Friday, February 08, 2008
Lee Zurik Gets it
Most of it, anyway.
I suspect that Lee Zurik's report about the mayor's fund raising efforts on WWLTV tonight was the related to the report that I mentioned in my last post -- if it's not obvious why, I'll explain shortly. From tonight's report:
In the year and a half since the garbage collection controversy began, that's the first time that I'm aware of any reporter mentioning companies that are related to Metro Disposal contributing to the mayor's campaign finances. I once jokingly referred to Zurik as a rookie (I was the amateur in that post), but it's refreshing to see that he either has the work ethic to do his homework or the basic intelligence to make the connection between "Metro Disposal" and "Amid Metro Partnership" (or the exceptional good sense to read this blog).
However, I believe he missed one thing. In addition to the two LLC's mentioned above, SDT's prime subcontractor (see my previous post) can also be found on the new donor list. It's listed twice, don't know if that's a typo or two different contributions by related companies.
Not surprisingly, last night's WWL report, and my post on it, led me to check the Secretary of State's website to see if Nagin had filed a new campaign finance report. I couldn't find it; I seemed to have a much easier time finding that sort of thing before Jay Dardenne took over and revamped the website. I know that there are more important things to judge a secretary of state on, but I am curious as to whether anybody else has experienced the same thing.
BTW, SDT's contributions to the mayor's war chest were made in April, long before Sydney Torres seems to have decided that he got snookered. I wonder if his company will appear on next year's report. I'm not passing judgment on that one, the only one of the companies with an undeniable record of insider dealings with the city is Metro Disposal.
Correction: There was a poorly thought out paragraph in above post; please see the first comment or this post.
I suspect that Lee Zurik's report about the mayor's fund raising efforts on WWLTV tonight was the related to the report that I mentioned in my last post -- if it's not obvious why, I'll explain shortly. From tonight's report:
SDT, through two limited liability corporations, gave a total of $10,000, Richard’s Disposal sent $2,500 and Amid Metro Partnership, who's member, Jimmie Woods, is President of Metro Disposal, which shares the sanitation contract, gave $2,500.
In the year and a half since the garbage collection controversy began, that's the first time that I'm aware of any reporter mentioning companies that are related to Metro Disposal contributing to the mayor's campaign finances. I once jokingly referred to Zurik as a rookie (I was the amateur in that post), but it's refreshing to see that he either has the work ethic to do his homework or the basic intelligence to make the connection between "Metro Disposal" and "Amid Metro Partnership" (or the exceptional good sense to read this blog).
However, I believe he missed one thing. In addition to the two LLC's mentioned above, SDT's prime subcontractor (see my previous post) can also be found on the new donor list. It's listed twice, don't know if that's a typo or two different contributions by related companies.
Not surprisingly, last night's WWL report, and my post on it, led me to check the Secretary of State's website to see if Nagin had filed a new campaign finance report. I couldn't find it; I seemed to have a much easier time finding that sort of thing before Jay Dardenne took over and revamped the website. I know that there are more important things to judge a secretary of state on, but I am curious as to whether anybody else has experienced the same thing.
BTW, SDT's contributions to the mayor's war chest were made in April, long before Sydney Torres seems to have decided that he got snookered. I wonder if his company will appear on next year's report. I'm not passing judgment on that one, the only one of the companies with an undeniable record of insider dealings with the city is Metro Disposal.
Correction: There was a poorly thought out paragraph in above post; please see the first comment or this post.
Comments:
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David, perhaps the reason you couldn't find Mayor Nagin's campaign finance report on the Secretary of State's Web site had nothing to do with Jay Dardenne. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that campaign finance reports ARE NOT FILED WITH THE SECRETARY OF STATE. Perhaps they are filed with the Board of Ethics' division of campaign finance. Just a thought.
# posted by 
: 12:31 AM
: 12:31 AM
You're right, I went there from the Secretary of State's website without really paying attention to which web page I was on. I thought it was clear that I wasn't trying to make a major criticism, but still it was careless of me.
Still, I was wondering if it's become more difficult for other people to find that info or if it was just a matter of me having gotten lucky the few times that I looked for it before some of the state's websites were redesigned. Just to be clear, that question is not meant to suggest deliberate opacity, rather the tendency of some things to get lost whenever a redesign or update takes place. Again, it might not even be more difficult to find that kind of info, I may have gotten exceptionally lucky the few times that I looked a couple of years ago.
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Still, I was wondering if it's become more difficult for other people to find that info or if it was just a matter of me having gotten lucky the few times that I looked for it before some of the state's websites were redesigned. Just to be clear, that question is not meant to suggest deliberate opacity, rather the tendency of some things to get lost whenever a redesign or update takes place. Again, it might not even be more difficult to find that kind of info, I may have gotten exceptionally lucky the few times that I looked a couple of years ago.
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