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From Albany, this is the Legislative Gazette, a weekly half-hour review of New York State government and politics.
The host is political scientist and syndicated columnist Dr. Alan Sharton of the State University.
Hello and welcome to the Legislative Gazette.
This week, welfare reform at the federal level and how New York lawmakers are regarding that proposal.
A new ethics code for museums worldwide.
The New York State Museum in Albany has become the first institution to formally adopt it
and the use of electronic tracking devices for people on parole.
We'll talk with correction officials on the local level who say it's working.
These and other stories are ahead on this week's Legislative Gazette.
Fred Dicker of the New York Post always good to have you here.
Thank you, Alan. It's always a pleasure to be here.
This week, you came up with a fairly exciting story where the legislature is concerned, especially for the middle of July.
What's going on?
Well, out of the blue at a Queen's murder trial down in New York City, a government witness out in by the name of Dominic Lo Faro,
who apparently at one time was tied in with a mafia, was under cross-examination and he was being asked by a defense attorney
whether or not he had been involved with the state and any other activities other than being an undercover agent in his mafia trial.
And he said, yes.
And all of a sudden, he started talking about how he had been working with a dummy company called Newburgr Construction
and had a New York State Senator on the payroll and then he went even further and said that not only did he pay this senator off with bribes,
but he tape recorded it while he was doing it.
This testimony was made under oath.
The implications were enormous up here because of the scandals which have already rocked the legislature.
It looks like it may be scandal number three coming very soon.
Well, now this, of course, means that the prosecutors who were prosecuting the state clearly had to know that their witness was in possession of this information.
We might even assume had already turned it over and probably had an ongoing investigation in place.
Did you have any...
So you're right.
You know, there's a lot of evidence that right now that the prosecutors were not at all happy that this witness LaFaro made this information public.
In fact, I was told privately by someone very close to the investigation that the investigators were horrified that this man had done it because he in effect let the cat out of the bag.
And I would note that when we ask these states organized crime task force for which LaFaro has been working undercover,
if LaFaro telling the truth, they didn't deny it.
They just simply said, we're not going to comment on ongoing investigations, which certainly suggests that this is an ongoing investigation.
Fred, on another subject, you, of course, blew the whistle on Cliff Wilson, who is the guy that the Senate Democrats had put onto a campaign allegedly and had him working on that campaign full time.
You've been in touch with the district attorney in Manhattan and some of his people.
Where's this thing going?
We had heard there were going to be indictments for East and June and in July.
Is anything going to happen?
I think so, Alan.
Right now, probably four or five state senators, all Democrats and four or five current and former Democratic staff people from the Senate are facing criminal indictment.
The best information I have is that the indictment should they come.
If they come, will come in late August or early September.
It's been put off a bit.
Apparently, they've come up with more information.
I think we both know that dozens and dozens of people from Albany and from New York City.
Senate staff people have been called before a criminal grand jury.
The Manhattan DA is invested the time and resources of five or six assistant district attorneys, criminal investigators, a full grand jury for eight, nine months now.
And I think at the very least we're going to see some activity by early to mid at the latest, I should say.
Early in the mid September, at the very least, I would predict there'll be several indictments.
Now, one of the rumors that's real hot around Albany, Fred, you and I both heard, is that the grand jury will exercise the option to write what is called a report, which is to detail the breadth of this kind of activity rather than to do indictments.
I think I read something about that in a shartuck report this week.
Could I have seen it there?
Reminded it have been somewhere else?
Certainly is possible.
Well, I think this is what we call wishful thinking.
There's no clear indication yet that the grand jury has decided anything.
So for anyone to say they think that the rumor is that the grand jury is going to do this and not that, I think it's far too premature.
And I think it's speculative.
And as I said, wishful thinking on a part of those people who were afraid they may wind up getting indicted.
I think it's too early to tell, but my information is speaking to a great many people that the prosecutors believe that enough criminal activity went on to justify indictments.
