Your Taxpayer Dollars At Work
"County spokesman John Durso ripped Morelle’s proposal, saying Morelle has been part of a state government with Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver that has led to record increases in state spending and additional burdens on local governments.“This is nothing more than election year politics from the Democratic county chairman desperately seeking to draw attention away from the failures of his own party,” Durso said."These are not words that should be uttered by any public servant, let alone the Monroe County Director of Communications. Yet, in a news update today, there it was. Personally, I expect at least a tad more professionalism from a member of the County Executive's senior management team. The Director of Communications should focus his or her public statements on county government issues like taxes, infrastructure, or social services. Furthermore, the Director of Communications should not be running off his or her mouth to reporters without first checking with his or her boss to ensure that it is an official position of County government. This reflects remarkably poorly on Maggie Brooks' leadership ability. While I would like to give Maggie the benefit of the doubt, I simply cannot in this instance. This should have been expected when she allowed Steve Minarik to give such an important position in County government to an unaccomplished disgraced political hack like John Durso. She acquiesced in his appointment, and as such, she is complicit in this despicable situation.
The above photo shows Durso at one of his finer moments (photo taken from Musings of a New York College Republican). From what I gather, Mr. Durso was not liked by anybody in the GOP, except for the only person hated more, our beloved Steve Minarik. According to the "Musings" blog, run by Republican-Conservative younglings, Durso was a much hated person in Albany:
"Durso will be best remembered for his obsession with the College Republicans (despite having been out of school nearly a decade), his mishandling of the audio equipment at Jeanine Pirro's August announcement in Albany (even though he was "never there"), his inability to identify female acquaintances of Howard Dean in press releases and his capacity for extorting paychecks from the NYGOP in return for doing so little work."
Prior to being shipped back to Rochester for being completely inept, Minarik sent us a gift in the form of Mr. Durso. Knowing that Minarik's short stint in Albany was coming to an abrupt end, Durso used his political love connection with Minarik to land a sweet gig here in beautiful Monroe County. Had he stayed on with the State GOP after Minarik was kicked out, he would have been shit-canned. Instead we have the pleasure of paying him more than triple the County per capita income to make purely political statements that have nothing to do with County government whatsoever.
A political operative with no relevant experience is being paid a generous taxpayer-funded salary to cause division in this community. Need I remind you that the vast majority of residents in this County are Democrats or independent? What other incompetent people are in positions of power in Monroe County government? How much influence over public policy does disgraced fat guy Steve Minarik have? Does John Durso deserve $90,000 of our hard-earned money and a prominent position in our government when he wasn't even good enough for a leadership position in his own party? This must become a campaign issue; I hope it just has.
UPDATE: The evening news telecasts all had quick snippets of Mr. Durso making a complete ass out of himself. The following is his quote from WROC-TV: "It is not a serious attempt to influence the policy of Monroe County and to be perfectly frank, Monroe County residents deserve better." John, you are absolutely correct; we deserve much better than you. Madam County Executive, I hereby offer my linguistic services as your Director of Communications. Heck, for $90,000 I'll make even more off-the-wall comments than the man-child you have in place now.
UPDATE, PART 2: RNEWS has a video where you can see Durso first-hand. My God, it's horrifying to think that if I had sold my soul to the Republican Party, I too might be ripping off the taxpayers to the tune of nearly six-figures while complaining about budget deficits and unfunded mandates.
posted by Man About Town @ 5:05 PM
Comments: 5
