Outrages & Insights

The two faces of Carl Paladino

Long before he announced his candidacy for governor, a number of people I deal with told me they saw a disconnect between what Carl Paladino says about politics and what he does as a businessman. They complained that Paladino, on one hand, rails against government spending while making money hand over fist in numerous dealings with said government.

One prominent politician told me the contrasts were an example of what he termed "The two faces of Carl Paladino."

Which brings me to my front page story in Sunday's Buffalo News.

There have been reports in recent weeks that mentioned Paladino's leases with state agencies, and about three weeks ago I set out to document the extent of his dealings, not only with Albany, but with the federal and local governments. I looked not only at leases on office space, but tax breaks he's received as a developer and purchases he's made of buildings that had fallen into government hands.

What I found, in a nutshell, is that Paladino holds at least 37 leases with government agencies that will bring him $10.1 million in rent this year. He's the state's biggest landlord in Western New York, holding leases on half of the 52 leases it has on local offices. 

Paladino also has obtained at least $12 million in tax breaks since 2003, and the figure is likely substantially larger because not all the benefits have been calculated by the assorted economic development agencies that have awarded Paladino benefits.

He's also bought at least a couple of buildings dirt cheap from the government.

His purchase of the former L.L. Berger building in downtown Buffalo for $1 in 1999 is kind of old news, although still relevant. Of more recent vintage is the deal he made with state officials to to acquire the former United Office Building in Niagara Falls for only $10 after the state spent about $1 million to land the property. Paladino redeveloped the building recently, with the help of more than $2 million in tax breaks.

All this does not make Paladino a bad person. More of a shrewd businessman, actually. But it does call into question his credentials as a political populist.

I mean, when you're doing this much business with the government, business that has helped make you a multimillionaire, how serious can or should voters take you when you hoot and holler about government spending?

Likewise, it raises a question as to how serious voters should take claims of being a political outsider when you've contributed close to a half-million-dollars to politicians over the years and obviously built cozy relationships with a fair number of them?

Paladino refused to talk to me during the course of my reporting, which has got to just about be a first, given the guy's "dial a quote" reputation. But I understand. He's long professed his admiration for my work -- when my guns were trained on others -- but now that I've come knocking on his door, well, he'd much prefer I go back to sniffing around City Hall. Or the State Capitol. Or NYPA headquarters. Anywhere but Ellicott Square, which, just in case you're counting, is where Paladino takes in $1.5 million a year via 14 leases with government tenants. When he's not having his supporters over for beers and roast beef sandwiches. 

Here's an exchange of e-mails leading up to Paladino's "no comment, not now, not ever," which was apparently triggered by the bolded fourth paragraph of this blog post of mine. Keep in mind that Carl has proclaimed he's got a "thick skin." (I have a hunch my "no filter" blog post may have as much to do with Carl's anger as anything else.)

The thing of it is, Paladino, if he had chosen to talk, could have mounted a potentially reasonable defense to some of his dealings with the government. I tried to be as fair as I could in my story, but there's only so much a reporter can do when one side of the story won't tell it.

On one hand, it looks kind of bad that Paladino is the state's biggest landlord in WNY, given his rants about Albany's spending. But, in the guy's defense, he quoted lower prices than his competitors in the proposals he submitted for the biggest leases he's landed with the state.

You could also make a case that the buildings he bought on the cheap have turned out OK, given that he redeveloped properties that had been long abandoned. Whether he should have gotten the grants and tax breaks on top of the cheap sale prices is debatable, however.

The tax breaks are where Paladino is on the shakiest ground, and I say this in part based on the extensive reporting I've done the past 10 years of economic development programs in the region.

It's not just that Paladino has laid claim to every penny of tax breaks he possibly could. He's also  tried to shape public economic development policy in ways that benefits his businesses.

Case in point is Buffalo's use of Empire Zone benefits, the most lucrative of the state's economic development programs that offers a wide range of tax breaks. The program was intended to promote investment and job creation in distressed neighborhoods, abandoned industrial areas, etc.

