to the city.

As part of the celebration of the Urban League of Rochester's 50th anniversary, ex mayor Bill Johnson will be presented with a key to the city.
I assume it's because of the work he is credited with doing when he headed that group before he became mayor of Rochester in 1993.
His three terms as mayor of Rochester benefitted him enormously, but were an unqualified disaster for Rochester.
His legacy of failures include High Falls, Midtown, the Fast Ferry, to name the most obvious ones.
They all cost the taxpayers millions.
The only notable monument to his twelve years as mayor is the tacky, multi-colored sign on the Inner Loop bridge over State Street that reads "Welcome to High Falls."
It might just as easily have read "Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter."
The only notable success about Bill Johnson as mayor is that he was Rochester's first black mayor.
Bleeding heart liberals ooohed and aaahed over that.
He will be given the key to the city by Rochester's second black mayor, Lovely Warren.
She is therefore not unique in that respect.
Lovely Warren and her mentor, David Gantt, were opposed to Johnson running for mayor again during the special election in 2011. Johnson's campaign might have upset the deal Gantt claims he made with Tom Richards during that election so that Warren might run unopposed in 2013.
Ironic, isn't it?

Update on the Silver scandal.

It looks like Joe Morelle will get what he has schemed and scammed for.
Sort of.
Morelle will be interim Speaker until February 10, when there will be an election for a permanent Speaker.
Silver will step down as Speaker at that time while remaining a part of the Assembly.
Morelle didn't get enough support from downstate Democrats for the permanent appointment.
Downstate politicians control New York State Government.
Several downstate Democrats have already entered the fray to become permanent Speaker.
It looks as though Morelle isn't as influential as he thinks he is.. He will have to content himself with play acting at being Speaker for two weeks.
He won't be content with that.
What of the local Assemblymen?
Morelle's ally, Harry Bronson, said that Morelle would be a wonderful choice for permanent Speaker.
Bronson, like Morelle, was also in bed with Silver.
David Gantt, Morelle's worst enemy, has remained silent. At least the media hasn't reported his opinions on the matter.
What is clear is that Gantt couldn't prevent Morelle's temporary appointment as Speaker.
Gantt really doesn't cut much ice outside of Rochester's ghettoes, where he reigns supreme as power broker in the black community.
It is also clear that Morelle will attempt to make his appointment permanent.

Poor Dave Garretson.

Right about now, Dave Garretson should be wondering why he was so desperate to become Monroe County Democratic Committee chairman.
In the scant three months since he was elected to that post, Garretson has presided over disaster.
Certainly, it has not been his fault.
Garretson inherited the situation from Joe Morelle. Morelle, far more clever and slicker than Garretson, saw the handwriting on the wall and announced that he would not run for re-election.
That left Garretson holding a very large, empty paper bag.
The Republicans regained control over the New York State senate; Democratic sacred cow Lulubelle Slaughter narrowly defeated a Republican unknown; and a few days ago District Attorney Sandra Doorley announced that she was changing her registration to Republican.
To be sure, Garretson wanted to be Democratic chairman. He claimed that he would be a unifying force in the party, which is hopelessly divided here.
Garretson has been no such thing. He clearly doesn't understand the Realpolitik of Monroe County in general and Rochester in particular.
The Republicans control the county towns; the Democrats, the City of Rochester and the town of Brighton.
Garretson's Town of Greece is overwhelmingly Republican. During his tenure as leader of the Greece Democrats, Garretson was unable to win any elected office for himself, nor was he able to run any victorious campaigns for other Greece Democrats.
In LD 7, which is mostly in Greece with a tiny slice in Rochester, Garretson couldn't even find a candidate to challenge the appointed Republican incumbent, a snot-nosed kid still wet behind the ears.
It is hard to see how his lack of leadership skills in his own backyard would translate to effective leadership in the county committee, especially with the political pendulum swinging to the right.
Worse is Garretson's lack of understanding of the Democratic Party's situation in Rochester.
Rochester Democrats are divided into two factions: the white, elitist Morelle-Clifford wing and the black Gantt-Warren wing. Racism, real but covert, is a factor in both wings.
Since Republicans are dead in the water in Rochester, the two Democratic factions are trying to destroy each other.
Garretson mistakenly claimed that he could unify the party. At the same time, he claimed he was a better candidate than another contender because the mayor didn't hate him. He was appealing to faction.
Mayor Warren never openly came out in support of Garretson.
Three months ago, when Garretson was elected as chairman, Gantt's supporters promptly walked out in protest before the votes were tallied.
Gantt, behaving like a spoiled brat, realized that he can never be the power behind the whole Democratic Committee, had to have his little temper tantrum.
Never mind the fact that there were two suburban black candidates for chairman.
This action reflected the racial division within the city Democrats.
Garretson owed his election to the white elitist wing of the party.
This was not a good start.
What is clear is that while Garretson is a jolly, likeable oaf, he is out of his element as chairman.
That can only benefit the Republicans.

