Chris Rea. (Photo: Phyllis McCabe)
Elsewhere, Ulster Conservative Party Chairman Ed Gaddy announced his committee’s unanimous support of Heaney, such as it was. Thin of rank, Ulster’s Tories could convene in a phone booth these days. How Gaddy, a true believer, could endorse Heaney, who contributed to Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign (if only to thwart Hillary), is beyond me. Faso’s conservative creds are impressive and Heaney has never held office. Let’s just say that political minds work in mysterious ways.
New brooms
The former fire chief is restored as assistant chief, there’s more trouble at what I call the walkway over the sinkhole, the mayor holds a press conference and appoints a new confidential secretary, former Kingston athletic stars get new jobs, ex-mayor Shayne Gallo’s last-minute police appointments are put on hold. All in all, it was a busy start for the new Steve Noble administration in Kingston. (It may take a few months to convince pundits and disgruntled Gallonians that Mayor Noble is running the show, not his uncle, Alderman-at-Large Jim Noble, or some nefarious Oz-like advisors.)
Ex-fire chief Chris Rea spent the last four years somewhere among limbo, hell and personal bankruptcy as the Gallo administration tried to prove “time-and-attendance” charges against him. An expensive fishing expedition, it could cost the city well over $200,000 in back pay and, if Rea chooses, potentially far more in civil damages and lawyers’ fees.
Former KHS basketball whiz Kevin Bryant (no relation to Kobe) misfired as a county Family Court candidate in 2014, but could score as city corporation counsel. The job, now full-time, pays $74,000 — a thousand less than the mayor — but promises to keep the former point guard on his toes cleaning up debris from the litigious last administration.
Lynsey Timbrouck, from a fine old Kingston family, lit up Kate Walton Field House during a stellar KHS basketball career a decade ago. Hired for just $30,000 as the mayor’s confidential secretary (at the county level the job pays north of 50K), Timbrouck got a $5,000 raise after less than a week on the job. Talk about fast breaks! Reason: Thirty-thousand ($15 an hour) is chump change for a college grad, but that’s what her predecessor was paid.
Noble understood why Gallo got a bargain with former secretary and political ally Ellen DiFalco, whom the mayor-elect fired by mail. DiFalco was a retired county employee, and by state law could be paid no more than $30,000.
Being at a stage where I once covered a great-grandfather of a newly-minted county legislator — believe me, George Washington was actually quite a funny guy — no one should be surprised that I played basketball with Eddie Parker Sr. Sadly, Eddie died young, but his son, Eddie Jr., would have made him proud. A former KHS football star, Junior was recently appointed head of security at the high school. Memo to would-be Broadway drug dealers and campus bad-asses: Parker, a fine figure of a man, can still run.
The less said about one of the exiting mayor’s 11th-hour moves — the promotion of four police officers over the objections of the police commission and the chief — the better. Let’s just say that uncommon executive hubris was common in that administration.
Meanwhile, the sink goes on. It seems every time construction workers repair a leak on the Washington Avenue sinkhole, another springs up. And that doesn’t include cracks in walls and basements in adjacent homes. The indication is that some if not most of the problems were from city neglect over the last 50 years or Rube Goldberg quick fixes.
I don’t know the mayor’s deadline on opening this main thoroughfare to traffic, but I’m predicting mid-July. That way, they could combine the event with the five-year anniversary of the original collapse. Maybe the celebratory parade could be led by a motorcade of hapless city officials waving tax bills from flashy convertibles.