But when it came time for City Hall to draw boundaries back when Tony Masiello was mayor, Paladino was among the crowd that successfully lobbied that the zone include most of downtown -- and with it, most of Paladino's key property holdings. Paladino then went about getting no fewer than 30 of his companies certified as eligible to receive benefits. Only one other business operator in the entire state had more as of 2007, the latest year for which there are complete records.

Right after Byron Brown took office as mayor, Paladino was at it again, getting City Hall to amend Empire Zone boundaries to include waterfront land he had acquired near Erie Basin Marina. Thus, a program conceived as a means to help the poor enabled Paladino to build condominiums that sell for up to $1.3 million a pop.

Add it all up and Paladino has saved at least $4.3 million in sales and property taxes under the Empire Zone program since 2003. And the buyers of his waterfront condos will save some $5 million in property taxes.

When you factor it all in -- the leases, the tax breaks, the buildings for a buck -- what emerges is a portrait of a businessman who is making a lot of money, and managing to avoid paying a lot of taxes, while saying as a candidate for governor that the government should be spending less money and looking out more for taxpayers.

The two faces of Carl Paladino, indeed. 

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Carl Paladino, tea partyers, etc.

Anybody out there suffering from Carl Paladino fatigue?

Yeah, me too.

I've got extra reason for it. Since the week before he announced, I've been compiling data and crunching numbers trying to determine the extent of Paladino's dealings with the government he is railing against in his campaign for governor. The story is scheduled to run Sunday, so save up your pennies, boys and girls, and spring for a paper.

I'm glad Carl has decided to hang on as a candidate at least through the weekend, so the story remains relevant. Not that he's got much of a campaign left. I mean, when you draw only 35 people to a rally in New York City, well, it's all over but the shouting.

Of course, with Paladino, there could still be a lot of shouting.

My advice to Carl is, well, first, return my phone calls so I can add your two cents to my Sunday story, and stop with the "elite liberal" talk. Take my word for it, it's not just the arugula eaters who are having a hard time getting past you sending those racist and pornographic e-mails, especially the one involving the woman and Mr. Ed.

Speaking of which:

Anyway, on to the news of the day.

Gov. David Paterson has had second thoughts regarding his cockamamie idea to review Paladino's leases with state agencies to determine if there's a way Albany could break them. It seems there are no morality clauses to be found.

Paterson's idea was a dumb one to begin with. If the government is going to stop doing business with offensive people, it would have to knock several noted developers off the list, starting with Bill Huntress of Acquest Development, who is doing a lot of business with the federal government, among others.

Why Huntress? Read this.

Elsewhere, the Tea Party crowd is starting to flail away at each other. Big surprise there, huh?

Why, just yesterday I was telling Donn Esmonde that the Tea Party movement could end up like the IRA -- ya know, Official Tea Party, Provisional Tea Party, Real Tea Party, etc. All shooting at each other, as well as the so-called enemy.

It seems the sniping -- verbal, that is -- has already started, according to a story Jerry Zremski has in today's paper. The warring factions are using terms like "nut case" and "gray-haired old farts" to describe each other.

They're correct, of course. On all counts.

Think not? Read the poll results published yesterday by The New York Times that shows that those with an affinity for Tea Party politics tend to be really white, really conservative and really angry.

Some of them are also kind of kooky. I mean, nine in 10 think Obama has us on the road to socialism, according to the poll.

Consider this quote from The Times story from a Florida retiree:

“I just feel he’s getting away from what America is. He’s a socialist. And to tell you the truth, I think he’s a Muslim and trying to head us in that direction."

Translation: "I'm white and I want my president to be white, too."

The socialist tag has been used by white supremacists against African-American leaders for a century. The prime example is FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover's attempts to hang the communist label on Martin Luther King.

None other than Congressman Ron Paul, a darling to much of the right, dismisses the ongoing socialist rants aimed at Obama.

Here's what he had to say at a recent gathering of the Southern Republican Leadership Conference:

"The question has been raised about whether or not our president is a socialist. I am sure there are some people here who believe it. But in the technical sense, in the economic definition of a what a socialist is, no, he's not a socialist."

