Bill Smith’s Dereliction of Duty: Cornell Cooperative Extension
While the Monroe County Patronage Juggernaut is busy careening onward through crowds of stunned taxpayers, an alert reader pointed out a huge conflict of interest with the GOP’s patronage pick: Bill Smith.
And his actions while both GOP Majority Leader in the County Leg, and on the Board of Trustees for Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE), might well be illegal as well. I’m no fancy city lawyer or anything, but check this out.
Remember the big deal that was made over the County Leg stripping funds from CCE and giving them to MCC last year?
Smith was County Leg GOP Majority Leader from 2002-2007. At the same time, according to his resume, he was on the board of CCE from 2005-2007.
So, according to his resume’s cover letter, he PROPOSED the money grab from CCE to MCC, and then voted in favor of it, during that time.
According to the state Attorney General’s office, trustees of non-profits (like CCE) have a fiduciary responsibility to the thing that they’re, well, trustee-ing.
The question is, given that, can a trustee be criminally charged for breaking a fiduciary responsibility?
From the helpful little booklet the AG’s office provides for new trustees:
such [conflict of interest] policies prohibit board members
from engaging in any transaction that may result in even the appearance of a
conflict of interest.(snip)
Some such policies prohibit board members from engaging in any transaction that may result in even the appearance of a conflict of interest.
Uh-oh. Spidey sense is tingling! The booklet goes on to say:
members of a board of directors must fulfill fiduciary duties to the organization and the public it serves. Those primary legal duties include the duties of care, loyalty and obedience.
Â
(snip)
Â
[The Duty of Loyalty means that] Directors and officers are charged with the duty to act in the interest of the corporation.
Â
(snip)
Â
A failure to meet these obligations is a breach of fiduciary duty and can result in financial and other liability for the board of directors and the officers.
Breaking the law or not, given that Smith did this while CCE was under his watch, what similar lapse of ethics would he be open to while in charge of MCC?
That whole deal was a combined power grab and another example of Monroe County’s Republican answer to every financial problem– rob Peter to pay Paul. Especially if
Paul is under your control and you’d like to be president of Paul within a year.
And they actually are trying to ramrod this guy down our throats??? Well of course they are. Actually, Mr. Smith, has not done anything that the rest of them have not done. eg: Monroe County; Greece; MCWA, Rural-Metro, etc.
Once again, they all have a hell of a lot to protect! This is just another fine example of Minariks Machine at work.
“Stop Thief!!!”
[...] I write anything else, can you legal eagles who read RT tell me: did Smith break the law by screwing Cornell CCE to benefit MCC when he was in the County [...]