The following Op-Ed is from citizen Paul Plante. The opinion is derived from correspondence with The University of the State of New York, The State Education Department, Office of the Professions
Division of Professional Licensing Services.
First of all, once again, thank you very much for your timely reply to my inquiry as a licensed professional engineer regarding the meaning of the phrases “fraudulent in character” and “dishonest in character” as they are used in § 29.3(a)(1) of the Rules of the New York State Board of Regents wherein is stated “unprofessional conduct shall also include, in the profession of engineering being associated in a professional capacity with any project or practice known to the licensee to be fraudulent or dishonest in character, or not reporting knowledge of such fraudulence or dishonesty to the Education Department.”
Rereading that, the question really becomes one of what duties does that language in that Rule impose on me as a licensed professional engineer with regard to the phrase “or not reporting knowledge of such fraudulence or dishonesty to the Education Department,” if and when as a licensed professional engineer I am being associated in a professional capacity with a project and/or practice known to myself to be fraudulent or dishonest in character, where in this specific case, the phrase “being associated with” as it applies to me means being the licensed professional engineer doing forensic analysis to uncover and document for the record alleged professional misconduct being willfully committed by licensed professional engineers employed by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation conducting a whitewash to protect a known polluter and law breaker with a New York State Department of Environmental Conservation permit to operate an industrial scale garbage transfer facility in Poestenkill (T), Rensselaer County.
It is my understanding of that language that the duty to report to the Education Department is both on me as the engineer uncovering the fraud and dishonesty as well as the engineers committing the fraud and dishonesty, and if I am misreading that, I would appreciate being informed as to so by the Education Department, where pursuant to your writing to me of 4 March, 2022, it is stated that the Education Department can share with me commonly accepted interpretations of applicable laws and regulations, which is as it should be, given that it is the Department of Education that is responsible for writing those regulations and so, would be the authority as to what they are supposed to mean.
Which takes us to these statements from your 4 March 2022 writing, to wit:
“Please understand that the Education Department does not answer hypothetical questions, issue advisory opinions or offer detailed legal advice.”
“Such requests should be directed to your attorney.”
end quotes
Please be advised in answer to that strange message that as a licensed professional engineer, I do not have an attorney, and I’m quite curious as to why the Education Department, which licenses professional engineers only after they have proven they are of the required good moral character to possess such a license in the first place, would think that any New York State licensed professional engineer who prior to being licensed by the State of New York pursuant to § 7206(1)(7) of the New York State Education Law must be of good moral character as determined by the department would need a lawyer of all people to tell them what is right and what is wrong, which takes us to an address to the Albany County Bar Association in New York State on that very subject by its then-president Michael P. Friedman in March of 2003, to wit:
Does anyone really think lawyering involves ethical behavior?
Our advice to clients is not designed to guide anyone in ethical behavior.
We do not exist to tell anyone what is right and wrong.
We are all but prohibited from doing so.
Our duty is to advise of the legal consequences of actions, and to promote the interests of our client within the boundaries of the legal system.
For this reason, we do not necessarily advise the guilty to accept their punishment, nor do we chastise the adulterer, the negligent driver and the trespasser.
We advise.
****
So, we don’t deal in fairness, we deal in legal results, without regard to ethics.
You think clients come to us for our opinions on good and evil?
Think again, Jack.
We are not the clergy.
After all, it is just “Ethical Considerations” in the Code of Professional Responsibility, as in “OK, I’ve considered it, now here’s what we do.”
end quotes
Given that by their own admissions, the advice of lawyers in New York state to clients is not designed to guide anyone in ethical behavior, nor do lawyers in New York state exist to tell anyone what is right and wrong, being all but prohibited from doing so, nor do their clients come to them for their opinions on good and evil, because in their own words, they very clearly are not the clergy, why would I as a New York State licensed professional engineer who long ago proved that he was of good moral character be seeking any kind of guidance from a lawyer of all people as to what constitutes unprofessional practice by a licensed professional engineer in New York state?
The reality is that a licensed professional engineer, in all but very few instances, which are rare, the lawyers I encounter are firmly on the side of the fraud and dishonesty and the engineers who do commit professional misconduct in service to the “state” who they provide cover for, and a stark and vivid example would be an October 3 2002 decision of Rensselaer County Supreme Court Justice James B. Canfield in the Matter of Paul R. Plante v. Planning Board of the Town of Poestenkill, Rensselaer County Index No. 204938, wherein the Poestenkill town attorney, also believed to be the Rensselaer County Bar Association ethics attorney, was defending the fraud, dishonesty and corruption, to wit:
Poestenkill’s extremely casual approach to determining environmental impact also bears notice.
The administrative record here reflects Poestenkill’s complicity with Showers and Valente in using the proposed subdivision as a means of avoiding SEQRA review by reducing the impact of the immediate proposal without inquiring into the possibility of further development at a later date.
Regardless of Showers and Valente’s misinformation, Poestenkill’s determination of no environmental impact would have to be rejected based on Poestenkill’s failure to even give the appearance of complying with SEQRA.
end quote
So I clearly do not need or require a lawyer to tell me what is right and what is wrong and what professional misconduct is or is not, and frankly, I am very surprised that the Education Department would make such a suggestion in the first place.
As to the roots of the fraud and dishonesty at issue in this present matter of this whitewash involving licensed professional engineers employed by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, there we need to go back to the morning of October 22, 1993, when New York State Assistant Attorney General Kathleen Liston Morrison appeared before Supreme Court Judge Robert C. Williams in connection with Matter of the Application of Paul R. Plante v. New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, Albany County Index No. 4840-93, and was put under oath by the Judge as he questioned her about an October 14, 1993 affirmation she had put before the Court in reply to this licensed engineer’s Article 78 Petition wherein she was forced to have to state on the record under oath that “(T)he state respondents admit that the Department (NYSDEC) erred in issuing the permit when it had an incomplete application under Environmental Conservation Law (“ECL”) Article 70, the Uniform Procedures Act, and the regulations promulgated thereunder in 6 NYCRR Part 621, the Solid Waste Management Act, ECL Article 27, and the regulations promulgated thereunder in 6 NYCRR Part 360, and failed to comply with the requirements of Article 8, the State Environmental Quality Act, and the regulations promulgated thereunder in 6 NYCRR Part 617,” the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation never had an intention to protect the public health and environment of the Poestenkill community.