The pendulum swings to the right, part II.

Locally, Republican resurgence has been more subtle.
That is because it has occurred behind the backdrop of the continued fratricidal strife within the Monroe County Democratic Committee. It has been an endless source of mirth for those of us who no longer take most politicians seriously.
The combatants are the elitist, pseudo-liberal Morelle-Clifford faction of the party, opposing the black oriented Gantt-Warren clique.
The split was best illustrated by the mayoral election of 2013.
Lovely Warren won the Democratic primary election. Joe Morelle, then chairman of the MCDC, was downright bitter after her victory, and less than gracious during the remainder of the campaign. Molly Clifford and her boy-toy Ken Warner continued to support Tom Richards, who was on the ballot as the Independent candidate.
Warren won, and many people questioned whether or not Morelle was fit to remain as Democratic chairman, given his behavior during the campaign.
Amid such criticism, Morelle chose not to run for re-election as chairman, and the race was on to grab his tarnished crown from the gutter.
Dave Garretson, leader of the Democrats in the Town of Greece ( where Republicans are dominant ), won the chairmanship.
Dave Garretson needs all of the introduction he can get.
A friendly, likeable oaf, Garretson never won an elected office in the Town of Greece, nor had any Democratic candidates he ever supported won, either. He knows nothing about the power-politics within Rochester other than the Democratic Party controls the city.
The Democrats also control the Town of Brighton.
It has been said that Brighton, with its large Jewish population, would more easily elect an Adolf Hitler with a "D" in front of his name rather than a Moses with an "R."
That statement might be vile, but vileness doesn't make it any less true.
Within weeks of winning the chairmanship, it was evident to all that Garretson had been left holding a very large, empty paper bag.
Democrat Ted O'Brien lost his state senate seat to Republican Rich Funke, giving the Republicans control of that body.
It could hardly have been otherwise.
In 2012, O'Brien only won against Republican Sean Hanna because people personally disliked Hanna, not because O'Brien was the better candidate.
In office, O'Brien wasn't very convincing.
In 2014, O'Brien's handlers resurrected their campaign against Hanna, only Funke wasn't Hanna, and their methods didn't work this time. Moreover, they forgot that the state senate seat in question had been Republican for years, and O'Brien's election to it in 2012 was the anomaly.
Even more telling was the case of  Democratic Congresswoman Lulubelle Slaughter. She had been in Congress for three or four thousand years without accomplishing anything for this area. That didn't stop the Democrats from making her a sacred cow and elevating her to sainthood.
"Saint" Louise was opposed by a Republican dark horse, Mark Assini from the Town of Gates.
Assini was an unknown quantity, hardly supported by the county GOP and underfunded, yet it took a count of absentee ballots to determine that Lulubelle won re-election on by a scant six hundred votes.
It catapulted Assini to national prominence even if he lost the election campaign. And if the county GOP had been really supportive of Assini, he would have sent Lulubelle packing.
That fact has been a source of embarrassment to "Saint" Louise, and even Democrats are questioning whether or not it is time for her to pack it in.
As I have stated, Republican resurgence in this area has been subtle.
A second Republican state senator from this area has given Republicans control of the state senate; a new Republican star was narrowly defeated by a Democratic sacred cow; and the Democrats have saddled themselves with a chairman who really doesn't know what he is doing.

