IS THIS THE PERSON YOU WANT IN CONGRESS?

Rochester, N.Y. -- From benefitting from government-contracted laborers’ work on her political campaign to helping her political cronies get cushy jobs and government contracts, Brooks claims to know nothing. But New York voters should be asking Maggie Brooks how, as County Executive, she didn’t know about or couldn’t control her own administration.

Maggie Brooks’ campaign benefitted from county-contracted laborers’ work, while taxpayers paid these employees.

Since the reports of illicit campaign activity, 15 men connected to the scandal have pled guilty to various crimes and defrauding taxpayers out of as much as $1 million.

The illegal tasks often included stuffing envelopes, putting up campaign signs, serving at phone banks, and working at various political fundraisers for Republican officials like Brooks.

Brooks claimed that responsibility for the scandal rested with a single county employee.

She has also received thousands in tainted contributions from several of the offenders.

Maggie Brooks supported her husband’s appointment to a post with the Monroe County Water Authority, which the local newspaper has previously criticized as an “unapologetic patronage mill.”

She even allowed her husband to take a waiver so he could continue taking more than $60,000 per year from a taxpayer-funded pension plan, even while he collected a $123,000 salary from the Water Authority.

Brooks defended her husband’s triple-dip, even calling it “a better value for taxpayers.”

When the waiver expired in October 2011, he resigned on the last possible day that Maggie’s husband was eligible to collect both a paycheck and his full pension.

Just three months later, Maggie's husband was hired back in a similar position which didn’t require the pension waiver. Now he can keep taking taxpayer cash for years to come.

In September 2011, Maggie Brooks’ administration was audited by the New York State Comptroller over its role in awarding a $99 million county contract that “smacked of favoritism and has cost taxpayers millions of dollars more than necessary.”

The audit reported that Brooks’ administration had misled the county legislature into approving the $99 million contract with Upstate Telecommunications Corporation (UTC) by claiming it would save the county $5 million, despite having no evidence to substantiate that figure.

According to the comptroller, the deal was orchestrated by “a small circle of county government insiders who either stood to gain or exact inappropriate influence” from it.

UTC’s founding board consisted of three individuals with close ties to county government, two of which said they had no recollection of ever attending an actual board meeting. The company’s incorporation papers were even filed by a lawyer who had previously helped Brooks buy a condominium in Florida.

As of January 2012, the state Attorney General was investigating the matter.

For more information about the scandals of the Brooks administration, you can go here.                                                     

Sources:

Gary Craig, Additional Ties to Robutrad Surface, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, June 20, 2009.

Gary Craig, Sentencing of Morone is a quiet end to scandal that plagued county GOP, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, October 15, 2011.

Gary Craig, Monrone Admits He Defrauded Taxpayers, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, December 23, 2009.

Craig, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, October 15, 2011; Craig, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, June 20, 2009.

Gary Craig, Brooks: County Working to Recover Funds, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, June 19, 2009.

Craig, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, June 20, 2009.

Joseph Spector, Water Audit Irks Taxpayers, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, August 20, 2009.

James Goodman, Wiesner Gets Water Safety Job, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, November 11, 2005.

Editorial, Good First Step, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, September 27, 2006.

David Andreatta, Director of Water Security Resigns, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, November 11, 2011.

David Andreatta, Maggie Brooks’ Husband Resigns from Water Authority, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, November 10, 2011.

Andreatta, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, November 10, 2011.

Monroe County Pensions & Paychecks & Pockets of Fat, WHAM 13 via Rochester Turning, August 2, 2008.