Charles Barron, the New York City Councilman who wants to run for governor as the candidate of a new pro-African-American, Latino Freedom Party, is planning to hold a news conference at 10 a.m. Monday at Brooklyn Borough Hall to say how many signatures he is filing by the Aug. 17 deadline.

“It will be more than enough,” Barron has told reporters. “There’ll be no reason for anyone in this state to challenge us, other than they don’t want to see a powerful black and Latino-led party be in the mix of the politics of New York state. There would be no other reason. We’re going to have leverage on a state level, statewide level, and we’re going to actually have power on a local level, and we’ll be able to elect people to office from this party and this party line in local elections, You could possibly win with a Freedom Party candidate in some of these smaller local elections, where you have actual power, and then we’ll have leverage.”

Barron, reportedly jumped into the campaign as the candidate of the Freedom party in June out of frustration with the fact that the Democratic Party’s statewide slate is all white, with no African-Americans or Latinos included.

WHAT ARE ANDREW CUOMO’S PROPOSAL FOR RESTORING ETHICS IN ALBANY? THE FULL TEXT OF HIS ACTION PLAN ON ETHICS FOLLOWS: 

CHAPTER 1: Clean Up Albany: Restoring Trust & Accountability Reform New York’s Ethics Laws

1. Independent monitoring and enforcement of ethics laws. Currently, our State government’s ethics laws are policed by separate entities without the independence necessary to ensure that violations are fully and fairly investigated and prosecuted. In particular, the Legislature essentially polices itself rather than making its members subject to investigation by an independent body. As Governor, Andrew Cuomo will fight to eliminate the existing oversight bodies and establish an independent State ethics commission with robust enforcement powers to investigate and punish violations of law by members of both the executive and legislative branches. 2. Outlaw “pay to play.”

To read the full text of Cuomo’s plan, click on to: www.newwnypolitics.net

PANEPINTO BACKED BY BUFFALO PBA, UAW, AFSCME

When Catherine Nugent Panepinto was a young AFL-CIO labor organizer, working to help poor people in Arkansas and Louisiana to organize so their children could someday lead better lives, she probably never dreamed that she’d one day be running for the NYS Supreme Court. Yet, right now, these two highly disparate strands of her life seem to be magically coming together as her campaign garners one labor endorsement, the latest being that of the Buffalo Police Benevelent Asssn.

“I think members of organized labor in the Eighth Judicial District appreciate the fact that I have a strong labor background,” she explains. “I believe they understand that I would always be fair to them and always undertand their concerns.”

Among the union groups which have come out for Panepinto so far are ; The United Auto Workers Region 9 WNY Community Action Program; the Communications Workers of America, WNY Council; AFSCME Local 850; the United Food and Commercial Workers, Local One; and the Laborers International Union of North America, Local 210.

Still, this confidential law clerk to a current Supreme Court Justice certainly isn’t resting on her labor laurels. In addition to raising two or three times more money than any of her rivals, she continues to travel almost constantly from one event to another, getting to know the voters of the district as she goes.

“Let’s see, I was at an event for Assemblywoman Francine DelMonte at the Rapids Hotel in Niagara Falls recently,” she recalls. “I’ve been to the Evans Town Picnic and the Eden Corn Festival and there are many more to come. I am expecting to spend a lot of time at the Erie County Fair this year and I’m really looking forward to the Peach Festival. I’m getting a great reception everywhere and I’m definitely enjoying travelling around the district, often with my three daughters, ages 14, 11, and 9. They love being out there supporing Mom and I love introducing them to all the new friends I’m making from Erie and Niagara Counties to the Pennsylvania border.”

NEWWNYPOLITICS ENTERPRISES WELCOMES BLACK-WNY.COM TO ITS WEB SITE FAMILY…TO CREATE “A NEW POSITIVE VISION”…TO BE “A NEW POSITIVE VOICE FOR WNY AFRICAN-AMERICANS”….THIS IS THE MISSION OF www.black-wny.com

Today, NewWNYPolitics Enterprises welcomes Black-WNY.com to its family of web sites. In the coming days and weeks, when our readers make their first visit to this new site, designed to serve the needs of the Buffalo/Niagara Falls African-American community, they will notice a distinct difference from other sites with which they are familiar.