"He's a corporatist. And unfortunately we have corporatists inside the Republican Party and that means you take care of corporations and corporations take over and run the country."

Before I leave the subject, take a look at this hilarious slide showat the New York Daily News on all the misspelled protest signs at Tea party rallies. The Daily News dubs it "teabonics."

But I digress. This blog is supposed to be about Carl Paladino. But enough about Carl Paladino. Read Sunday's story and blog post and we'll pick up the conversation after that. And then, hopefully, we can move on.

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The 'liberal elites' behind the Paladino e-mail story

There's a lot of sputtering coming out of the Carl Paladino camp about the web site that broke the story about him sending racist and pornographic e-mail. Stuff like they're Democratic operatives -- or worse, liberal elites, gasp! -- who hacked his computer to obtain the e-mails. Yada-yaha-yada.

I happen to know the three fellows behind WNYMedia.net and spoke Tuesday to the head honcho of sorts, Chris Smith, about all the hell that's broken loose since they posted the e-mails Monday morning.

"We're usually good for one big thing a year, but we've never done anything this large," he said.

I guess not. The post was all over the media, capped by Keith Olbermann of MSNBC declaring Paladino "The Worst Person in the World," on his show Monday night.

That hasn't happened to anyone from Buffalo since maybe when the Bills' Ronnie Harmon dropped that touchdown pass against the Cleveland Browns. Or maybe Wide Right.

But I digress.

WNYMedia.net has gotten almost 4 million page views since Monday -- which is especially impressive since Smith said the site was effectively shut down for about 12 hours Tuesday when a cyber attack overwhelmed its server and denied users access.  

"Someone was trying to clog the ports people use to get to the site," he said.

Smith doesn't know who the guilty parties are, but my guess is you can't blame it on the Chinese. Nah, the guilty parties most likely have a photo of Richard Nixon, not Chairman Mao, on their bunker wall.

But I digress.

What about the charge that WNYMedia.net hacked Paladino's computer?

Being a reporter, I knew the answer to that question before I asked it. When people do stupid things and do it in writing, much less on the Internet, it comes back to haunt them. Guys like me make a living off such shenanigans.

But I'll let Chris provide the details.

"Carl sent out e-mails to thousands of people over a decade. It's pretty likely one of those people might forward them for media review."

Gee, ya think?

Is there more to come?

"We're trying to parse additional data and verify additional information," Smith said.

In other words, stay tuned.

Or, as Austin Powers once put it:

OK, how about the charge that the party responsible for the post is, in Paladino's words, "a Democrat elitist person who has another agenda." Or, as Carl's campaign manager charged yesterday, the report was nothing but a "liberal Democrat blog smear."

Let's take a look at this supposed Axis of Elitest Evil.

First, we've got the face of WNYMedia.net, Alan Bedenko, aka, the Buffalo Pundit. I read his blog every day and can tell you he slams Republicans -- when he's not slamming Democrats. I checked his voter registration and, sure enough, he's a Democrat. But wait, he was a registered Republican until late 2003 and later run for public office. Which means he changed parties several years before getting into politics, kind of like, well, Carl Paladino. Except the Pundit never gave money to Al Gore or Hillary Clinton, unlike, well, Carl Paladino.

But I digress.

What about this Marc Odien fellow? He's the in-house techie who wields a mean video camera, writes a blog and generally keeps the site humming. He used to work at WGRZ-TV News, which rules him out as a media elite. Plus, I can tell you from first-hand experience that he eats at cheap restaurants where they don't serve arugula. (Donn Esmonde had to spell that one for me -- a sure sign he is a media elite. He's got a good column today on the Paladino situation, by the way.)

As for Chris Smith, well, like Odien, he is a blogger -- and a registered Democrat. Ah-hah! But wait, he started out his voting life as a registered Conservative. Then he re-registered as an independent. En route to the dark side, he served in the Air Force. 

Among what this trio has wrought on WNYMedia.net is a blog written by none other than Rus Thompson, a leader in the local Tea Party movement and a vocal supporter of one Carl Paladino. Rus hasn't done much with his platform since last fall, however.