One other thing now, Fred, as you know, when Mario Cuomo had succeeded in getting the ethics bill through the legislature, he took a lot of credit for it.
We heard how great a bill it was and the rest of it.
Best, strongest bill in the United States.
You began to write some very interesting articles and once you pointed out some of the holes in the ethics bill, I know I talked about them.
I'm very sure.
And the question that I would have is that we are now hearing Cuomo and I think, and I respect them for it, saying this is just the beginning.
This is, this is represented change in emphasis for Cuomo.
Well, it's just to me that he's having second thoughts.
I would note that I wrote that a few days ago and he called me up and he was very excited and he said, what do you mean second thoughts?
Dick, I'm not having any second thoughts.
I've been saying this in the beginning.
It's just the beginning.
On the other hand, he has not been emphasizing it from the beginning the way he is now.
So I think you pick up an accurate development.
I think the governor is concerned that the state's district attorneys are very worried about this bill, that the bar association and the attorney general have expressed strong reservations about portions of it while still saying he should sign it.
And the fact that a lot of newspaper and other commentators like yourself have been critical of it.
I think the governor has changed tack.
He's re-emphasizing or I'm sorry, he's emphasizing something he didn't early on.
Is that a genuine change in attitude?
I think so, although he certainly won't admit it.
Fred Dicker of the New York Post.
The New York Post.
The New York Post.
The New York Post.
The New York Post.
The New York Post.
The New York Post.
The New York Post.
Pockets of the Northeast have been affected by salmonella outbreaks in the last year.
And salmonella bacteria have been linked with almost a dozen deaths in the region.
New York's Health Commissioner, Dr. David Axelrod, this week began urging people to thoroughly cook,
not only chicken, but foods normally using raw eggs as well.
The legislative gazettes Leslie Brokaw spoke about it with Health Department's spokesperson Bill Fagel.
And a lot of the investigations that we've done of these foodborne outbreaks,
it's clear to us that raw eggs were implicated.
And in, for instance, holiday sauce in some kind of raw egg coatings and salads,
and also situations where eggs are not thoroughly cooked.
There was a case a while ago, I think last year or the year before, of some jumbo stuffed shells,
the product was initially contaminated with salmonella,
and it was one of these products that was a frozen food type of product,
and you reheated it to serve it.
Well, the point was that the salmonella was growing in this food.
It was reheated, but not to a level that would kill the salmonella.
A couple of questions.
We've always heard of the salmonella problems with raw chicken.
Is this the first time that we've been hearing about problems with raw eggs?
Well, it's always been to some extent a problem with raw eggs,
since it's the same type of a situation.
In other words, the traditional salmonella contamination problem is halving raw eggs
would be, you know, the contamination is on the shell of the egg.
The food preparation counter, for instance, the eggs are cracked and things,
the contamination gets into the food in that process,
and it's in the dish itself.
It may not be cooked to a high enough degree.
Some of the outbreaks that we've looked into recently,
we haven't been able to make a direct association
as to how those eggs were originally contaminated.
It's pretty clear to us that it's from raw eggs.
Our Commissioner Axe-Rodd has said that there haven't been any deaths
as a result of the salmonella here in New York State,
although there have been 11 reported deaths in the northeast,
and you also made reference to outbreaks.
What kind of outbreaks are these sort of community-wide outbreaks,
or is it sort of spotty people calling in to the health department?
These are outbreaks that have been associated with food service establishments
in New York State, unfortunately.
We've had a couple of them.
We've had clusters, an outbreak down in Long Island at a restaurant,
which produced another type of a problem.
But there was primarily the salmonella problems
where in the Syracuse area in Shermung County,
and basically, as I say, this is a real puzzle
because what they usually try to do is by process of elimination,
they arrive at what food cause the illness,
and then they trace it back from there.
And in some of these outbreaks, they've traced it back to the eggs,
but they've gone and checked the farms and things
and they can't find any reason how these eggs became contaminated.
