What's the real story here?

While we give no support to wasting tax dollars and applaud the rare occasion newspapers expose taxpayer waste, we concur that the Board of Elections has some very serious problems and reaches pretty deep into the pockets of County residents. As we prepared to post the Pojo article (read here) on the Dutchess County Board of Elections that reeked of a partisan hit job on Democrats, I picked up Monday's mail--- and that helped put it into perspective.

There in my mailbox was an oversized campaign flyer,synchronized to capitalize on the free PoJo publicity. Not surprisingly it was from Red Hook's own icon of self-promotion and the only NY State politician whose comments were featured in that article Assemblyman Molinaro.
Who paid for production and mailing of this campaign flyer?That's right you the taxpayer, the one he purports to reduce taxes for.

Molinaro's insinuation into the press has, for years, been aided by the many " puff pieces" that still run in the Daily Freeman usually by reporter Patricia Doxsey who could easily be regarded as his personal press agent. You see him quoted in many articles that have a wide range of issues. Quotes on every topic but mysteriously not quoted on the Bard student voting assault despite his position on the NY State election committee where he actually could have made an appropriate comment. Will no other public official talk to this reporter if so...why?

We saw the PJ & Daily Freeman take the readers on a reality show style guessing game led by Doxsey back on January 28 featuring Molinaro's soap opera styled " wilI he...or won't he" run for Senate kicking off his Assembly campaign ... and kept it alive until February 11. News??? Hardly, more like a politician with a complicit press.

What is troubling about Molinaros involvement with the BOE report is that it further demonstrates his ties to the GOP insiders club while quickly dashing outside to claim his non-partisanship.

What was very obvious in the article is the softballing on the Republicans and its failing to get into details about Repubs and stretching farther on Dems .The main charge against the GOP's Commissioner Gamache? Hiring a few "highly qualified" friends. Come on!

Last week we reported the Pojo suspicious neglect in covering the big story in Northern Dutchess about an Appellate Court decison to re-instate Milan’s Comprehensive Plan overturned a previous decision by Judge Brands who many assert as a GOP enabler for a big GOP contributer.

In addition, the article did not even MENTION Gamache's very heavy-handed attempt, with the 'help' of GOP Judge James Brands, to deny Bard, Marist, and Vassar College students' votes in the elections in November of 2009. The decision of Judge Brands was almost immediately reversed by a higher court, but had a major effect in dampening the voting of many potential student voters.There are taxpayer costs related to this and other lawsuits, not included in this BOE report, brought about by such partisan action against the very voters that pay the taxes.

That is a matter that directly reflected the performance of Gamache in his job. His Democratic counterpart deserves better coverage than a complete whitewash of that extremely telling episode. Pojo writers missed the main point of Gamach's recent performance.

In defending Gamache, Brands, and GOP election board members and partisan attacking it makes more apparent the connection Molinaro has with them.

Pojo--shame on you. Have finances in the newspaper industry gotten so bad that in one week, you 'miss' one story and completely mess up the other? Or miss its true authorship? How about the defeat of RedWing Sand and Gravel's assault on the town of Milan? Red Wing is a major contributor to Dutchess County Republicans.

So we are to close Clermont State Park this summer, fire the employees, not hire any summer college students, close the lovely grounds and create the first generation of local children to not have that enjoyment---all so our young man can feed the Poughkeepsie Journal articles, masquerading as 'exposes' of both sides--NOT---, and also prevent any news of the 'unkind sort' from coming out about his , or the GOP's "staunch supporters'?

If you want us to buy your paper, and we'd love to continue our support, take a little more time on the stories that truly affect our communities. We deserve as much.