For the record, since this is where this mess the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and its “partners” the New York State Department of Health, the Rensselaer County Department of Health and the Town of Poestenkill are trying to shove back under the rug again began, the Judge had her make clear under oath in his presence, and I was standing there as the Petitioner watching this exchange, she was admitting to a Class E felony committed by the “Department by and through the commissioner, who serves at the pleasure of the Governor” when it issued the Solid Waste Management Facility permit in question.
So why then would a licensed professional engineer who does not commit professional misconduct because he knows better seek out advice on what is right to do and what is wrong to do from a lawyer?
Lawyers are not licensed to practice engineering in New York state, which profession pursuant to New York State Education Law § 7201 exists for the sole purpose of safeguarding of life, health and property of the people of the State of New York, so that a New York State licensed professional engineer seeking advice from a lawyer about professional practice would appear to be guilty of violation of § 29.1(b)(10) of the Rules of the New York State Board of Regents, that being delegating professional responsibilities to a person when the licensee delegating such responsibilities knows or has reason to know that such person is not qualified, by training, by experience or by licensure, to perform them.
And further, if the licensed professional engineer has to seek advice from a lawyer of all people about professional practice, that professional engineer would also appear to be guilty to be guilty of violation of § 29.1(b)(9) of the Rules of the New York State Board of Regents, that being practicing or offering to practice beyond the scope permitted by law, or accepting and performing professional responsibilities which the licensee knows or has reason to know that he or she is not competent to perform.
Clearly, if the said licensed engineer must seek out his or her guidance concerning professional practice from a lawyer, that professional engineer is clearly incompetent, and should not be practicing as an engineer at all, nor licensed as one, which would also appear to make that licensed engineer guilty of violation of § 29.1(b)(5) of the Rules of the New York State Board of Regents, that being conduct in the practice of a profession which evidences moral unfitness to practice the profession.
So, once again, why would the Education Department in this case advise me to seek counsel from a lawyer who is not licensed to safeguard life, health and property?
Lawyers in every state tell you that same thing not just New York
Bob, I have absolutely no doubts that what you are saying is very true, but since this is taking place in New York, which I would hold out in a competition with any other state as the most corrupt of all of them, hand’s down, I have to go by what the trade is saying in New York, not some other state.
And thanks for making that clear to everyone!
Obviously, I think it is quite absurd for an engineer with integrity to be getting lessons on the subject from a lawyer.
It is the engineer’s without integrity, and believe me, we are loaded with them up this way, given that the big money is in telling fancy lies, that we find all lawyered up.
And Bob, it is not what the lawyers are saying in any given state in the union, or all of them, because in my extensive experience with the trade, they will say anything, and it does not have to have any relationship to truth or fact, because unlike professional engineers, who are supposedly duty bound to safeguard life, health and property, lawyers are totally unaccountable to the public and this can lie through their teeth with impunity, as we see so many lawyers who are politicians like Joe Biden, Charley “Chuck” Schumer, “Shifty” Schiff and Jaime Raskin, himself on hell of a top-notch constitutional scholar and lawyer par excellence doing.
It is what the professional engineers themselves are supposed to be doing, which is safeguarding life, health and property, not selling out the protection of life, health and property for a fat paycheck.
And the New York State Department of Education Office of Professional Discipline should not be telling a professional engineer like myself to go see a lawyer about how to go about safeguarding life, health and property when one, they don’t know ****-all about it, and two, don’t really care about it when the client paying them big bucks doesn’t care about it.
Professional engineers are supposed to stand up for common people who have no other “champion” to do it for them, like your Lorraine Huchler is doing down here, as opposed to selling them out to the highest bidders.
That is what the whole thing about “good moral character” is supposed to be all about – having the integrity to know right from wrong without having to go seek advice from a lawyer on the subject when they are the last to know, not being required to be of good moral character themselves.
That, Bob, is the point I was trying to make in here about the difference between a professional engineer and a lawyer.
I am confused. I got a speeding ticket. Do I call a Lawyer or P.E. to represent me in court next Tuesday?
Yes, as a P.E, I would have to agree wholeheartedly with you about you being confused.
Unless there is some aspect of safeguarding life, health and property involved in you getting that speeding ticket, which actually goes against safeguarding life, health and property as I see it, you are probably much better off with the lawyer, because as the top dog lawyer of the Albany Bar Association said, a lawyer is not going to advise you if guilty, which it sounds like you were, to accept your punishment, nor will he or she chastise you as an apparently negligent driver, which is why you got the speeding ticket in the first place, n’est-ce pas?
Lawyers advise, and they don’t deal in fairness.
They deal in legal results, without regard to ethics, which is what separates practitioners of the lawyer trade from a P.E
Do you think, Scrapple Buffet, that clients like yourself would go to a lawyer for his or her opinion on good and evil?
They are not the clergy, afterall, and as they say, it is just “Ethical Considerations” in the Code of Professional Responsibility, as in “OK, I’ve considered it, now here’s what we do,” like put some cash for the judge in a brown paper bag, and if the judge is a lawyer playing by those same rules, you would be a free man.
Whereas the P.E. would likely say, “what the **** were you doing speeding in the first place!”
But as Jen Psaki, the Biden-ista propaganda minister, would say, that really was a good question, and thanks for asking it.
As to the judges and lawyers all playing by those same rules, which are not rules at all, just “ethical considerations,” the Albany County Bar Association where that Friedman dude was giving his address above about lawyers not being the clergy, a real understatement that, is known as the “Bar Association of the Stars” because Albany is the capital and all the top judges and top lawyers in the state are members of that bar association and were in attendance when the address was given.
Great answer and I thank you for it. I will have a P.E. represent me.
A lot of my worst friends are lawyers. Hubris is an undestatement.
It is a sad day in these United States that a power base has evolved with the attorneys leading the way. Fair play? Not a chance. You are either in or you are out. Fair play in court. Not a chance unless you are juiced.
In reference to Jen and the current administration and their agenda. Please, don’t get me going. Their day will come when they are voted out office and we can begin to get back to the basic principals that our country was admired by all around the world.
It is going to be a fight but the Republicans must prevail!
Keep on keeping on, Scapple Buffet, we need more independent thinkers like yourself.
Up this way where I am, a licensed engineer who does not go with the flow to rubber stamp lies finds himself very much on the outside looking in, and if the engineer persists in uncovering corruption by other “professionals,” he finds himself subject to violence, like how the mob controls those who don’t adhere to “omerta,” and so on 29 December 1989, I was the victim of a hit-and-run driver who was a political enforcer, although an inept one, so I ended up being arrested, if you can believe this, for attacking the hit-and-run driver’s vehicle with my body, this causing damage to it.
