This is, in part, the “What the heck’s been going on over at Dragon Fly Eye lately” edition.  As the Germans say, checkun-zie outen:

• Carla Palumbo notes that the GOP in the county leg are stealing Dem ideas & proposals on opening up the leg and calling them their own:

We (meaning the Democrats) pushed for televising Lej meetings — they shut down the referral at every chance.

(snip)

fast forward to election day 2007, Republicans nearly lose the majority their lack of transparency a major issue, the secretiveness….. guess what referral is going to the Legislature this month coming up? A Republican sponsored referral to webcast the meetings (thank you Travis Heider D, Brighton for your original referral) and posting minutes and agenda on the website (thank you Democratic Caucus for your website that did it first). Ummmmm what changed…. did it get cheaper?

This is nothing new for the county GOP– I remember them nuking an anti-discrimination proposal that Carrie Andrews (D) put forward, only to bring it up later as a GOP proposal.  Party trumps good government.  It’s all about the PR, folks.

• Here’s Jon Greenbaum’s (of MetroJustice fame) take on COMIDA’s recent, secret, and destructive picking of your pocket.  Lots of good stuff, read it all, but here’s a couple highlights:

Behind closed doors (geez- did COMIDA violate the state open meeting law AGAIN?), Maggie Brooks’ COMIDA just changed the requirements for local workers, making it twice as easy for a contractor working on the Wegmans culinary facility to bring in workers from outside the area. And this contractor is doing this with the tax breaks the county is giving them. And you were wondering why your property taxes were so high!

(snip)

So that means that the Maggie Brooks team can decide who gets the contracts behind closed doors and, voila, contributions pour into the Republican Party housekeeping fund (Siemens Corp delivered a wheelbarrow filled with cash to Minarik around the same time they got contracts from two of these LDC’s).

It gets worse.  There’s stuff about the weird, conflicted, dealings of the Harris Beach law firm (yeah, it’s the same one that the East Rochester GOP board members hired as interim village attorney).

• DFE himself wishes aloud about better day-to-day governance rather than sexy, big-ticket, RenSquare-ish projects:

Despite what many would have you think, when businesses are asked what features of a city most attract them to new investment, the answer isn’t lower taxes or a conveniently-located Italian-themed marketplace.  The answer is routinely some combination of an educated workforce and reliable infrastructure, which means well-maintained roads and communications lines.  Funny thing: not only are these things good for business, but they’re good for the citizenry as well.  And who could complain if we spent our time, talent and treasure building livable communities and good jobs?

•  He also weighs in on the financial problems of Rochester’s sports scene that’s been in the news:

I’m just hoping that, in an effort to save face for the city, the mayor doesn’t decide to try to take over Paetec Park unless it can be proven to be a money-maker.  I would say that we need to have someone take a serious look at what kind of entertainment/sports venues this city can really support - that we could use a master plan against which to work - but I think we all know by now these things are run by the contractors, not by our elected officials.

•  Moving over to Water Buffalo Press, they cover a new report out from Comptroller DiNapoli on the Thruway toll hikes.

Um… let’s see - we have croneyism, the use of the influence of public office when awarding contracts in exchange for donations to the campaign fund, the ever-escalating health care costs for the construction companies in question.

Man, I wish Spitzer would just clean house of all these Pataki holdovers.

• Another helpful reminder by WBP’s handsomeswede looks back on 2007 and a report on COMIDA’s illegal activities around the airport and AirTran:

Surprise, surprise; COMIDA’s dealings in this instance were at worst illegal and at best, well, illegal.

Perhaps the most discouraging aspect of this story was the relative yawner of an issue it became in the arenas of local media and public opinion, a public which has become so accustomed to COMIDA’s questionable use of lease deals, bonds and tax exemptions that an instance identified as illegal by the state comptroller fails to reach beyond said official’s announcement on his website only to be buried in the archives of the local fish wrapper (assuming you can actually access such archives.)

So let’s compare, shall we?  You or I do something illegal and we get fined or thrown in jail or both.  COMIDA members, along with state and county officials, engage in illegal activities and they get posh salaried jobs with health benefits and favoritism from their political cronies who benefited from the shady deal - seems fair.

Or, you could cozy up with the Constitution-shredding national GOP and have them legislate retroactive immunity for you.