TIMES UNION
Albany, NY
December 11, 2004

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Pataki should take a broom to river authority

The board of the Hudson River-Black River Regulating District, the public authority that controls Great Sacandaga Lake, has made itself the laughing stock of the Adirondack Park. While the four board members slumbered through their responsibilities, the district's management paid its secretary-treasurer $62,000 annually for four-hour work weeks and its attorney $75,000 annually for 18-hour work weeks with full benefits. Those are only two of the numerous transgressions itemized in state Comptroller Alan Hevesi's recent devastating audit of the authority.

The responsibility for solving this problem falls squarely on Governor Pataki, who wields executive control over the district and who appointed the four board members. The governor should clean house and appoint dedicated citizens who will treat this assignment as a responsibility, not as a hobby.

The district's new executive director, Richard Lefebvre, who took over his job in January, already has his hands full in turning around an organization that has been mismanaged for decades. He should not have to drag along a dysfunctional board along with everything else.

Great Sacandaga Lake is one of the jewels of the Adirondack Park. It deserves a governing board staffed with the best and the brightest.

PETER VanAVERY
Edinburg

DAILY GAZETTE
Schenectady, NY
December 20, 2004

Business As Usual at Sacandaga Agency

The most surprising result of Comptroller Alan Hevesi's audit of the Hudson River-Black River Regulating District is not the disclosure that this public authority has been managed with arrogance and incompetence. That's hardly news to the 4,650 access permit holders around Great Sacandaga Lake, the reservoir controlled by the district. Rather, in view of the Comptroller's conclusion that "the Board has fallen short in its duties," what is astounding is that the four Directors who allowed this mess to fester have not turned in their resignations.

Gov. Pataki, who wields executive control over the district and who appoints its board of directors, should clean house. It is a disgrace that Great Sacandaga is under the thumb of a board unable or unwilling to fulfill its responsibilities. While turning a blind eye to the district's lack of basic financial controls, the directors had no problem with accepting full health, vision, and dental benefits -- awarded illegally, as it turns out. These directors are part of the problem, not part of the solution.

While the four directors slumbered, the district's management paid its secretary-treasurer $62,000 annually for a four-hour work week and its attorney $75,000 annually for an 18-hour work week plus full retirement, health, vision, and dental benefits for both -- to name only two findings of the audit. Incidentally, Director James Conkling of Northville has missed three of this year's 11 board meetings.

The Board now asserts that it had a fix under way before the Comptroller's auditors arrived in March. The facts state otherwise. After Richard Lefebvre took over as Executive Director in mid-January, the attorney and the secretary-treasurer remained on the payroll for five more months, earning an additional $31,000 and $26,000, respectively. Incredibly, in the official minutes of its June 15 Board meeting, the Board thanks them "for all their hard work and dedication."

This is just the latest in a series of scandals that have rocked the district over recent years. Its time that the board got the message: It ends here!

PETER VANAVERY
Edinburg