I was facing a year in jail if convicted, and the very last person I wanted anywhere near me in court was a lawyer, so I defended myself in front of a jury, and long story short, here is how that all ended up after I managed to get acquitted by the jury on the more serious charge that I tried to kill the hit-and-run driver by attacking his vehicle with my body (hey, everybody knows VEET NAM veterans are crazy as loons and do stuff like that) and hung them on a lesser charge, as we see from this transcript of a dialogue in Rensselaer County Court in the State of New York on November 30, 1992 between Rensselaer County Court Judge M. Andrew Dwyer and Democrat Assistant Rensselaer County District Attorney Richard McNally who had been hounding me through the criminal courts of Rensselaer County since 1990 on false testimony and manufactured evidence to protect a political enforcer who botched a hit-and-run assault on myself to stop me from investigating political corruption in Rensselaer County, to wit:
MCNALLY: I have no position, other than to say, the Court, in its previous position, left me without any recourse other than to not oppose a Motion to Dismiss, in my opinion!
JUDGE: That is your position?
MCNALLY: That is my position!
JUDGE: Then you consent to the dismissal?
MCNALLY: I do, Judge, based upon the fact that the Court, in its previous Decision, left me with an untenable position at trial!
JUDGE: How closely did you read the decision?
MCNALLY: Very!
JUDGE: The District Attorney consented?
MCNALLY: It was the Court’s opinion at trial that there was other evidence out there, and I can affirm that there is not other evidence on which to base a prosecution and the court ruled the evidence that was presented insufficient.
JUDGE: And you take the position that you have no further evidence, at all?
MCNALLY: No further evidence, Judge!
JUDGE: Then it is dismissed!
Code of Virginia:
Article 1. Architects, Engineers, Surveyors and Landscape Architects.
§ 54.1-400. Definitions.
“Professional engineer” means a person who is qualified to practice engineering by reason of his special knowledge and use of mathematical, physical and engineering sciences and the principles and methods of engineering analysis and design acquired by engineering education and experience, and whose competence has been attested by the Board through licensure as a professional engineer.
The “practice of engineering” means any service wherein the principles and methods of engineering are applied to, but are not necessarily limited to, the following areas: consultation, investigation, evaluation, planning and design of public or private utilities, structures, machines, equipment, processes, transportation systems and work systems, including responsible administration of construction contracts.
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Compare with New York Education Law SECTION 7201, Definition of practice of engineering:
§ 7201. Definition of practice of engineering.
The practice of the profession of engineering is defined as performing professional service such as consultation, investigation, evaluation, planning, design or supervision of construction or operation in connection with any utilities, structures, buildings, machines, equipment, processes, works, or projects wherein the safeguarding of life, health and property is concerned, when such service or work requires the application of engineering principles and data.
end quotes
It is interesting that Virginia does not include that phrase “wherein the safeguarding of life, health and property is concerned.”
Here is where Virginia brings in the words “health, safety, and welfare of the public”:
ADMINISTRATIVE CODE OF VIRGINIA:
18VAC10-20-740. Professional responsibility.
A. Unless exempt by statute, all architectural, engineering, land surveying, landscape architectural, and interior design work must be completed by a professional or a person performing the work who is under the direct control and personal supervision of a professional.
B. A professional shall be able to clearly define his scope and degree of direct control and personal supervision, clearly define how it was exercised, and demonstrate that he was responsible within that capacity for the work that he has sealed, signed, and dated.
For the work prepared under his supervision, a professional shall:
1. Have detailed professional knowledge of the work;
2. Exercise the degree of direct control over work that includes:
a. Having control over decisions on technical matters of policy and design;
b. Personally making professional decisions or the review and approval of proposed decisions prior to implementation, including the consideration of alternatives to be investigated and compared for designed work, whenever professional decisions are made that could affect the health, safety, and welfare of the public involving permanent or temporary work;
c. The selection or development of design standards and materials to be used; and
d. Determining the validity and applicability of recommendations prior to incorporation into the work, including the qualifications of those making the recommendations;
3. Have exercised his professional judgment in professional matters that are embodied in the work and the drawings, specifications, or other documents involved in the work; and
4. Have exercised critical examination and evaluation of an employee’s, consultant’s, subcontractor’s, or project team member’s work product, during and after preparation, for purposes of compliance with applicable laws, codes, ordinances, regulations, and usual and customary standards of care pertaining to professional practice.
C. The regulant shall not knowingly associate in a business venture with or permit the use of his name by any person or firm when there is reason to believe that person or firm is engaging in activity of a fraudulent or dishonest nature or is violating statutes or any of these regulations.
D. A regulant who has knowledge that any person may have violated or may currently be violating any of these provisions, or the provisions of Chapters 7 (§ 13.1-542.1 et seq.) and 13 (§ 13.1-1100 et seq.) of Title 13.1 or Chapters 1 (§ 54.1-100 et seq.) through 4 (§ 54.1-400 et seq.) of Title 54.1 of the Code of Virginia, shall inform the board in writing and shall cooperate in furnishing any further information or assistance that may be required by the board or any of its agents.
E. Upon request by the board or any of its agents, the regulant shall produce any plan, plat, document, sketch, book, record, or copy thereof concerning a transaction covered by this chapter and shall cooperate in the investigation of a complaint filed with the board against a regulant.
F. Except as authorized by 18VAC10-20-760 A 2, a regulant shall not utilize the design, drawings, specifications, or work of another regulant to complete or to replicate any work without the written consent of the person or organization that owns the design, drawings, specifications, or work.
G. Utilization and modification of work.
1. A regulant who utilizes the designs, drawings, specifications, or work of another regulant pursuant to subsection F of this section or 18VAC10-20-760 A 2, or who modifies any plats or surveys, shall conduct a thorough review of the work to verify that it has been accomplished to the same extent that would have been done under the direct control and personal supervision of the regulant affixing the professional seal, signature, and date.
The regulant shall assume full responsibility for the utilization of any unsealed work or any changes or modifications to previously sealed work.
2. Information from recorded plats or surveys may be utilized without permission.
However, the modification of the actual recorded plat or survey is prohibited without written permission of the regulant.
Statutory Authority
§§ 54.1-201 and 54.1-404 of the Code of Virginia.
