Not About Sack-ing Anyone: Joe on Legal Reform for Rye

Rye City Councilman Joe Sack wants Rye citizens to know the intent of the special report provided to Mayor French and the city by Sack and former Mayor John Carey regarding the structure and costs of our legal services. Read the Carey-Sack Report.

By Joe Sack

As I said at the City Council meeting [Wednesday], the headline here is that we want to provide Rye with the most effective legal representation possible, in the most efficient manner possible.  Kevin Plunkett is a very savvy and experienced attorney, and we benefited greatly from having him in Rye .  We are also lucky to still have Kristen Wilson representing us.  But as Mayor French himself indicated when he asked us to take on this assignment, we now have a natural opportunity to take a fresh look at the structure of the law department, separate and apart from the individual lawyers involved.  One of the main ideas is that we want to reduce the amount of work that goes to outside counsel.  We also want to keep more controls on work that does go to outside counsel.  By proposing reforms, we are simply looking for ways to improve, as we always do.  We are not looking to take issue with the way things have been done over the past 5 to 10 years.  As such, our report is a positive and forward looking document.  Judge John Carey and I brought our collective legal experience to bear on the situation, and we hope that the issues we raised, and the recommendations we made, will result in meaningful contributions to the operations of the City.

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5 Comments

  1. The past 10 years (especially the last 4) were an escalating municipal malfeasance nightmare under the micro-mismanagement of a malignant statist nincompoop.

  2. nycourts.gov/courts/9jd/TacCert_pdfs/TAXCERTARTICLENY

    I had hoped we were moving away from the vitriole that typified the tirades on this blog last year.
    The election is in our rear view mirrors for more than four months now.
    I see, however, that Ted Carroll still can’t let go of the anger he maintains he does not possess. I wonder how many of us would describe his rant above as coming from a happy place?
    Ted refers to an
    “…escalating municipal malfeasance nightmare under the micro-mismanagement of a malignant statist nincompoop.” Spiro Agnew would be proud.
    Now, I have compared the tax increases for this year in Rye to surrounding communities. I think they speak for themselves.
    Another thing that speaks for itself is Ted’s pyrrhic legal battles with the City.
    Readers should know he sued us, the citizens of Rye, because he didn’t want to pay his fair share of property taxes on property he inherited from Daddy.
    Property taxes are mostly school taxes and they have little to do with “municipal malfeasance” in that we have a fine school board. So Ted thought the rest of us should pay more for the schools so he could pay less. And he calls our former Mayor a “nincompoop” – how childish.
    I predict that Ted and other anonymous tough guys will jump in here and 1) Ted will use his “twist, lies and distort” routine 2) Some goon will say I don’t write my own copy.
    That’s OK – these tough guys are not only cowards – they’re sexist cowards. I haven’t seen them accuse any man who’s posted of being unable to think for himself or speak for himself, no matter how inarticulate or uninformed the comment.
    Me, however, I must have some male politician telling me what to say. Women are incapable of talking about “man stuff” like taxes and lawsuits intelligently.
    So here you go.

    http://www.ryeny.gov/cm_pdf/M04-15-09.pdf

    This GOOGLE link was written by a man, I hope. It’s another link to the lawsuit Ted C. filed against our City.
    Maybe litigious, greedy and irrationally angry types like Ted are one of the reasons our legal fees are what they are?
    Just Google Carroll v. Rye Assessor and read it for yourself.
    It kind of puts Ted’s chronic comments in the proper perspective.

  3. Don’t you worry Steve, er, Charmian. It’s all gonna come out – like so much other stuff (like the police facility studies hidden before the election). The illegal tax cert practices, phony fairness claims, public record erasures and bald faced written lies you’ve encouraged will be sun lighted. The voters had a sense of this – along with so much else.

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