Monroerising.com

Great news for all of you who believe in truth and justice, someone has contacted Monroerising.com and said they have filed a complaint with the NYS Board of Elections regarding Monroe County Legislator Richard Beebe’s failure to file legaly required disclosure forms in his campaign.

We will disclose the person’s name if sheI mean he or she, wants us to.  They promise to send us the results of the investigation.  We will keep you posted on the story Monroerising.com broke and remains the source of record for.

Have a nice weekend.

Tags: Cincinnatus, Dick Beebe by Cincinnatus
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A while back Monroerising.com broke the story about County Legislator Richard Beebe’s failure to file the legally required campaign disclosure statements.  We also broke the story about how Ted Nixon and Richard Beebe were advertisers on Rochesterturning’s website yet they didn’t report any expense for this advertising.

We contacted the state board but they don’t take complaints without a name and address. We also reported that we could not take the case any futher for personal reasons.  I’m wondering if any concerned citizen has filed a complaint with the NYS Board of Elections? 

We can’t let this guy get away with sandbagging the public by taking almost $10,000 in campaign donations from special interests and violating the law by not reporting it until we outed him here.

If there is a Republican insider who knows if anything has been done let me know. If nothing has happened, maybe we can recruit someone to file a complaint here on Monroerising.com

Tags: Articles, Cincinnatus, Dick Beebe by Cincinnatus
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You have to be blind (or a liberal Democrat) to not see the hypocrisy of the special interest wackos (Metro Justice, NYSUT, Alliance For Quality Education, etc.) regarding school education funding in Monroe County.

Last week these social misfits held a meeting in Greece hosted by Monroe County Legislator Richard Beebe (you remeber him — he was the recipient of all that Working Families Party cash that wasn’t reported until 75 days after the legal deadline) complaining about the FAIR plan (you remember that — Maggie Brooks’ plan to save Monroe County taxpayers $10’s of millions of dollars in Medicaid cost) that reduced school funding. 

You will also remember that David Gantt and company forced this plan on the community because of their opposition to raising the sales tax in Monroe County (after approving increases all across New York State) because it was too painless and they were trying to force local Republicans to raise property taxes.

What I found really interesting is that not one of these “concerned citizens” at Thursday’s meeting has said one word about Governor Steamroller’s proposal to cut the amount of money the state promised schools last year.  In Monroe County, schools will receive $21 million less than they were promised.

A reasonable person would expect to hear outrage “for the children.” But these these people haven’t said a word about Governor Steamroller’s proposal.  What makes this even more galling is that the Steamroller is proposing to increase school funding in New York City at the expense of Monroe County children.

Their silence on this issues shows them for what they are — special interest hypocrites with an agenda that isn’t in the best interest of Monroe County.  If their concern truly was “for the children” they would be holding hearings speaking out against Spitzer’s budget proposal.

And one more thing: someone should tell these folks that it is OK to bathe, trim a beard and get a haircut once and awhile. 

Tags: Articles, David Gantt, Dick Beebe, Elliot Spitzer, Maggie Brooks, Prudence Izguhde by Prudence Izguhde
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Bad News.  The state elections board doesn’t take anonymous tips for campaign violations — hard to believe.  I received this in response to my e-mail sent earlier in the week.

Dear Sir/Madam:

The New York State Board of Elections has received your complaint.  The Board’s
policy is that it does not act on complaints it receive that does not have a mailing
address.  Please send us your mailing address, failure to do so will result in your
complaint being closed.

Thank you.

Dawn Hewitt
Enforcement Unit
New York State Board of Elections
40 Steuben Street
Albany, NY  12207

This take us out of the picture.  If our site is to be effective, we need to have the protection of anonymity. 

I live in a nice neighborhood, have a wife and three kids — I don’t want to explain to my 10 year old daughter why these guys with an inflatable rat are blocking our driveway.  Or how about Sister Grace and her crew holding a vigil?

I hope someone picks up the ball and runs with it. We can’t let this guy get away with this!

Tags: Articles, Cincinnatus, Dick Beebe, Monroe County by Cincinnatus
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Sorry it took so long, inlaws in from out of town, sick kids and a demanding boss, but I finally finished my research on Richard Beebe’s campaign finance reporting violations.  Here is the text of what Monroerising sent to the State Board of Elections.

In reviewing the campaign disclosure reports of Monroe County Legislator Richard Beebe, it is apparent that he did not file required disclosure forms during his campaign.  He filed the 11 day pre-general and the 27 day post-general filings on January 15, 2008 — 2 1/2 months after they were legally required.

A review of his 27 day post-general filing shows that there were three contributions not reported with in the 24 hour period as required by state law.  These donations total approximately $15,000, almost six times the amount he reported for the entire campaign before the election.  Beebe filed these reports only after our website brought attention to this fact.