And here, with all of the above as a backdrop, and especially the part about violence inflicted on those P.E.s who take seriously their societal duty, in the case of Virginia, their professional responsibility (what an empty and meaningless word that has become) pursuant to Virginia Code 18VAC10-20-740.B(2)(b) regarding the review and approval of proposed decisions prior to implementation, including the consideration of alternatives to be investigated, whenever professional decisions are made that could affect the health, safety, and welfare of the public involving permanent work, in this case, turning over control of the water supply to a for-profit corporation with no accountability to the citizens of Cape Charles or the Eastern Shore, I would like to take this opportunity to stand up and take my hat off, so to speak, in a salute to Lorraine Huchler, who is the first P.E. I have come across in a long time who has the courage to actually stand up and speak out on behalf of the public, not the corporate interests and their shareholders who would see the citizens down here as no more than cash cows, a continuing source of revenue for them, with her questions and the analysis that underlies those questions.
People down here should be thankful they have someone like her who would stand for them, as opposed to selling them out to the high bidders.
As to how it is to the north of you, and be thankful it is not here, this following is the precursor to the letter that starts off this thread, its genesis, so to speak:
6 March 2022
The University of the State of New York
The State Education Department
Office of the Professions
Division of Professional Licensing Services
Re: Interpretation of prior Declaratory Ruling
Dear Sir:
Thank you very much for your timely reply to my inquiry as a licensed professional engineer regarding the meaning of the phrases “fraudulent in character” and “dishonest in character” as they are used in § 29.3(a)(1) of the Rules of the New York State Board of Regents wherein is stated “unprofessional conduct shall also include, in the profession of engineering being associated in a professional capacity with any project or practice known to the licensee to be fraudulent or dishonest in character, or not reporting knowledge of such fraudulence or dishonesty to the Education Department.”
As to the prior Declaratory Ruling in question, it was issued by the New York State Department of Education in a June 11, 1991 Ruling by Mr. Lance R. Plunkett, Senior Attorney, Regulations Review Unit, New York State Department of Education on behalf of Mr. Douglas Hasbrouck, Executive Secretary for the New York State Board for Engineering and Land Surveying in the State of New York, and it read as follows:
A local board of health may not confer immunity on a professional engineer from any of the Rules of the Board of Regents defining unprofessional conduct set forth in Part 29 of Title 8 of the Official Compilation of Codes, Rules and Regulations of the State of New York (8 N.Y.C.R.R.).
Sections 6506, 6507, 6508 and 6509 of the New York State Education Law give no authority to local boards of health in professional engineering or discipline matters.
A professional engineer should never commit professional misconduct.
Where a professional engineer is given directions that require him or her to commit professional misconduct. it remains the obligation of the professional engineer not to commit such misconduct.
Nothing in the definition of the practice of engineering under section 7201 of the Education Law permits an exemption from professional disciplinary violations on the grounds of having followed orders from a local health board.
A professional engineer is always responsible for his or her own professional work.
While a professional engineer may take purely administrative orders from an unlicensed person, the engineer should never follow orders which require him or her to commit professional misconduct.
Again, it is the professional engineer’s personal obligation not to commit professional misconduct.
end quotes
As can be seen from the language, that Declaratory Ruling involved myself as an associate level public health engineer in a corrupt county health department where my stated duties were the enforcement of the New York State Public Health Law and New York State Sanitary Code, and I was being required, as a condition of my continued employment, to knowingly and willingly commit professional misconduct by taking bribes and making and filing false reports, as follows when on October 11, 1988, I served this notice as a licensed professional engineer on Rensselaer County Executive John L. Buono concerning the cover-up of endemic corruption in the RCHD:
TO: John Buono, Rensselaer County Executive
FROM: Paul R. Plante, Associate Public Health Engineer, Rensselaer County Health District
SUBJECT: Integrity of Environmental Health Programs
As the Director of the Environmental Health Division, it is my responsibility to certify on behalf of Rensselaer County the integrity of the Code Enforcement Programs to the State of New York for the purpose of payment of our State operating funds.
I have reached a juncture where such certification by myself is no longer feasible.
My certification of our operations is as a licensed professional.
My conduct is governed in large part by Part 29 of the Codes of the Education Department which sets forth the actions deemed to constitute unprofessional conduct on the part of licensed individuals.
Section 29.1(b)(6) defines unprofessional conduct as “willfully making or filing a false report, or failing to file a report required by law or by the Education Department, or willfully impeding or obstructing such filing, or inducing another person to do so.”
I can no longer vouch for the integrity of our programs and will not place my professional standing in jeopardy.
It is my professional opinion stated in writing to yourself that the programs I am responsible for have been very seriously undermined and compromised.
As my internal investigation proceeds, the probability of actions for damages against the Department increases, due to errors of omission and commission of former engineers and the Public Health Director.
As the Public Health Law requires me to conduct investigations into incidents involving public health nuisance or hazard, I find myself in the course of such investigation returning to our own files with consistent violation of code on the part of County staff.
end quotes
This matter involves a licensed professional engineer at the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation who has been allegedly detailed by the Office of the Governor, through the Commissioner of Environmental Conservation, who serves at the pleasure of the Governor, to conduct a whitewash of alleged gross negligence and neglect of duty by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation which is alleged to have caused the contamination of a New York State Department of Health-regulated public water supply serving the Algonquin Middle School in Poestenkill (T), Rensselaer County.
The single question of law that must be addressed before this matter goes to the chief investigator is this:
Where the June 11, 1991 Ruling by Mr. Lance R. Plunkett, Senior Attorney, Regulations Review Unit, New York State Department of Education on behalf of Mr. Douglas Hasbrouck, Executive Secretary for the New York State Board for Engineering and Land Surveying in the State of New York states that “(N)othing in the definition of the practice of engineering under section 7201 of the Education Law permits an exemption from professional disciplinary violations on the grounds of having followed orders from a local health board,” would I be correct in stating to the chief investigator that that also would read, in this situation at hand, “(N)othing in the definition of the practice of engineering under section 7201 of the Education Law permits an exemption from professional disciplinary violations on the grounds of having followed orders from the Office of the Governor of New York State?”
Are there special circumstances that would allow the Governor of the State of New York to grant a professional engineer with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation committing professional misconduct in the service of the Governor’s Office immunity from the Rules of the Board of Regents?
