Swanick the hack

The CBC story ain't going away, and it's got George Holt and Chuck Swanick mired in slime. Here's an update from WGRZ:

"For example, we found out that the Chairman of the County Legislature, George Holt, accepted campaign contributions from at least two people with ties to CBC.

Big surprise, that. Not.

Swanick says to Holt: "The one that you gave me... I will amend the package with that one that you gave me (that) you said we missed." Swanick introduces the amendment just a minute later. And when someone asks him what that amendment is, this is what Swanick says: "It's... it's nothing." We asked Swanick to explain that live on our air. Here’s what he said: Swanick: "The reason I said it was nothing is because we do resolutions like this very often in the county legislature.” Reporter: "Mr. Swanick, the public wants to know, why then, if it was nothing, was there such a rush to get that in there at the end of the evening." Swanick: "There was actually not a rush. This was part of our budget dialogue and discussion through the last part of that Wednesday night." Reporter: "Why not do it the normal way and simply put that contract out to bid instead of adding it to the budget at the last minute?" Swanick: "This resolution that George [Holt] sponsored really has no effect whatsoever. There is no funding inclusion in this. There is no signed contract. There is no agreement among the various parties involved." That's not exactly what the comptroller's lawyer, Dennis Vacco, said after the two watched the video tape of that December vote. They agreed no contract has been signed, and that there's no agreement; however, they said by law the money must be set aside somewhere in the budget in case there ever is an agreement. "This is a blank check made payable to a specific corporation,” Vacco said

We'll remember in November. And I said last week that the language of Amendment E is mandatory, ordering the CE to execute an agreement with CBC. It's disgusting, and despicable. There's more on CBC here. Even more so because CBC would be paid $3,000,000 of our money to operate a glorified answering service.