So, as you can see, these guys aren't exactly the types to vacation in Berkeley, much less Havana. What they are are news entrepreneurs in pursuit of good stories -- and they got a hell of a good one in the Paladino e-mails. Carl and Co. can cast aspersions and try to change the subject, but it's akin to throwing punches in the dark -- few, if any, are going to find a target.

The bottom line to me is that the Paladino campaign is not challenging the factual accuracy of what WNYMedia.net has reported. In fact, it has effectively confirmed it, while at the same time saying "so what, everybody does it, can't anyone take a joke, it's no big deal."

As Paladino is finding out, a lot of people think it is a big deal, that dropping the n-word and passing along pornography -- including bestiality, for crying out loud -- is no laughing matter, especially when the perpetrator fancies himself as our next governor.

No one has expressed this with more outrage than the New York Daily News in an editorial today, in which it declared Paladino "a Grade A creep unfit to occupy a barstool, let alone the state's highest office."

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Paladino's e-mails part of a pattern

Here's the thing about Carl Paladino -- the man has no filter.

The rest of us, we've got a circuit breaker in our brain that tells us when to stop certain thoughts before we express them. Not Carl. If it comes to his mind, it comes out of his mouth.

I've been dealing with him, on and off, for close to 20 years, and I can speak from first-hand experience.

Sometimes it can be refreshing, in this age of calculating, often-phony posturing by those in the public spotlight.

I recall the day a few years back, while investigating the Thruway Authority, when I visited his office to review some related documents he had obtained under the Freedom of Information Law.

When I got through, he thrust a letter into my hand that he asked me to read. It was something he had recently written to Eliot Spitzer -- this was back when he was still governor -- ripping Spitzer up one side and down the other. It was kind of amusing, actually.

I chuckled and asked Carl if he had gotten a response. Yeah, actually, Spitzer responded with a phone call in which he told Paladino it's not everyone who writes the governor telling him to go, ah, blank himself. Paladino said they then chatted for 20 minutes or so.

There is a much darker side to Paladino, however, one that was exposed by WNYMedia.net in an explosive post Monday. Racist, pornographic e-mails he sent over the course of the past year. Everything from Obama dressed as a pimp to a woman having intercourse with a horse.

This, from a guy who wants to be governor, running on a platform that includes Christian values. It's so bad that Paladino has Keith Olbermann and the head of the state Tea Party agreeing with each other.

Paladino's e-mails are shocking, on one level. But not altogether surprising, knowing Carl.

The filter thing, ya know.

I mean, just last week, someone told me of an episode he witnessed in which Paladino, in a public forum, denounced someone he disagreed with as a "slut." The target of his venom was a well-educated gentleman in his 60s.

Of more recent vintage are his diatribes against everyone from Andrew Rudnick to Phil Rumore to, well the list goes on and on and on.Sometimes it involves pointed criticism, which in many cases is justified. But too often, it devolves into ugly, personalized attacks seemingly intended to do nothing more than insult.

I'm on one of Carl's e-mail lists -- although I didn't receive any of the ones highlighted by WNYMedia.net -- and it's gotten to the point in the past year that I can't even read what he's got to say, it's so over the top. Vicious, nasty, foaming-at-the-mouth kind of stuff.

At one point, I almost picked up the phone to tell him that his style was undermining the substance of what he was trying to say, which wasn't always wrong, but I never made the call.

He did call me the other day, however, which is no big deal, given that we've had an uneven, but generally good working relationship over the years, in part because he likes the way I've put it to the pols in Albany and City Hall. Carl didn't call to offer any compliments this time, however.

Nope, he was screaming about my blog reference to his younger daughter being "born out of wedlock." That phrase was a no-no in his mind, even though, as I pointed out to him, it was factually correct and a lot less provocative than the "love child" phrase being used by the NYC tabs. No matter. He vented for a few minutes and hung up in a huff.