As you can clearly see, if that answer is in the affirmative, that yes, the Governor does indeed have that power and authority, then there is absolutely no sense in wasting my time and that of the chief investigator further with this matter.
Thanking you in advance for your prompt attention to this serious matter of public importance, I remain
Paul R. Plante, NYSPE
With respect to my saluting professional engineer Lorraine Huchel for standing up for the people of Cape Charles and the Eastern Shore with respect to the issue of the privatizing of the public water supply to a for-profit corporation with no accountability to the public whatsoever, way back in time, in 1861, an English philosopher, political economist, Member of Parliament (MP) and civil servant named John Stuart Mill (20 May 1806 – 7 May 1873), considered one of the most influential thinkers in the history of classical liberalism who contributed widely to social theory, political theory, and political economy, and dubbed “the most influential English-speaking philosopher of the nineteenth century,” conceiving as he did of liberty as justifying the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state and social control, wrote a book titled “Considerations on Representative Government,” which book I must say colors how I, an older American from a century far different than this one in oh so many ways, starting with the concept of social responsibility and citizenship duties who was licensed as a professional engineer in 1986, see my duties to the public as a professional engineer and thus, by extension, of a licensed engineer in this century like Lorraine Huchel, the first person I have come across in a long time with the courage to be what a professional engineer is supposed to be – that is, someone who safeguards life, health and property, not profits, not polluters nor those who would profit by exploiting those without a voice to raise in protest.
In Mill’s major work on political democracy, Considerations on Representative Government, he defends these two fundamental principles: extensive participation by citizens and enlightened competence of rulers, neither of which we have in our times today, to our detriment.
In Considerations on Representative Government, Mill suggests that representative bodies such as parliaments and senates are best suited to be places of public debate on the various opinions held by the population and to act as watchdogs of the professionals who create and administer laws and policy.
In his words:
Their part is to indicate wants, to be an organ for popular demands, and a place of adverse discussion for all opinions relating to public matters, both great and small; and, along with this, to check by criticism, and eventually by withdrawing their support, those high public officers who really conduct the public business, or who appoint those by whom it is conducted.
end quotes
He further said that a representative assembly, and that very much includes town and county governments in the Commonwealth of Virginia, should be an arena in which not only the general opinion of the nation (state, county, town), but that every section of it, and, as far as possible, of every eminent individual whom it contains, can produce itself in full light and challenge discussion; where every person in the country may count upon finding somebody who speaks his (her) mind as well or better than he (she) could speak it him (her) self,” and there is where I see the role of a professional engineer like myself or Lorraine Huchel, or any other licensed engineer for that matter – being that eminent individual by virtue of education and training and experience to speak the minds of the common folks better than they might be able to do themselves, in matter of public importance like this, where the professional engineer has knowledge not perhaps possessed by the common person, not because they are ignorant, but because this is specialized knowledge the average person is not exposed to on a daily basis, and thus, lacks a basis up which to frame coherent objections, which brings us back to Mill, who further said, “where those whose opinion is overruled feel satisfied that it is heard, and set aside, not by a mere act of will, but for what are thought superior reasons.”
Have those superior reasons been forthcoming in this case as to why the public water supply should be privatized?
Think about it, people – the future you decide will belong to your children and grandchildren and yourself when you get old, and were glad that a professional engineer like Lorraine Huchel thought enough of her societal duty to search out those “superior reasons” by asking pointed questions as she is doing.
And it is indeed interesting as we have this discussion in here about citizenship duties courtesy of the Cape Charles Mirror, the only place in America I am aware of where we are called by our proper title of “citizen,” as opposed to “consumer,” as if we were all a large herd of bovine cud chewers, that if we go to the History and Social Science Standards of Learning for Virginia Public Schools – January 2008, under the heading GOVT.17, we have as follows:
The student will demonstrate knowledge of personal character traits that facilitate thoughtful and effective participation in civic life by:
a) practicing trustworthiness and honesty;
b) practicing courtesy and respect for the rights of others;
c) practicing responsibility, accountability, and self-reliance;
d) practicing respect for the law;
e) practicing patriotism;
f) practicing financial responsibility.
end quotes
Under GOVT.18, the student will understand that thoughtful and effective participation in civic life is characterized by:
a) obeying the law and paying taxes;
b) serving as a juror;
c) participating in the political process;
d) performing public service;
e) keeping informed about current issues;
f) respecting differing opinions in a diverse society;
g) practicing personal and fiscal responsibility.
end quotes
And GOVT.19 where the student will explain the meaning of citizenship in the United States and how it relates to American civic life by describing how Americans are citizens of their locality, state, and nation.
Here is a vivid example of the stark difference between a P.E. and a lawyer, or pack of lawyers, for that matter:
1 April 2022
Office of General Counsel
New York State
Department of Environmental Conservation
625 Broadway, 14th Floor
Albany, NY 12233-1500
RE: PUBLIC RECORDS REQUEST of 3/23/2022, Reference # W098422-032322
Date: 03/25/2022
Dear General Counsel:
As a follow-up to mine of 25 March 2022 concerning this above Freedom of Information request, wherein I stated, “(S)o that you are clear as to exactly what has just transpired here, by your admission that the records sought DO NOT exist, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation has proved beyond a doubt that the Division of Environmental Remediation is a liar when they keep telling me that there is an investigation going on in this matter pursuant to DER-10, when the absence of these records in your files, and your admission on the record that they do not exist, makes it clear that there is in fact no such investigation going on, and that was the purpose of the FOIL – to have the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation have to admit on the record to the falsehoods being told by the Division of Environmental Remediation,” and then thanked you for making this deceit and dishonesty clear on the record, in response to my FOIL request above, I actually received several different responses, to wit:
RESPONSE No. 1: Please note that FOIL pertains to existing records and states, in general, that an agency need not create a record in response to a request for information.
RESPONSE No. 2: Similarly, nothing in FOIL requires an agency to supply information in response to questions.
RESPONSE No. 3: The Committee on Open Government has repeatedly emphasized that FOIL is to be used as a tool for gaining access to existing records.
RESPONSE No. 4: Please be advised that Department staff are unable to search for potentially responsive records based upon the terms of your request.
Accordingly, your request is denied pursuant to NYS Public Officers Law § 89(3) because the record(s) requested are not reasonably described.
Please note that the NYS Committee on Open Government has opined that “FOIL requires that an applicant ‘reasonably describe’ the records sought.