So it's a puzzle in that respect.
Also, just to pick up Leslie on that point you made about the disease,
and I point you made about the death.
I don't know specifics on those deaths,
but I think if you really check back and look at those 11 deaths,
you'd see that those people probably had other kinds of health problems
in addition to contracting salmonella because salmonella in itself,
if it can be easily treated,
will not produce death.
What happens is it usually produces a situation of dehydration,
and for someone who's got an existing health problem,
a case of dehydration associated with salmonella can be life-threatening.
And I think that's probably, if you went back and checked on those 11 deaths,
you'd probably see that those people were high-risk
in the sense that they had other kinds of medical problems.
And it would have been exacerbated by the heat, too, of the salmonella.
Yeah, that certainly would have been a factor, although I don't know.
I think these deaths are spread over the first part of this year or so.
What should a person do if they have the classic symptoms of a terrible stomach ache?
You'll start to see symptoms usually between five hours and 72 hours after you eat
the contaminated food, and then the symptoms after that will last for approximately 24 hours,
and basically what you have is abdominal cramps, diarrhea, fever.
There are medications available over the counter that will ease those symptoms,
and of course, in any kind of situation like this,
if you can drink liquids, wash it out of your system, that'll help get it out of your system.
If you experience prolonged symptoms, then I would seek medical attention immediately.
Bill Thagle, a Spugs person for the New York State Health Department.
He says Commissioner Axel Rodd recently attended a Washington meeting on salmonella in poultry,
and that farmers are working with health officials to try to pinpoint the problem.
Lieutenant Governor Stan Lundin, let's talk about Senator Moynihan and welfare reform.
What did he want to do your old colleague in the Congress?
Well, Senator Moynihan has probably more background on welfare reform than anyone in America.
He was one of the leading thinkers on the subject almost 20 years ago when it was being actively debated
during the Nixon administration, and basically he wants to go back to a system
where families have control over their own situation, and where we do away with the idea
that there's some kind of government dull that will support children and others in poverty.
He rather wants to encourage families to support themselves.
First of all, by identifying fathers who are not providing an adequate amount of support for their children,
and secondly, by providing job opportunities for both mothers and fathers who are living in poverty
and who could better provide for their children if they had daycare, if they had some education and training,
and the necessary support such as health insurance.
Now, what are we doing wrong now?
In other words, specifically what needs to be changed?
Well, right now, you first of all have a system that encourages people not to work.
If they work, they get penalized by having their amount of assistance reduced.
They get penalized by having their Medicaid taken away.
It not only encourages people to stay away from a job, but to stay away from the training that gets the job prospects into a livable wage.
Secondly, right now we are not providing for the kind of daycare that as a practical matter is necessary for people to have employment.
The system today, patchwork system all over the country, encourages people to move across state lines,
the better welfare benefits.
That doesn't make any sense in a country as sophisticated as ours.
The incentives are for the breakup of families not to have people working and to move across state lines.
I want to turn those incentives around so that the incentive is to keep the family together,
to try to get the poor people an opportunity to work, and to try to have a relatively uniform system in this country.
Okay, now 20 years ago, whatever it was, I remember very well, Daniel Patrick Moynihan got into terrific trouble for writing that.
He was called a racist in every other kind of name you could possibly imagine.
Have the times changed or has he changed?
Well, I don't think that the charge was fair even when made back in the early 70s and late 60s.
I think that Senator Robocliffe, who was chairman of the Senate subcommittee, had jurisdiction then,
a distinguished senator from Connecticut, hardly was a racist.
He was probably the prime sponsor in the Congress at that time.
I think maybe we have gotten over a little bit of the stridancy of the late 60s.
We can look at these things with another 15 or 20 years experience.
We know that the welfare system isn't working and here we have some suggestions as to how to fix it.
Senator Stan Lundin, the lieutenant governor, essentially commenting on a federal program.
Why is this important to you as a state official now?
Well, this is a state and federal partnership.
