Gov. Cuomo Leaves No Email Trail

.....A request under the state Freedom of Information Law for any emails sent or received by Cuomo since his first day in office turned up zero messages from 2011 through early February 2016.

Nor did Cuomo’s office turn over any messages sent through BlackBerry Messenger, a hard-to-trace messenging service widely reported to be a communication tool favored by the Democratic governor.....

....Cuomo doesn’t have a state email account, according to his office. And his BlackBerry, which he has been known to use to communicate with his staff and confidants, isn’t owned by the state.

“Please be advised that Governor Cuomo does not have a state email account or a state issued Blackberry,” Mongthu Zago, Cuomo’s FOIL counsel, wrote in a letter Wednesday to Gannett’s Albany Bureau. “Executive Chamber staff do not use personal email accounts to conduct state business.”....

....Twice in the past year, Gannett’s Albany Bureau requested all emails sent to or received by Cuomo on an official state email account, as well as any state-related emails sent on a personal account.

The bureau also requested any state-related BlackBerry Messenger messages sent or received by Cuomo.

The requests turned up nothing.

“The New York State Executive Chamber has conducted a diligent search for the records you request and does not possess records responsive to your request,” Sherry Hwang, then Cuomo’s FOIL counsel, wrote in an April 2015 letter.

“Please be advised that the New York State Executive Chamber has conducted a diligent search but does not possess records responsive to your request,” Zago wrote Wednesday.....

http://www.lohud.com/story/news/politics/albany-watch/2016/03/13/email-gov-cuomo/81727150/ Also: https://plus.google.com/111840483151288487297/posts/K5JfueRT18z

Comments

Peter Mantius: Crestwood LPG won robo-approval - FOIL proves that there are no records showing that the Board of Regents has appointed a “state geologist” or “acting state geologist” since 2010

Gov. Andrew Cuomo should waste no time resolving the latest controversy over a Texas company’s application for a permit to store liquid petroleum gas, or LPG, in unlined salt caverns next to Seneca Lake. At issue is whether a specifically designated “state geologist” has a legal responsibility to conduct a rigorous analysis of such potentially dangerous activity or whether a simple undocumented sign-off by — well, anybody — will do. In its six-year bid to win that underground storage permit, Crestwood Equity Partners has made a practice of hiding documents, fudging facts and co-opting state regulators and local officials. Last week the company was called to task by the Seneca Lake Pure Waters Association for dodging a fundamental rule of the state Department of Environmental Conservation. The first sentence of the DEC’s “underground gas storage permitting process” states that such permits may only be granted with “approval in writing from the State Geologist.” SLPWA notes th

FOCUS ON: NY Appellate Court Judge Thomas Dickerson

Thomas A. Dickerson is a former Yonkers city councilman and city court judge is now a judge on the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Second Department. He was designated to this Division in 2006 and his term on the Supreme Court ends on December 31, 2017. Controversy Appellate Court Judge Thomas A. Dickerson, 72, a former Green Beret paratrooper in Vietnam who made an off-color joke from the bench in October 2014. When a female attorney arguing in a motorcycle accident noted she had never ridden one, Dickerson said she would “look good in leather,” the legal-news site Above the Law reported. He later apologized. “It blew a whole career,” the court insider said. When judges turn 70, they can apply for certification to stay on the bench. They can apply for recertification at 72 and 74 but cannot serve past 76. http://abovethelaw.com/2014/10/law-school-dean-turns-judges-sexist-snafu-into-a-teachable-moment/ Education Judge Dickerson received his B.A. degree

WELCOME TO THE POLICE STATE: ‘Retaliation for use of the Open Records Act will inhibit every citizen from using it.’

A North Georgia newspaper publisher was indicted on a felony charge and jailed overnight last week – for filing an open-records request. Fannin Focus publisher Mark Thomason, along with his attorney Russell Stookey, were arrested on Friday and charged with attempted identity fraud and identity fraud. Thomason was also accused of making a false statement in his records request. Thomason’s relentless pursuit of public records relating to the local Superior Court has incensed the court’s chief judge, Brenda Weaver, who also chairs the state Judicial Qualifications Commission. Weaver took the matter to the district attorney, who obtained the indictments. Thomason was charged June 24 with making a false statement in an open-records request in which he asked for copies of checks “cashed illegally.” Thomason and Stookey were also charged with identity fraud and attempted identity fraud because they did not get Weaver’s approval before sending subpoenas to banks where Weaver and another j

Foil Westchester

Search This Blog