The Court of Appeals has held that whether or the extent to which a request meets that requirement is often related to an agency’s filing, recordkeeping or retrieval system.
When records can be located and retrieved with reasonable effort, the request meets the standard.
RESPONSE No. 5: However, if an agency can only locate records by engaging in a search for the needle in the haystack, the request does not reasonably describe, and the agency would not be required to engage in the effort necessary to locate and retrieve the records.” FOIL-AO-19241, relying on Konigsberg v. Coughlin, 68 NY2d 245 (1986); see also Data Tree v. Romaine, 9 NY3d 454, 464 (2007).
Starting with Response No. 5, which really serves to put this matter into its proper perspective, quite obviously, and this is me speaking as someone who is both sane and rational, IF an agency can only locate records by engaging in a search for the needle in the haystack, that should serve as a very good indication that the records sought after really do not exist, and that that is just a handy excuse being pulled out of thin air by the Office of Counsel, especially since Response No. 1 already makes it incandescently clear that there are no such records.
As to the specious assertion employed by the Office of Counsel as a transparent ploy that my request was denied pursuant to NYS Public Officers Law § 89(3) because the record(s) requested were not reasonably described, that is pure balderdash, as can be seen from this following e-mail exchange between myself as a licensed professional engineer and Brittany O’Brien-Drake of the NYSDEC Division of Environmental Remediation, to wit:
From: paul plante
Sent: Friday, December 31, 2021 6:46 PM
To: O’Brien-Drake, Brittany M (DEC)
Subject: Poestenkill PFOA Investigation
31 December 2021
RE: Poestenkill PFOA investigation
Dear Brittany:
As you have been identified by the DEC as the project manager of this investigation into the PFOA/PFOS contamination of the well-field of Public Water Supply NY4117257 in the Town of Poestenkill, Rensselaer County, which public water supply serves the Algonquin Middle School in Poestenkill, would you please provide me with a list of ALL statutes, rules, regulations, technical guidance manuals, standard methods and/or other protocols that govern the conduct of your investigation.
Specifically, I would like to know if the provisions of DER-10 supplemented by the DEC publication “Sampling, Analysis, and Assessment of Per- and Polyflouroalkyl Substances (PFAS) Under NYSDEC’s Part 375 Remedial Programs, June 2021” are what are guiding this investigation you are conducting.
Wishing you the best of the New Year and thanking you in advance for your prompt attention to this request, I remain
Sincerely,
Paul R. Plante, NYSPE
**********************************************************************
RE: Poestenkill PFOA Investigation
Jan 3, 2022 at 11:21 AM
O’Brien-Drake, Brittany M (DEC)
Good morning Paul,
I hope you had a nice holiday weekend.
Please see the below list for the documents you have requested.
• Environmental Conservation Law (ECL), Article 27, Title 13 – Inactive Hazardous Waste Disposal Sites
• 6 NYCRR Part 375 – Environmental Remediation Programs – requirements regarding remedial programs, private party programs, state funded programs, state assistance to municipalities https://govt.westlaw.com/nycrr/Browse/H … Default%29
• DER-10: Technical Guidance for Site Investigation and Remediation – Issued 05/03/2010; Effective 06/18/2010. This Program Policy provides an overview of the site investigation and remediation process for the Inactive Hazardous Waste Disposal Site Remedial Program, known as State Superfund Program; Brownfield Cleanup Program; Environmental Restoration Program; and Voluntary Cleanup Program; and for certain petroleum releases. Chapters 1, 2, and 3 (Site Characterization) are most applicable to this investigation. https://www.dec.ny.gov/regulations/67386.html
• Sampling, Analysis, and Assessment of PFAS (PDF, 33 pages) – June 2021. This document is a compilation of DER’s protocols and precautions for sampling and analyzing various media. It provides guidelines for preparing Quality Assurance Project Plans, criteria for laboratory consistency, and guidelines on screening sites based on water and soil results. https://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/remediation … panaly.pdf
Happy New Year!
Brittany
end quotes
If you read carefully what Brittany was saying there, you would notice as follows:
DER-10: Technical Guidance for Site Investigation and Remediation – Issued 05/03/2010; Effective 06/18/2010 – Chapters 1, 2, and 3 (Site Characterization) are most applicable to this investigation.
end quotes
Speaking as a licensed professional engineer who has absolutely no comprehension problems or issues whatsoever, when Brittany told me on 3 January 2022, that being seventy-nine (79) days or 2 months and 20 days BEFORE my 23 March 2022 FOIL request herein at issue that “Chapters 1, 2, and 3 (Site Characterization) are most applicable to this investigation,” the normal person would take the meaning of the words “this investigation” to mean that on 3 January 2022, the date the statement was made, that there was indeed an investigation on-going, AT THAT TIME.
And what did I ask for on 23 March 2022?
Let’s look and see:
Dear Paul R.:
Thank you for your Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request.
Your request has been received and is being processed.
Your request was received in this office on 3/23/2022 and given the reference number FOIL #W098422-032322 for tracking purposes.
You may expect the Department’s response to your request no later than 4/20/2022.