While it was pretty tame stuff by Paladino standards, it was not lost on me that this was the same guy with the self-described thick skin who is taking shots at everyone in sight, who just recently expressed the hope that Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver would be beaten en route to Attica if and when Paladino became governor.

It does make you wonder what he was thinking when he decided to run for governor with  the history of infidelity and racist and pornographic e-mails. Did he not see the target he had painted on his back? 

And don't think we've heard the last. Among other things, his birther e-mails are bound to show up soon in the public domain, 'cause I know they're out there.

Paladino is trying to fend off the e-mail revelations as the byproduct of a liberal conspiracy and he has recently taken more than one shot at the elite, liberal press. This from a guy whose name has appeared in The Buffalo News 1,211 times since 1988 -- when we started archiving our content electronically.

Artvoice, arguably the most liberal news outlet in town, has given him a soapbox a lot more often than you'd expect from an alternative weekly.

My point is that Carl is about the most quoted guy in the community. Some reporters seem to have him on speed dial. I'm sorry, but Carl is about the last guy in town who can complain about press coverage.

Out to get him? No, the press to this point has only been out to quote him. Early and often.

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My "favorite" quote from his late-afternoon press conference Monday in which he offered up one part apology, four parts defiance, was this ditty:

"To the men out there who have never opened a graphic image on the Internet, don't vote for me. For those who have, I welcome your vote."

I wasn't there to witness the reaction of his campaign manager, but I can picture him cringing and thinking to himself, "Filter, Carl, filter."

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Why should WNYMedia.net have all the "fun?" Have an e-mail from Paladino knocking around in your in-box? Pass it along to me here.

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Paladino's racist, pornographic e-mails

WNYMedia.net reports today in rather graphic terms that gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino has a history of sending racist and pornographic e-mail to a range of people in the business and political community. (Their web site is tough to get through because of a high volume of traffic, but here is a cached version.)

Topics range from President Obama to bestiality. Toxic, vile stuff. Really something, especially from someone running on a platform that includes Christian values.

Paladino's campaign manager is not denying the e-mails, but rather is trying to characterize them as a smear job by a liberal blog.

Good luck with that defense.

I don't see how his candidacy survives. Ten million dollars doesn't buy you out of this kind of trouble.

I'll add media coverage of this as I spot it. Feel free to send me links, as well.

Buffalo News

Huffington Post

New York Magazine

Talking Points Memo

Gawker

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Paladino's press clippings

Carl Paladino is a known quantity around these parts - kinda, although the extent of his money making dealings with the government he professes to loathe, and some of his more extreme political positions, have yet to be fully explored.

To the folks points east of here, Paladino is an unknown and he's gotten a lot of press since announcing for governor Monday.

How is he playing?

In reading the coverage online, three themes emerge -- he's got a big mouth, deep pockets and a kid born out of wedlock. The NYC tabs are especially eating up the latter, as you might expect.

Here's a sampler:

New York Daily News: Buffalo developer  Carl Paladino, 63, has been married nearly 40 years to his wife, Cathy. The two had three grown children together - one of whom died in a car crash last year.

It was only after that tragedy that Paladino confessed to his wife he had a secret love child, a now-10-year-old girl. A Buffalo-area source identified the child's mother as Sue Brady, an ex-staffer of Paladino's Ellicott Development company.

More New York Daily News: If Buffalo businessman Carl Paladino wants New Yorkers to take him seriously as a candidate for governor, he should stop acting like such a clown.

Paladino obviously aims to channel the anger that many New Yorkers legitimately feel about their bloated, corrupt state government. But all the money in the world won't buy him back his credibility if he keeps up the cartoonish bombast.

New York Post: Steve Levy welcomed Carl Paladino, his biggest rival for the Tea Party stamp of approval, to the gubernatorial race just now as the Buffalo developer is set to take the stage, calling him a "walking contradiction."

“He complains about liberal politicians, but donates tens of thousands to people like Al Gore, Dick Gephardt, Chuck Schumer, Hillary Clinton, Louise Slaughter, former Governor Eliot Spitzer and former Congressman Eric Massa.