Assessing Mayor Warren's first year in office.

2014 is drawing to a close, and it is time to assess Rochester mayor Lovely Warren and her administration.
She and they have been an unmitigated disaster for Rochester.
From the moment Ms. Warren won election as mayor in November, 2013 she made it clear that it was HER show and that she would do and say whatever she liked.
She immediately claimed credit for any developments that were already underway in Rochester. Ms. Warren was also incapable of telling the truth about anything else.
Lying is a normal enough behavior among politicians. Lovely Warren raised blatant lying to a whole new level. This ranged from Uncle Reggie's dangerous speeding to the supposed hacking of her Facebook page.
When confronted about this last January by none other than news reporter Rachel Barnhart, Ms. Warren imperiously replied "I am the mayor."
That is true enough. Lovely Warren IS the mayor, but nobody died and made her queen. She is unaware of that.
Her administration resembles the White House of Richard Nixon: neurotic, easily offended and with a "me against them" attitude that has continued unchecked.
Her appointees resemble Nixon's "Palace Guard," keeping her insulated and isolated from reality, continually reassuring her of her popularity and the "rightness" of her actions. There is a conspiracy against them, but they can never say who is doing it.
This has done the mayor no favors, and everyone refuses to tell her the truth for fear of losing their six-figure jobs.
Chief among these staffers is the personal assistant to the mayor, Tracey Miller.
Ms. Miller is the wife of Judge Stephen Miller. She was also the mayor's legislative assistant while Ms. Warren was on City Council.
Ms. Miller controls all access to the mayor, making her the most powerful person in Rochester city government after the mayor. Ms. Miller prefers to limit contact with the mayor to people she likes, unless the mayor chooses otherwise
That she has assumed such power is odd, because Ms. Miller has absolutely no knowledge of city politics beyond the black community and black ministers, nor had she been in charge of other staff people before. She has no real people skills, but is apt at manipulating the staff.
She has made herself feared among the mayor's appointees, and an order from Ms. Miller should be taken as an order from the mayor herself.
But this behaviour has been typical of the mayor's office since her taking over last January.
Cronyism is another charge against the mayor. All politicians do it, but Lovely Warren has turned it into a new art form, reviving positions that were long dormant, creating new ones and requiring an armed bodyguard ( Uncle Reggie ) to drive her all over town raised quite a stink. But stacking the deck at the Rochester Housing Authority with political friends so that another buddy might lead that organization was seen as way too much, especially since it was seen as black racism directed against the Hispanic community.
When Lovely Warren spoke of "two Rochesters," she meant it. Not of the "haves" and "have nots," but of the black community against everyone else. Rather than build bridges between them to achieve some sense of impending equality, she has put up barricades. If it seems that she favors the black community above all else, well, they are her primary base of support.
Her statement about the Ferguson trial, a situation that required delicate handling at best, was hers and hers alone, and it was disastrous. After the murder of Officer Pierson in the line of duty here last summer, it revealed her primary concern is not all of Rochester. The mayor should be building on a broader base than just the black community.
But she chooses not to.
And so it goes on.
The Warren Administration has been given to outright lying, of explicit underserved favoritism, of taking credit where none is due.
Even "Clergy on Patrol" has been limited to the black faith community, more or less.
The black community in Rochester is 40% of the population. Since the mayor has exhausted a lot of goodwill from the remaining 60%, and refused to build bridges with them for the benefit of all of Rochester, to preserve her power she must favor what she has left.
David Gantt is much gratified. He trained her.