Record Requested: Poestenkill (T), Rensselaer Co., Algonquin School/Waste Management, Rt. 66 and 351 Any and all records related to a records search, conducted in accordance with Appendix 3A of NEW YORK STATE DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION DIVISION OF ENVIRONMENTAL REMEDIATION TECHNICAL GUIDANCE FOR SITE INVESTIGATION AND REMEDIATION CHAPTER 3 SITE CHARACTERIZATION and REMEDIAL INVESTIGATION, 3.1 Site Characterization and Remedial Investigation to include pursuant to Appendix 3A(a) historical information concerning the site history as follows: (1) Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps; (2) MacRae’s Industrial Directory; (3) title and deed; (4) site plans and facility as-built drawings; (5) federal, State, county and local government offices; and (6) DEC Geographic Information System; (7) adjacent property uses ii. the industrial/commercial site history from the time the site was naturally vegetated or utilized as farmland, including without limitation: (1) names of all owners and operators; (2) dates of ownership of each owner; (3) dates of operation of each operator; and (4) brief descriptions of the past industrial/commercial usage of the site by each owner and operator; iii. all raw materials, finished products, formulations and hazardous substances, hazardous wastes, and petroleum products which are or were present on the site, including intermediates and by-products; vi. an interpretation of the aerial photographic history of the site, based on available current and historical color, black and white and infrared aerial photographs (scale 1:17.,000 or less) of the site and surrounding area at a frequency which provides the evaluator with a historical perspective of site activities. The photographic history should date back to 1932 or to the earliest photograph available. vii. any data or information concerning known discharges that have occurred on the site; viii. remediation activities previously conducted or currently underway at the site including dates of previous discharges, remedial actions, and all existing sampling data concerning contaminants at the site. If a government agency was involved, the name of the lead government agency, case identification number, and current case status; ix. all remedies previously approved by DEC in a remedial action work plan or decision document to determine if the remedy remains protective of human health and the environment; x. all existing environmental sampling data concerning contaminants at the site; xi. any known changes in site conditions or new information developed since completion of previous sampling or remediation; xii. all Federal, State and local environmental permits including permits for all previous and current owners or operators, applied for or received, or both, for the site including the: (1) name and address of permitting agency; (2) reason for the permit; (3) permit identification number; (4) application date; (5) date of approval, denial, or status of application; (6) name and current address of all permittees; (7) reason for denial, revocation or suspension if applicable; and (8) permit expiration date; xiii. all administrative, civil and criminal enforcement actions for alleged violations of environmental laws concerning the site, including: (1) the name and address of agency that initiated the enforcement action; (2) the date of the enforcement action; (3) the section of statute, rule or permit allegedly violated; (4) the type of enforcement action; (5) a description of alleged violations; (6) the resolution or status of violation and enforcement action; and (7) a description of any potential environmental impact which may have resulted from the alleged violation; and xiv. all areas where non-indigenous fill materials were used to replace soil or raise the topographic elevation of the site, including the dates of emplacement, where reasonably available, paying particular attention to potential areas of concern as identified in section 1.7. 3.i. interviews with facility personnel (past and present), adjoining property owners, and persons familiar with past activities at the site can be useful in determining if and where hazardous waste/substances, or petroleum products were disposed of at the site and what exposure pathways are likely to be at risk. v. areas of inquiry should include the following: (1) any pending or past litigation or administrative proceedings regarding hazardous waste/substances or petroleum products on the site; (2) any notices from any government agency regarding any possible violation of environmental or safety laws; (3) previous environmental assessments or audits; (4) environmental permits or registrations; (5) safety plans, prevention plans, control plans; and (6) reports describing local hydrogeologic conditions; vi. people to interview should include: (1) pertinent DEC and NYSDOH staff; (2) past owners, occupants and operators, key managers, former employees; (3) site neighbors; and (4) local officials, such as elected officials, attorneys, building inspectors; zoning board, planning board, as well as any fire police, health, engineering and environmental DECs.
end quotes
To answer the question, what a sane and rational person would say in response to that question is that on 23 March 2022, I was asking for records that Brittany O’Brien-Drake had informed me existed seventy-nine (79) days or 2 months and 20 days BEFORE my 23 March 2022 FOIL request.
So a sane and rational person would then have to wonder why it was that on 23 March 2022, when this FOIL request landed on her desk, that Brittany O’Brien Drake could no longer remember what she had told me seventy-nine (79) days or 2 months and 20 days BEFORE my 23 March 2022 FOIL request, and the only viable conclusion that they or I could come to is that on 3 January 2022, when she informed me of an on-going investigation, she was being untruthful, and did not expect to be caught at it, and once caught, as was obviously the case on 23 March 2022 when this FOIL request landed on her desk, she panicked, which in turn panicked the Office of Counsel, and the flimsy excuses started flowing, as if at this late stage of the game, this bush-league, amateur-hour whitewash to protect the politically powerful polluter Waste Management of New York, LLC, the permitted operator of the DEC-regulated public nuisance known as the Poestenkill transfer station can still be somehow salvaged.
And once again, let me thank you for providing me with this opportunity to make your folly in that regard patently clear, hopefully, in such a manner that you will finally comprehend that I do not appreciate being lied to and misled by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.
Respectfully,
Paul R. Plante, NYSPE
For a further and perhaps more graphic example of the difference between lawyers, who can with impunity stack lies as high as the sky, because they do not answer to the people, and P.E.’s like myself who come along and kick those mountains of lies over, we have the following to consider:
2 April 2022
Office of General Counsel
New York State
Department of Environmental Conservation
625 Broadway, 14th Floor
Albany, NY 12233-1500
RE: PUBLIC RECORDS REQUEST of 3/23/2022, Reference # W098422-032322
Date: 03/25/2022; The legitimacy of my 23 March 2022 FOIL request; Abuse of Process by the NYSDEC
Dear General Counsel:
To take this the necessary step further with respect to demonstrating the legitimacy of the wording of my 23 March 2022 FOIL request, and thus, the abuse of process by the NYSDEC in telling me that my request was denied pursuant to NYS Public Officers Law § 89(3) because the record(s) requested were not reasonably described, which makes this into a children’s game of twenty questions while I search for the exact combination of words so that Department staff would finally be able to search for potentially responsive records based upon the terms of my request, with respect to those records sought, which we now know do not exist, which records concern themselves with an alleged “investigation” into the source of the PFAS contamination in the watershed down-gradient of the NYSDEC-permitted Poestenkill transfer station, which watershed serves my domestic water supply now contaminated with PFOS, according to the official record in this matter, on September 22, 2021, that being one hundred eighty-two (182) days BEFORE my 23 March 2022 FOIL request, in a WNYT-TV article titled “Rensselaer County leaders discuss chemical found during water tests,” Susan Edwards, NYSPE 067260, a licensed professional engineer in New York state pursuant to New York State Education Law § 7201 to safeguard life, health and property, and thus, subject to the provisions of § 29.1 and § 29.3 of the New York State Board of Regents, as well as a senior environmental engineer pursuant to 6 NYCRR 637.6(d)(1), where a senior environmental engineer is responsible for planning, directing and administering all environmental programs, or has responsible charge of all engineering functions in an agency having regulatory responsibility for a political subdivision of less than 100,000 population or, under administrative supervision, has responsibility for the same or similar functions for segments of an environmental conservation program in an agency having regulatory responsibility for a political subdivision of 100,000 or greater population, who is also the Deputy Director of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Division of Environmental Remediation pursuant to New York State Environmental Conservation Law § 3-0107(2), and thus, would be very familiar with the provisions and requirements of DER-10, was quoted as saying “(W)e do know that there are a couple of industrial facilities around the area, around the school,” and “(W)e are taking a closer look, but at this point in time there is no obvious source,” and “(I)t may be that a particular source may not be found in this area, so what we’re concerned about is making sure that the exposures are assessed and addressed as needed.”