When you talk about establishing paternity, the amounts that are withheld from paychecks of fathers who have deserted their families, jobs programs,
daycare, Medicaid, all these subjects are state subjects.
In fact, we had bills to the legislature which they didn't pass this year on guidelines for support.
We're holding automatically from paychecks of employers, amounts that we're due in child support and those kinds of measures.
So this is really a state and federal joint responsibility.
New York Lieutenant Governor Stan Lundin, he says there's a good chance that the reform package will pass the Congress.
A year ago, Sconnected County became the first in the state to begin using electronic tracking devices to monitor people on probation.
It's a program they call House arrest or home detention.
About nine months ago, Springfield, Massachusetts initiated an even broader program that allows jail inmates to serve their final two months of sentence
outside of prison through a similar tracking system. Leslie Brokaw has more.
The Springfield system involves black wristbands about the size of a watch which allow computers to constantly monitor the location of the participants.
Those wearing the monitors are required to report to a day center at least once a day and call into the center at least twice a day, as well as every time they change their location.
Here in New York, the Sconnected program, according to probation director Bill Pazley, involves a different type of electronic tracking.
A computer is programmed to call either randomly or at set time for individual cases to an individual's home.
At their home, there's an electronic device hooked to their telephone.
There's an electronic device hooked on their body also with a bracelet, a hospital type plastic bracelet, just a little gizmo about the size of a matchbox.
Come down to the wrist or ankle.
When they're notified and the call comes in, they have to put those two devices together when they're on their telephone, the one that's on their body.
And that makes a mate tell the computer, yes. This person is at the place that they said they were going to be.
Pazley says that if a person does not answer, the machine then calls the probation department.
This Sconnected System is designed solely for people who receive the special probation as part of their initial sentencing and for those pre-trailed detainees who cannot afford bail.
It is not designed as a segue program between jail and freedom.
On the other hand, the Springfield Massachusetts System is a new twist on an old theme. Electronic tracking joins job training, skill education and drug rehab as a way of helping to ensure that people leaving the county prison will not become repeat offenders.
Hampton County Sheriff Michael Ash says their program is voluntary and open to inmates who have earned the opportunity through good behavior.
Their home situation is evaluated and their names are screened by the District Attorney's Office and police departments.
Drug and alcohol tests are administered and anyone testing positive goes back to jail.
Sheriff Ash says the day reporting center has proven effective.
Based on this community correctional model that we try to put in place here is the job, the GED vocational training, pre-employment training, prison industry and then placement of the Pre-Release Center.
As we've looked at around a thousand inmates who have passed through this track and it clearly shows that 85% of them make it in the community.
That means we only have a recidivism rate of around 15% for that particular group.
For that group that for whatever reason doesn't gain access to the Pre-Release Center.
It's more along the lines around 35% of the source really double of the inmates returning.
The program also is cost effective.
Program Director Kevin Warwick says that an inmate in jail costs the state almost $15,000 a year while an inmate in the day reporting center costs them about $6,000 a year.
In Massachusetts electronic tracking is only taking place in Springfield and in Boston and here in New York electronic house arrest is only taking place in Sconectady and NASA.
Officials in both Sconectady and Springfield say their plans have proven effective and efficient for their communities and that other counties with similar overpopulation of their jails might benefit as well.
The International Council of Museums has developed a new set of standards for adaptation worldwide and the New York State Museum is among the first to formally approve them.
Previous standards set guidelines to avoid conflict of interest by staff and museum trustees and general practices on care and conservation of collections.
But these recent guidelines are called ethics guidelines. They deal with the museum's broader contribution to society. Martin Sullivan is director of the New York State Museum.
One concern which is felt in many countries in Europe and in the third world is the longstanding practice of museums, particularly the great fine arts museums, to collect items that are retrieved from archaeological excavation or have entered the art market in ways that aren't fully documented.