These actions violate the letter and spirit of the campaign finance law.  Also Legislator Beebe and candidate Ted Nixon (Monroe County Legislator) both advertised for months on the website rochesterturning.com — yet neither show any expenses for this advertising or an inkind donation for this advertising.  Given Beebe’s track record, I am requesting that you investigate this and the deliberate non-filing of the required forms in a timely manner.

We will keep you posted!

Tags: Articles, Cincinnatus, Dick Beebe, Monroe County by Cincinnatus
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Evidently our public outing of County Legislator Richard Beebe has paid off.  He finally filed those legally required financial disclosure forms we first told you about in the beginning of the week.  75 days late is better than never I guess.  I’ll be going over them next week and will have a post on it in the middle of next week (I’d do it sooner — but my wife’s family is in from out of town — I hate it when life gets in way of my duties as a citizen journalist).

Stay tuned — gross violations of the spirit and intent of the laws are apparent at a quick glance.  Take a look for yourself — I’m pretty sure it is illegal to sandbag your opponent by raising only $2,000 at the time of your last filing and then raising and spending over $15,000 and not reporting it during the election. A friend told me FEC guidelines require that all contributions $1,000 and over have to be reported to the Board of Elections within 24 hours of receipt.  This is designed to stop underhanded special interest trickery like this.

I’ll get to work with the research team and get back to you on this next week. 

Tags: Articles, Cincinnatus, Dick Beebe, Monroe County by Cincinnatus
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If you remember back in the fall, both Richard Beebe and Ted Nixon advertised on Rochesterturning.com, the extremely leftist website that hates all things Republican.

As aspiring young website creators, Monroerising decided to review the legally required campaign disclosure filings to find out what a website like ours could charge for advertising.  Low and behold, we discovered that Ted Nixon doesn’t list any expenses for the advertising on Rochesterturning and as previously reported here, Richard Beebe has not reported any of his campaign expenses since the 32 pre-general election report.

The plot has definitely thickened.  Nixon and Beebe should report these expenses immediately. And the folks over at Rochesterturning, they have to realize that even though they are operating in a new political medium, they still need to follow the rules regarding political campaigns.

Oh, and one more thing, since Rochesterturning is so good at telling everyone else what they should be doing — we have a suggestion for them.  While they are certainly not journalists in any sense, they should adopt some ethical standards.  Is it ethical to take money from political candidates and then do “investigative” posting trashing these candidates’ opponents?

We at Monroerising will not accept advertising from any politicians  — we recognize the need to avoid any appearance of money influencing what we post about. We encourage all other blogs to follow suit.

Tags: Articles, Cincinnatus, Dick Beebe, Monroe County by Cincinnatus
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The research team at Monroerising reviewed the New York State Board of Elections campaign finance reporting database and discovered that Legislator Richard Beebe has not filed any disclosure reports since the 32 day pre-general election report. 

All other candidates for Monroe County Legislature in 2007 including all Democrats and Republicans (click link to view their reports) filed anywhere between 5 and 7 reports.  Beebe has filed only one report.  Another report is due on January 15th.

1st District Todd Dunn and Richard Yolevich, 5th District Mark Cassetti, 6th District Raymond Diraddo, 8th District Carmen Gumina and David Malta, 9th R. Anthony Lafountain and Doreen Levin (aka Mrs. Weese IV or V), 10th District Anthony Daniele and Ted Nixon, 11th District Michael Barker and Sue Davis, 15th District E. Daniel Quatro, 16th Vincent Esposito and Peter Kelderhouse, 17th District Edward O’Brien and Dan White, you get the idea.

Why is this important?  First of all, state law requires all candidates to provide this information to the public.  The lack of disclosure may indicate that Beebe has something to hide?  

Sources in County Legislative District 6 tell us they received 8 to 10 negative mailings, a number of those pre-recorded phone calls and yet Beebe’s last filing shows a campaign account balance of approimately $2,000 — hardly enough for one mailing!

Are there contributions Beebe received that exceeded campaign limits?  Are the contributions that would have caused concern and effected the results of last November’s election? Are there other rules and regulations Beebe didn’t follow?

Not providing information required by law gives the appearance that there is something in those reports he doesn’t want the public to know. This is a cloud hanging over Beebe’s head.  He needs to come clean and explain why he failed to file legally required disclosure reports. 

The fact that Legislator Beebe is the only candidate who didn’t file is very suspicious. There may well be something he is trying to hide. Perhaps the involvement of the special interest dominated Working Families Party?

Before you chalk this up to a novice candidate not familiar with the process, remeber Richard Beebe isn’t new to elective politics — he is a former mayor.  Campaign finance disclosure has been around for years and undoubtely, Beebe should have filed them in his previous campaigns. It is interesting to note that the address for the campaign account is his home — so he can’t say he doesn’t control the account and blame his treasurer.

We are notifying the state board of elections of these violations and we are encouraging local media outlets to follow-up on our research.  

Tags: Articles, Cincinnatus, Dick Beebe, Monroe County by Cincinnatus
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