Not strictly political in focus, Black-WNY.com’s primary goal is to put the spotlight on the positive achievements of WNY African-Americans in fields such as business, education, culture, and community life.

To Create “A New Positive Vision”…To Be “A New Positive Voice For WNY African-Americans”…This is the mission of www.black-wny.com

OBSCURE PRISONER COUNTING PROVISION IN BUDGET COULD HELP DEMS KEEP CONTROL OF SENATE

Up to now, the 2,000 inmates who list their current address as 639 Exchange Street, also known as the Attica Correctional Facility, have bene counted for political representation purposes as residents of Wyoming County, not New York City , The City of Buffalo and their immediate suburbs, from which most of them hail. .

But under a provision in the budget legislation that state lawmakers approved last week, New York will become the second state, after Maryland, to end the practice, a change that could sharply affect the state’s political map. Until the change, Republicans have been the main beneficiaries of counting prisoners as residents of the counties where they serve their sentences because the prisons sit in communities that lean Republican. The result has been that population figures for these GOP counties have been inflated at the expense of urban areas where Democrats are strong.

But, in the wake of the change in the law, now more than 34,000 of the state’s nearly 60,000 inmates will be counted as residents of New York City’s five boroughs or urban communities in Rockland County, Westchester County and Long Island, not to mention the City of Buffalo.

When state lawmakers redraw the boundaries of legislative districts using the results of this year’s census, the law could affect how these districts are formed. When districts were last drawn, in 2002, a total of seven upstate districts met population requirements as a result of people behind bars, according to an analysis conducted by the Prison Policy Initiative, a nonprofit advocacy group that has studied the issue.

The removal of these inmate populations, combined with the continuing movement of people from upstate districts, may leave some districts with too few residents to continue as they are, thus helping Democrats keep control of the Albany Senate.

Should that happen, the districts will be redrawn and stretched farther east and south, causing a ripple effect that will extend those and other districts into Democratic-rich areas like New York City and increasingly Democratic areas like the Hudson Valley, Mr. Forand said. While Republicans are a decided minority in the Assembly and have poor prospects of winning the governor’s office in November, they are neck and neck with Democrats in the State Senate, which the Democrats control by a 32-to-30 majority.

NIAGARA COUNTY LEGISLATURE DEM LEADER CALLS FOR CUOMO TO FIND OUT IF IMPROPER INFLUENCE WAS APPLIED TO GET COUNCILMEMBER’S DAUGHTER OFF THE HOOK

Niagara County Legislature Democratic Leader Dennis Virtuoso is joining WBEN shock jock Tom Bauerle, MADD,  and others in calling for NYS Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to investigate whether improper influence was brought to bear in the DWI arrest of Sarah Donovan. According to Virtuoso, the basic facts are undisputed.

“Sarah Donovan, the daughter of a North Tonawanda Councilmember, was driving under the influence of alcohol and hit two parked cars,” he reports. “When she was apprehended by the police, she blew a  .13 alcohol content in her body. .08 is the legal limit, so she was reading at almost twice the legal limit.”

At this point, in Virtuoso’s view, the plot definitely thinckened.

“Within 10 days of when this happened, Donovan’s attorney, former Niagara County Republican Chairman Henry Wojtaxzek, met with Niagara County’s Republican Chairman Mike Violanti,” says Virtuoso. “Together these two worked out a deal by which Donovan was allowed to plead to a speeding violation and get off with a fine. The problem is: This is illegal.”

Why?

“Because the law says that you can’t plead a DWI down to a non-DWI charge,” he replies. “You could plead it down to a driving while impaired, but you can’t plead it down to a charge that does not involve driving while under the influence of alcohol at all. It’s against the law. You can’t do it.”

According to Leader Virtuoso, the deception got worse from there.

“They told Judge Lewis, and the Judge has acknowledged this, that they plead Donovan down because she’s a CPA and they were afraid she’d lost her license,” Virtuoso notes. “As it turns out, she isn’t a CPA and, even if she was, she wouldn’t lose her license for an offense such as this.”

As a result, Virtuoso is asking Attorney General Cuomo to begin an investigation of this sequence of events, as soon as possible.