And for some decades there has been a growing concern about the illicit traffic in this kind of material. Many countries now have very stringent export standards and there are conventions involving a variety of nations.
But those are flaunted with some regularity by dealers and in some cases by museums and cells. So this new set of standards is intended to be much tougher.
The code was adopted by the Board of Regents and now it affects the New York State Museum. What is it going to mean in terms of your displays and the things that you have in holding?
Essentially it confirms practices that we have introduced over the last few years but it also does set some new challenges for us. Specifically the New York State Museum has had for a number of years collections and exhibitions that relate to the Native American heritage in New York State.
At the request of the adherence of the traditional Euricoid religion, the Long House religion, we removed from display a couple of years back fall faces or spirit masks that are considered by the traditionalist to be part of private religious rituals and not appropriate for display as examples of the art or crafts of so-called primitive people.
Nor do we put on display any human remains. Although in the past that has been a widespread practice among museums, the feeling is that unless you have a valid scientific reason for doing so and a staff and a collection space that enables you to perform serious research on human remains, that otherwise you are just appealing to the curiosity value and you are not being respectful to the fact that these were people who lived once and who have the same experience.
So in effect you are saying that the ethics code is really too tiered, it has to do both with the sensitivity of the cultures that you are displaying and also making sure that the objects that you are displaying are not illegally obtained.
Yes, that is absolutely right. And the two go together because I think at the base of it is an acknowledgement that museums are not in business to own things.
We are in the business of being stewards or custodians for culture and therefore we have to be pretty serious about how we interpret that culture particularly when it involves people from minority backgrounds or cultural backgrounds which are not part of the accepted mainstream of say fine arts.
There has been a dispute over some of the materials that you have particularly I believe there are a wampum belts of the Iroquois Indian. Do you anticipate that this new ethics code is going to accelerate the giving back of some of these materials to the Iroquois nations?
It may well do that. It certainly compels us to consider what role we play. Again on a simple level you can prove for many museum objects that a museum has the legal title and has the right to own them.
But beyond that there is an ethical question which is what are you going to do with them? How are you going to use them to interpret the heritage of that people?
And so it is our emphasis on that custodial role that prompts us to say perhaps we should again be talking with the Iroquois leadership to determine whether this custodial arrangement is the right one for the present day or whether there are better alternatives that can be found.
On the one hand I think everybody wants to be sure that important cultural objects like the wampum belts which are the record of the Iroquois Confederacy are preserved for future generations.
The museums can do that job very well. On the other hand we want to be sure that native people have access to them and a sense of sharing in that heritage instead of being treated in a paternalistic way. We want to try to avoid that.
So yeah it certainly forces us to consider very carefully what we're going to do about major materials in our collection like that.
And one final question more about the code than its specific application. When this was adopted at the national level was it a controversial code?
It is a controversial code. It has not been adopted nationally. I should make a clarification there. It is being distributed now to museums throughout the United States.
So far as we know we are in fact the first museum in the United States to ratify it. There will be many museums that will have difficulty in complying with some of the provisions of the code.
And there are many museums, the Metropolitan Museum in New York City for example, that are already entangled in very tough discussions over ownership.
The government of Turkey for example recently requested that the Metropolitan Museum return a number of important objects that were acquired in past years and that the Turkish government feels are part of its people's cultural heritage and that belong in their country not in the United States.
Not every one of those questions is going to be resolved to mutual satisfaction. It is going to be difficult for museums to follow this code.
Martin Sullivan, director of the New York State Museum in Albany. And that is it for another edition of the Legislative Gazette. Our show is edited and produced by Leslie Brokaw with help from Mory Small.
We welcome your comments here at Box 13000 Albany New York 12212. Tune in again next week. I am Alan Shartak.
The Legislative Gazette is a production of WAMC News. Dr. Alan Shartak is executive producer. This program is made possible with funds provided by the State University College at Newport.
Statewide satellite distribution of this program was made possible by the Lawrence Group providing residents throughout New York State with total insurance coverage.
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