Democrats, Republicans accuse each other of wrongdoing

Written by Matt Dalen
Monday, 02 November 2009 15:13

As Lewisboro enters the final stretch before tomorrow’s election, local politics have heated up, with both the town Republicans and Democrats making allegations of wrongdoing against their opponents. On Saturday, the Westchester County Fair Campaign Practices Committee issued two findings on complaints made against the campaigns for Democratic incumbent Town Supervisor Edward Brancati and Republican challenger Charles Duffy, while the Republican Town Committee issued a press release about alleged violations of election law in the write-in candidacy of Town Board candidate Robert Goett.

The committee, an independent group whose findings are not binding on candidates, found one incident of an unfair campaign practice on the part of Mr. Brancati’s campaign, and three incidents on the part of Mr. Duffy’s campaign, after listening to complaints from both sides on Saturday.

Two different teams

According to the committee, Mr. Brancati, in a campaign mailer, had compared the accomplishments of his administration with the actions of the 2005 Republican team and the current Republican candidates. The committee found that the current team “is not the same as the 2005 election Republican team,” and that “it is misleading” to give the impression that they are the same by labeling both as the “DeLucia Republican Team” — while both teams included Town Board candidate Peter DeLucia, Mr. Duffy and Town Board candidate Frank Kelly are running for the first time this year and had no connection to the 2005 candidates.

“They weren’t part of the 2005 team, and we didn’t say they were,” Mr. Brancati told The Ledger. “Nowhere in that mailer were they mentioned at all. They felt that was an inference that could be drawn.”

Mr. Duffy disagreed.

“His mailing was, I feel, a willful manipulation, trying to say I was part of the administration in ’06 and ’07,” he said.

Three errors

In a separate release, the committee found that Mr. Duffy’s campaign had wrongly declared that the town needed to “restart stormwater control programs,” that the town was placed on “credit watch” by the Standard & Poor’s rating agency, and that Mr. Brancati had “no concept of looking for revenue.”

The committee’s release said that Mr. Brancati had provided documentation proving that the town had worked towards managing stormwater, receiving a satisfactory rating from the state auditor in 2009. Mr. Brancati also proved that the town had sought some revenue, in the form of seeking for cellular towers to be built on town land, and received a statement from Standard & Poor’s that, while the town’s bond rating outlook had been downgraded from stable to negative, it had not been placed on “negative CreditWatch.”

“With this type of criticism of our literature, it’s all open to interpretation,” Mr. Duffy said. “The three [findings], I feel, were semantic in nature. We stand behind what was stated in our literature.”

Missing disclosure forms

Meanwhile, earlier today, the Republican Town Committee released a statement alleging that Lewisboro 2009, the Democratic campaign group which has supported the candidacies of Mr. Brancati and Town Board hopefuls Maureen Maguire and Robert Goett, had failed to file necessary disclosure documents with the Westchester County Board of Elections.

According to Board of Elections representative Nardara Ford, Lewisboro 2009’s records on file disclosed that it would be supporting Mr. Brancati, Ms. Maguire, and former candidate P.J. Rossi — but Mr. Goett, who is running as a write-in candidate with the backing of the Democrats, does not appear on their forms. Similarly, Mr. Goett was required to submit a form, CF-16, which affirms that he will disclose the financial activity of his campaign committee, a form which Ms. Ford says has not been filed.

Despite the missing paperwork, Lewisboro 2009 has been supporting Mr. Goett’s candidacy, not only on its Web site but also in paid ads which have run in The Ledger.

Lewisboro Democratic Committee co-chair Alan Cole said that he did not know anything about the forms which had or had not been filed, and that the responsibility to file financial disclosure forms fell on Lewisboro 2009’s treasurer, Les Simon. Mr. Simon is out of town and did not return e-mails sent earlier today.

Ms. Ford said that she did not know if there was a penalty for failing to file the correct disclosure paperwork.