“It’s not only me who wants the Attorney General’s Office to investigate,” he explains. ‘Mothers Against Drunk Driving is only one of the groups or individuals who are asking for such a probe. I call this Republican justice. It’s not fair. It’s not legal and it definitely should be investigated.”

DelMonte measure helps new orchard and vineyard owners with property tax break

PALADINO ON PATERSON’S ETHICS WOES: AN “INEXPLICABLE WHITEWASH” BASED ON THE FACTS…SOME GOOD POINTS, BUT CAN YOU REALLY DISBAR THE NEVER BARRED?

WNY’s own Republican gubernatorial candidate, Carl Paladino, wants to see Gov. David Paterson prosecuted and disbarred for his actions as described in former Chief Justice Judith Kaye’s report on the Gov’s past ethics woes. This is despite the fact that the report that goes into great detail explaining why prosecution isn’t warranted according to the evidence.

As to disbarment, it’s going to be pretty hard to accomplish considering the fact that the Governor has never passed the state bar. Still, we can’t deny that Paladino makes some good points. Some excerpts of his release follow:

“The Governor, a lawyer, clearly tried to intercede in a criminal case to protect his top aide, then covered it up,” Paladino said. “Yet the special counsel’s final report recommends no penalty. That’s preposterous.”

“We are asked to believe the State and City Police tried to intimidate the witness into not testifying in the case without direction from the Governor. This is just not credible,” Paladino said. “Judge Kaye even acknowledged the efforts by the Governor’s lawyers to coordinate and coach the testimony of key witnesses during her probe.”

“The Governor didn’t cooperate with the investigation as he promised and his top aide refused to be interviewed by pleading the Fifth Amendment,” Paladino added. “Yet Judge Kaye has given the Governor a pass. Her conclusions are inexplicable based on the evidence of violations of the law in her own report.”

“This whitewash job is typical of how Albany’s ruling elite coddles career politicians who betray the public trust and pay no price,” Paladino concludes. “The people of New York have had enough of this nonsense.”

 PALADINO NOW SAYS HE MAY RUN AS THIRD PARTY GOV CANDIDATE IF HE LOSES TO LAZIO IN GOP PRIMARY…GOOD NEWS FOR HIS DIE HARD BACKERS…AND FOR ANDREW CUOMO!

Highly successful Buffalo developer Carl Paladino is now reassuring supporters that he ’spoke hastily’ in two media interviews earlier this week when he declared that he would not pursure a third party (or at least third line) candidacy for Governor should he lose to GOP gubernatorial nod to opponent and former Long Island Congressman Rick Lazio. Now he is declaring that he wants to ‘preserve all my options’ should soldiering on as a third-party candidate start to look appealing.

His revised stance is as follows:

“I am so confident of victory in the New York Republican Primary that I spoke hastily this week on ‘Inside City Hall,’ (a Big Apple political talk show) and said I would be gone if i did not win the Republican Primary. Many in the Tea Party movement and more of my supporters expressed extreme displeasure immediately. They want me to carry the fight for reform into the Fall with the Taxpayers Line. I owe it to them and our State to examine the circumstances after the GOP primary, when I believe this issue will be moot.

The fight for reform is bigger than any party. It is tragic that the New York State Conservative Party violated their birthright by designating a liberal Republican, so the formation of the Taxpayers line is required. Therefore I will preserve all my options until after the Primary.”

Of course, this change of position on the part of Paladino is bad news for Lazio, who would has little chance of winning a general election now, at least according to the polls, and would have no chance whatsoever should Carl be also on the Nov. ballot taking anti-Cuomo votes away from the GOP line.

Naturally, that also means Paladino’s annoucement is very good news for the already front running campaign of the afore mentioned Mr. Cuomo.

In other Paladino news, Carl is continuing his virulent opposition to the proposal to build a Muslim mosque within 10 blocks or so of the former World Trade Center, also known as Ground Zero. While Democratic nominee for gov Andrew Cuomo has cited our cherished American believe in religious freedom and declining to join the bandwagon against the project, Mr. Lazio’s well financed challenger has said that those behind locating this particular house of worship in Lower Manhattan are doing it to prove their “conquest” of America in the wake of the terror they spread on 9-11.