Corrupt to the Core
It seems every week or so we’re finding a new instance of corrupt behavior in our local elected officials. Stories that should be covered by the local media, but, unfortunately, aren’t. The most recent situation involved Sen. Joseph Robach; you can read about that here and here.
Today we discover Richard Yolevich (R), representing Monroe County’s 1st Legislative District, received some handsome in-kind contributions from a local restaurant owned by a current Republican Parma Town Board member, Carm Carmestro. Specifically, on or about May 7, 2007, Carmestro’s restaurant provided the Yolevich campaign with $990 in free food and free use of their facility. Furthermore, a woman by the name of Cathy Carmestro donated $100 to the Yolevich campaign.
Under normal circumstances, this would be fine and dandy. However, if we look only 20 days past the May 7 free goodies, we will see Yolevich secured $25,000 in grant funding for a sidewalk in the Village of Hilton. The sidewalk in question is located on Canning street, which, as you can tell by this map, is about 50 feet long and consists of just about one business: Carmestro’s restaurant .
It’s important to keep in mind this might not be a quid pro quo, but it very much gives the appearance of one.
I urge anyone who cares about fiscal sanity to email Yolevich and demand he pay for the freebies. Please, let us know what, if anything, Yolevich has to say.
For now, we’ll have to wait and see.
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Nice catch! Good work!
After all, what use is public filings if no one looks through them?
Sigh. My old town of Hilton. And I used to work for Carm at Carmenstro’s. I’m ashamed. But also I can’t quite figure out, why for a sidewalk? I’ll be honest, I haven’t lived in Hilton for 15 years, but it was never big on foot traffic. I don’t see why they’d go through all this for a sidewalk… Unless Carm has bought that property around there and they’re looking to start doing something with it. Nothing much has happened there since a fire took down the arts co-op in…. 1998? Sometime around then. It used to be called Canning Street Square.
I need to start blogging again.
Jrvipers piece is very interesting indeed. The $25K that Yolevich was given for Hilton’s sidewalk was part of an alomost $100K block grant. The rest of the money went to Sweden $40K & the village of Brockport $40K. It is interesting that I never read anything about Yolevich applying for this money ~ but this year he has competition in Todd Dunn, so it seems Maggie tossed him something to run on i.e. the Block grants (See: http://www.westsidenewsonline.com/OldSite/westside/news/2007/0520/features/areamunicipalities.html)
As for Canning street - it seems they have been working on improving that area for a while now (see the above link)…Village of Hilton government which is “non-partisan” but nonetheless has 4 registered Republicans on it, tends to be more progressive in development than is the Town. As an example - The year I moved here the Village purchased the building housing Ben Franklin so that the community wouldn’t lose this business that was struggling with its mortgage. So although I would think that Carm has an interest in beautifying the area around his business and I agree it does seem pretty strange that he donated right before this sidewalk money came in, I would say that this deal benefits many more people than Carmestro and it will most likely be used by an otherwise inactive legislator as a campaign piece about how much he has done for this community.
Great catch. I’m impressed. My first time reading and you have my attention.
If you look closely at these sidewalks around Carmestro’s you see they are very expensive and not customary to the area. I wondered why the Village installed stamped-coloured concrete around that slop-house that is surrounded by weeds and vacant buildings/lots. Yolevich would have better served to have Main St. Hilton redone. Clearly a qui pro quo occurring between Yolevich, Carmestro and the Hilton Village Board.
Keep on this. Carmestro is a power hog who won’t stop until everthing around him has been destroyed. I see him around the village and wonder is he a resident, a businessman, a fire department representative, a town board representative. Who knows who or what he represents at any given time.
Also, why are all the Hilton Camber of Commerce meeting heald at his business? There are other locations that can and are willing to accomodate those meetings. More of the same from the power monger.
Thanks for reading, Scott! There’s plenty of corruption to go around in Monroe County, and we try to cover as much as we can. You raise some good questions. Our fellow progressive bloggers at ChangingParma.com have been keeping a close eye on all the weird and corrupt things going on out there.