“While he says that Albany’s policies hinder economic development, he has financially benefited from tax incentives like Empire Zones. And as he rants and raves about New York’s excessive spending, he earns about $85 million in leases from the State.

New York Times: Though he lacks the institutional support enjoyed by the two other major Republican candidates — Rick A. Lazio, the former congressman, and Steve Levy, the Suffolk County executive — Mr. Paladino brings something to the race that neither of the them has: a personal fortune he plans to dip deeply into during the race.

Mr. Paladino, who estimates his net worth to be $150 million, has pledged to spend as much as $10 million of his own money in the campaign. If elected, he has vowed to serve only one term.

Albany Times Union: I asked Paladino to expand on his idea that upon taking office he could declare a state of emergency that would grant him broad powers to straighten out the state’s books. Where was that in the state Constitution?

“We found a few places that we feel identify that in the case of a disaster, and in this case we have a disaster going on here,” he said.

But where was it in the Constitution? “I’m not sure — it’s in (Article) VII; I think it’s in a subsection of VII. We’ll get that for you; now that we’ve announced we’re going to produce a set of position papers on different issues. We’re very issue-oriented.”

As I'm into new media, I feel obliged to list links to Paladino's campaign web site and Facebook page, which already has over 5,500 fans.

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Does Carl Paladino ever listen to himself?

In the wake of the passage of health care reform, Carl Paladino likened it to 9-11.

"I fear the results of Obamacare will be so horrific that it will kill more Americans through deteriorating health care than were lost on 9/11."

A few days later, he expressed a hope that as governor he would see Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver beaten en route to prison.

"I'm gonna try like hell to send Sheldon Silver to Attica and on the way, we're gonna have him stop in all those little communities on the thruway and let those people beat him up."

On Saturday, Paladino, before speaking at a Tea Party rally, said he was going to be careful to avoid the crazies.

Speaking to The Buffalo News just before his remarks, Paladino said he welcomes tea party support as sharing his frustration with "every level of government." But he also said he will be careful not to be lumped in with "zealots and extremists" who present opportunities for "the opposition to make them look like fools."

Makes me wonder what someone would have to say to be considered a zealot and extremist in Paladino's book.

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Musings for a Monday

There are a lot of screwed-up operations in local government, but for my money, none of them can touch the Erie County Sheriff's Office. 

The county Holding Center is a house of horrors, and Matt Spina reported Sunday on the department's practice of granting what amounts to overtime pay to management personnel to perform a task they don't actually perform. Sheriff Tim Howard doesn't see a problem with this, of course. Then again, he thinks the Holding Center is just dandy, too. 

I'm not sure $425-an-hour lawyers, much less $150-an-hour PR flaks, can save this operation.

Oh, for the old days of B. John Tutuska -- to say nothing of Andy and Barney.

I've heard from two planners who said City Hall never even acknowledged receipt of their resume, much less talked to them, when it conducted its so-called search for a new city planner. Both seem to have legit credentials. The position, if you recall, was filled by a lawyer already on the city payroll who has never worked as a planner.

The folks at WNYMedia.net have a pretty funny, NCAA-bracket-inspired competition called PoltiFAIL. It pits the usual suspects against each other and lets readers choose who is more at fault for the state of the region. They're down to their Sweet 16, and pairings include Dale Volker vs. George Maziarz, Chris Collins vs. Barbara Miller-Williams, and the Western New York voter vs. Steve Pigeon. Good tongue-in-cheek fun. The list of bad politicians is depressing long, however.

The Chicken Littles are out in full force, with dire warnings from the School Boards Association and Buffalo Superintendent James Williams, about the prospect of massive layoffs if the state doesn't keep funding schools in a style they're accustomed to. A few Assembly members, including Sam Hoyt, have come up with one obvious solution -- a wage freeze for teachers. It's been happening in the private sector -- along with wage cuts -- as businesses come on hard times. Not that I expect the teacher unions to go along, as ever-increasing pay is regarded as an entitlement. I'd like to hear someone talk about consolidation of school services in the short run as a precursor to a merger of districts. We've got more than 30 in Erie and Niagara counties alone. Face it, school property taxes are the real killer in this state, and part of the reason is all the duplication that comes with the multitude of districts.

