Quid Pro Quo?

They're a little late to the party, but the O-D notices that Sandy DePerno seems to know who her friends are.

Six of the 10 abstract companies occupying space in the Oneida County Clerk's Office have made donations to Clerk Sandra DePerno's campaign since Jan. 1, 2006, according to the state Board of Elections Web site.

The donations total $1,130 and account for about 5 percent of her total raised — $23,834.

DePerno, who has been clerk since the beginning of the year, recently disclosed she has not been charging abstract companies rent to use space in her office, though the 2007 county budget included $30,000 from the rental fees.

DePerno, a Democrat, has said she will make up the fees elsewhere, but has not said how.

The donations did not impact her decision to stop charging the rental fee, she said.

"No it did not," she said. "I don't think it's an issue."

She did not give a specific reason for not charging rent and said it was a decision made at her discretion.

I'm surprised the O-D hasn't tabulated how many bar members that are practicing real estate attorneys donated as well. Those would be the attorneys, and abstract companies, that make up Ms. DePerno's "advisory committee".

Indeed.

Money Well Spent

It's looking more and more as though the campaign contributions that flowed into Oneida County Clerk Sandra DePerno's coffers last year are paying back big dividends.

The Oneida County clerk is not charging abstract companies for space they occupy in the office, which could cost the county up to $30,000 this year.

County Clerk Sandra DePerno, who took office in January, said Wednesday she plans to make up the revenue elsewhere. She did not specify how.

"It's at my discretion," DePerno said, following the Oneida County Board of Legislators Internal Affairs Committee meeting, when asked why she chose to eliminate the rental fee.

Former clerk Rick Allen charged the companies rent throughout his tenure from 2001 to 2006. The administration before Allen did not charge the fee, DePerno said.

Oddly enough, although Ms. DePerno has come clean about what she did she still hasn't offered up a rationale for why she did it. A cynical man might suggest that she was paying back the same people that helped get her elected. Me? I think she just realized she was making the County too darn much money.

The 2007 county budget included $30,000 from the rental fees, and Oneida County Executive Anthony Picente questioned why DePerno would cut any source of revenue.

"It will be a problem if it's not made up at the end of the year," said Picente, a Republican.

But Oneida County Comptroller Joe Timpano said $30,000 is not going to make or break the budget, and DePerno has discretion over her budget.

That's good to know. Based on Mr. Timpano's statement I hope we'll be seeing at least a $30,000 cut in the Clerk's budget for next year. Heck, what's $30,0000 in the big picture? It's not like the county is strapped for income and just passed a massive sales tax increase.

Oh, wait...

As a sidebar to the rent reduction story we get this priceless gem:

A task force is studying the possibility of posting Oneida County records online, county Clerk Sandra DePerno told the Oneida County Legislature's Internal Affairs Committee Wednesday.

The task force, formed by DePerno to get ideas about how to handle the records, includes abstractors, attorneys and a county legislator.

So the task force deciding if property records should be online is made up of lawyers and representatives from abstract companies.

The two groups that just happen to gain the most if those records aren't freely available on the internet.

The two groups that funneled thousands of dollars in contributions to Ms. DePerno's campaign.

The two groups that saved tens of thousands of dollars in expenses when Ms. DePerno magnanimously decided to stop charging them rent for space in her office.

Must be another one of those amazing coincidences that seem to happen so often hereabouts.

Fighting The Good Fight

If you're interested in open access to government documents you should check this out:

I just read your post “Keeping Secrets” and thought you might be interested in this page from WikiFOIA (the wiki dedicated to the Freedom of Information Act): https://wikifoia.pbwiki.com/Transparency-Reforms which talks about the need for easier access to public records. Hope you like it!



Thanks,

Sara Key

www.WikiFOIA.org

http://openrecords.wordpress.com/

I've heard some rumblings that Ms. DePerno intends to make internet access to the property database a pay-to-play proposition with...surprise,surprise...a discount for "heavy users". Those would be the lawyers and abstract companies that helped fund her campaign. That ignores the fact that we've now payed for the database multiple times- through the normal taxes allocated to support the staff of the clerks office, through funds dedicated to installing the computer hardware for the original database, through the individual filing fees for every deed, and through the money dedicated to paying for the hardware that supports the new database. If anything, you would think digitizing the records would save piles of money, instead of it becoming an increasingly larger expense.

Keeping Secrets

I haven't had much to say about Oneida County Clerk Sandra Deperno's on-again, off-again efforts to keep public records off the internet since I'm lazy and people like Strikeslip have been all over it. Making government more transparent is a good thing, and that includes making as many public documents as possible searchable via the internet. In an ideal world we wouldn't even need freedom of information laws because everything, down to the billing records of public employees with taxpayer funded cell phones, would be just a few mouse clicks away.

Sadly, that's not how Ms. DePerno thinks. She has claimed her primary motivation for keeping records off the internet is concerns over privacy, but I think that's a straw man designed to exploit people's fears of identity theft. The truth is that both lawyers and abstract companies, the only groups that would have had easy access to county records under her initial proposal, have a vested interest in making it harder for people to get access to property records. With that in mind I'm sure you'll be shocked to discover that those groups were among the biggest donors to her campaign in last year's election.

Purely a coincidence, I'm sure.

Update: Link was bad. All better now.