Tangled Dark Web of Local Politics

So I'm fooling around with local politics, which could not be crazier. Everyone has an uncle, a cousin, an ex-wife, or a friend from kindergarten in the other party. In fact, people around here – including the politicians themselves – casually change parties as if they were square dance partners. So even when a politician gets caught with his hand in the cookie jar, not only does nothing get done about it, but no one really wants to do anything. "I couldn't turn him/her in. That's my uncle/third-grade teacher/wife." 

For instance, there's a guy running for Greenport Highway Superintendent on the Republican line, John Onufrychuk. He's up against Mark Gaylord, our man, who is the incumbent and has been managing the roads around here for 10 years. (I will throw myself in front of a snowplow if Mark loses. His workers were amazing last winter. I don't think a couple hours went by during storms, even during the worst blizzards, when we couldn't drive easily the four miles into town, starting down the back road where we live.) 

Anyway, back to Onufrychuk, who seems to be a very likeable guy. Plus he's a fireman! (Everyone loves firemen, but up here most are volunteers and approach sainthood.) Two years ago, Onufrychuk retired from his full-time job as a maintenance supervisor for a local prison. (Upstate, by the way, is riddled with correctional institutes. We have three of these major job producers in the neighborhood.)

According to a 2014 Inspector General report that I found on the web, during Onufrychuk's tenure at his particular institute, he periodically loaded up scrap metal from the prison and sold it to a local salvage company across the river, plopping the proceeds into his or his wife's bank account. The report does a good job of detailing the investigation and these transactions.  It read, "The Inspector General determined that Onufrychuk sold or directed subordinate employees to sell scrap metal belonging to Brookwood to a private company on 36 occasions from 2009 to 2011." Check the whole thing here. It makes for lively reading.

The Inspector General report was then handed over to the Republican district attorney Paul Czajka for his attention and, one would hope, action, but the DA just, oh, I don't know, scrapped it.  Turns out these gentlemen were fellow Republicans and have a number of friends in common.  In fact,  Czajka is running for DA again this year – against the Democrat Ken Golden, an entirely decent good guy. Turns out Czajka’s campaign filings reveal that he accepted a campaign contribution on June 2, 2015 from Catherine Onufrychuk, the scrap merchant's wife. 

I went to a debate between the two DA candidates last week, where Czajka stormed against domestic abusers, calling them "evil". A worthy stand, I guess, if you don't believe in rehabilitation. However, his record on these evildoers may not be all that consistent. I found an old New York Post article with the headline "Judge Dread" written at the time Czajka was a judge around here. The story covered a number of cases of abuse in which Czajka, according to the reporter, "sided with bad parents to favor lawyers he once worked with…" Also worth reading. 

And, to make local politics even more interesting,  Czajka has a new enemy – Serpico, the former New York cop and whistleblower (played by Al Pacino in the eponymous movie).  He moved upstate years ago and has now emerged from a secluded cabin to go after Czajka, because the DA failed to aggressively pursue Serpico's case against a neighbor who bulldozed part of his property and destroyed a bunch of his trees. The neighbor was fined only $350. Serpico was quoted the other day in our local newspaper that he "found an old boy's network" that blocked him from getting the correct compensation.  "I find I’m back 50 years, fighting ingrained corruption, pettiness and nepotism.”  

The other day we went to a local fundraiser to watch the movie and hear Serpico speak. The movie holds up after all these years.  So does Serpico.  (We were there for three and a half hours -- two for the movie, the rest listening to the old cop.)  The lesson, as always, bad stuff is always there and things do not always go well for the brave, good people who fight them. Otherwise, we'd all be brave and good. 

By the way, my husband Michael and I met Serpico a few months ago in town. Two old guys (our age) were hanging around one of the local restaurants when we were just getting out of our car.  Michael has long white hair and a beard and is often mistaken as either an aging rock star or Gandalf.  One of the guys came over and asked if Michael was Willie Nelson.  After we assured him that he wasn't, the man introduced himself as Frank Serpico. 

It just keeps getting better up here.