The recent Assembly vote on the budget included several "no" votes of note, as nine Democrats, including  Hoyt, Francine Delmonte, Robin Schimminger and Bill Parment, joined Republicans in saying "no, we shouldn't." The measure passed anyway, 91-51. It would cut school aid less than what the governor has proposed and enables the borrowing of $2 billion. 

The Citizens Budget Commission, a critic of Empire Zones, sees merit in the Excelsior program proposed by   Gov. David Paterson, saying it has "potential for a better, more effective program." The commission offers this smart analysis on what's wrong with Empire Zones and good about Excelsior.

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Can we call it 'Cakegate?'

Oops, he did it again.

State Sen. Antoine Thompson just can't seem to get out of his own way.

First he was in favor of -- no wait, against -- the ouster of Sen. Hiram Monserrate.

Then he was missing in action while the Senate was in business, only to find out that he had stayed at an oceanfront resort in Jamaica while, um, searching for companies to relocate to Buffalo.

The latest episode involves not just what some see as a jaw-dropping show of self-serving vanity -- his photo on a cake -- but possible violations of state ethics laws by having his staff hustle donations from 20 restaurants to feed his supporters and staff at a St. Joseph's Day Table celebration last week at his district office downtown.

The Public Officers Law says elected officials can't solicit or accept anything that's beyond a nominal value -- as Gov. David Paterson has learned the hard way -- and a spread with food from 20 restaurants isn't exactly nominal.

And his mug shot on the cake? Well, that's priceless.

What will become of this?

Well, the Legislative Ethics Commission could investigate on its own. Or it could respond to a complaint.

The commission, however, doesn't exactly have a fearsome reputation. I mean, how many legislators have been nailed for accepting donations of this sort since the law was amended three years ago?

None.

Kinda sounds like the state Board of Elections, doesn't it?

What's next for the senator?

I don't know, but I've gotta tell ya, Thompson is slowing me down in pursuit of other stories.

I was sitting at my desk minding my own business a few weeks ago when I got the call about Jamaica. The cake photo arrived unannounced in my e-mail Wednesday and I was digesting my lunch Thursday when a caller alerted me to the provisions of the state ethics law.

For two days now I've been trying to build a spreadsheet to analyze the relationship between hydropower allocations and employment at major recipients of New York Power Authority customers -- come on, admit it, you're dying to read the story -- and I haven't been able to enter my first set of numbers yet. 

I'll try again today, but with my luck, the phone will ring again about our mayor in waiting.

Sorry, NYPA, but you'll just have to wait your turn.

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Antoine takes the cake

Not only is there such a thing as a free lunch if you work for state government, but the dessert tells you who provided it.

Yup, that's State Sen. Antoine Thompson's mug on the cake.

And just to make sure people knew who it was from, Thompson's people not only saw to it that his picture was on the cake, but that it was left uncarved.

Folks, I am not making this up.

The cake was part of a St. Joseph's Table that Thompson's staff provided to state employees last Friday at the Mahoney Building in downtown Buffalo. Thompson has a district office there, as do numerous state departments.

But fear not, the spread was not paid for by taxpayers or campaign contributors. No, Thompson's staff solicited donations from assorted restaurants.

I imagine, however, that taxpayers paid for the time of staff members to run around to get all the food. They're the same people who have been deployed to perform such vital tasks as planning parades, looking up the birthdays of constituents to mail them cards, and booking oceanfront resorts in Jamaica.

And people say state government is broke.

The cake, by the way, came courtesy of Tempo. I hear it's quite ritzy -- which explains why I've never been there. The menu lists items such as seared Hawaiian ahi loin and Scunghilli fra diavolo and grilled lobster lobster and sweet corn risotto.

Do any of them come with fries or onion rings? Free refills on the Diet Pepsi?

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(Follow this blog and my reporting on Facebook and Twitter. Have a story tip or something you want to share? e-mail me.)