Now, what a reasonable person who was sane and rational and had no reading comprehension issues would take from those statements by Ms. Edwards is that on September 22, 2021, that being one hundred eighty-two (182) days BEFORE my 23 March 2022 FOIL request, there was indeed an investigation on-going at that time, and that investigation would have been pursuant to the provisions of DER-10 in my 23 March 2022 FOIL request.
So how is it, a rational person asks, that come 23 March 2022 and my FOIL request, that Ms. Edwards can no longer recognize what DER-10 is, nor can she remember what she was talking about one hundred eighty-two (182) days earlier on 22 September 2021 when she said in the WNYT article “(W)e do know that there are a couple of industrial facilities around the area, around the school,” and “(W)e are taking a closer look, but at this point in time there is no obvious source,” and “(I)t may be that a particular source may not be found in this area, so what we’re concerned about is making sure that the exposures are assessed and addressed as needed?”
IF, on 22 September 2021, one hundred eighty-two (182) days BEFORE my 23 March 2022 FOIL request, Ms. Edwards did know that there are a couple of industrial facilities around the area, around the school, that knowledge would have had to come about pursuant to Appendix 3A(a) of the NEW YORK STATE DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION DIVISION OF ENVIRONMENTAL REMEDIATION TECHNICAL GUIDANCE FOR SITE INVESTIGATION AND REMEDIATION CHAPTER 3 SITE CHARACTERIZATION and REMEDIAL INVESTIGATION, 3.1 Site Characterization and Remedial Investigation.
So how can it be that one hundred eighty-two (182) days later, on 23 March 2022, Ms. Edwards could not find those very records?
If she was not involved in a whitewash attempt on 22 September 2021, then one hundred eighty-two (182) days later, on 23 March 2022, she should have been able to lay her hands on those very records with no trouble, whatsoever.
But she can’t because there are no records, and there are no records because there never was an investigation, it was a whitewash attempt right from the beginning in a vain attempt to protect the politically powerful polluter, Waste Management of New York, LLC, the operators of the NYSDEC-permitted public nuisance known as the Poestenkill transfer station at the intersection of NY Rtes. 66 and 351 in Poestenkill.
And now that the whitewash attempt is blowing up in your faces, panic has ensued, and so you are now abusing FOIL in a continued vain attempt to put the wheels back on the whitewash train, and the train back on the tracks, but it is too late for that now.
The lies have been exposed, and stacking more lies on top of those already debunked cannot do anything to salvage the whitewash now.
So stop lying, because it has gotten to be quite tiresome!
Respectfully,
Paul R. Plante, PE
Paul,
A little overkill on your comments. Either shorten them or start a blog.
Or how about this, maybe you start up your own version of the Cape Charles Mirror where you can set the word limit on posts, make it like TWITTER by limiting people to 200 characters.
Or when you take over here for Wayne Creed and put him in the retirement home, then you could do that here – put word limits on posts.
In the meantime, if my posts are too long for you because you cannot exert your mental capacity to follow them, don’t read them and risk doing harm to yourself.
And did you ever stop to wonder why this country is so totally ***** up these days?
The answer is lazy minds – too many people in America are now so ******* lazy mentally that they no longer have the ability to comprehend anything more than a couple of one syllable words, like see Dick run, although even that would over-tax the mental capacity of the majority of people in this country who have become consumers, cud-chewers, as opposed to citizens.
And I am not going to contribute to the mental decline in this country by kowtowing to yourself, and shortening up my posts to accommodate your lack of mental capacity.
And what a pathetic suggestion that was on your part.
You should actually be ashamed of yourself is my thought for airing your lack of mental capacity in public like that, as if a lack of mental capacity was something you should feel proud of, and the sad thing today is that it is something to be proud of, because it makes you one of the majority.
Is this short enough for you?
I personally would be very embarrassed to tell someone that I was too ******* stupid and lazy to be able to read what they had posted, so could they please shorten it down to fit my diminished mental capacity.
And I am amazed that there are people who would try to convince you they were adults doing just that, whining and sniveling about how long a post is.
Too much watching television, not enough time spent reading books.
And if the people of this God-forsaken nation were not so lazy, and spent their time fulfilling their citizen duties, I wouldn’t have to be writing these long posts, because everything would be glorious, so there would be nothing for me to have to write long posts about.
But alas, those days in America are now long gone, and we are in the age of mental decline, which is when nations collapse.
I must have stepped on the toes of some friend of Scrapple Buffet’s here, or else he or she is big on government corruption and wishes to see it preserved, which is why government corruption exists in the first place, given that without corrupt people, government corruption could not exist.
Easy they’re o’mighty one. There is no reason to get personal. Following your post are quite easy. I as well as others just find them quite boring.. If you think using verbose words to impresses the masses as well as giving everyone a history lesson that we will bow down to you, you are quite wrong.
If our Nation is so mentally lazy and incapacitated you have a right to leave. Better yet, why don’t you invade Smith Island and start your own nation. You can call it Paul’s Paradise. You can spread your wisdom to you chosen flock and rule with an iron fist like Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now.
The whining mostly comes from you. Give it a rest. Respect other peoples thoughts. You do not have to agree with everyone but just give them the opportunity to give their thoughts with out an invective diatribe coming back from you.
Now, can we get back to something more serious? Like the summer crop reports or any upcoming spring festivities in town.
What a piece of work you are, Scrapple Buffet!
And I mean that as a compliment!
ARE YOU IN ANY WAY FORCED TO HAVE TO READ WHAT I POST?
Is there any6 kind of coercion that requires you to have to read what I post?
And I’m serious about that because frankly, I believe in free will, and if somebody is actually forcing you to have to waste your valuable and precious time reading anything I write in here, why, that would be wrong and shameful.
So why do you go along with them, whoever that is who is taking away your free will and is making you have to read verbose words that obviously cause you some degree of serious mental anguish?
Why don’t you simply refuse?
Why can’t you tell them that you as well as others just find what I write to be quite boring?
Are you afraid of them?
Must be so, if it has you so upset as it does.
And for that, I have to say I feel quite sorry for you that you are getting coerced so.
As to my leaving, why don’t you try and make that happen?
And I’m not a politician, so I am not into people bowing to me, and actually, I care not to be around such people, because those who bow to others are craven cowards in my estimation.
So why don’t you break your chains that are binding you to have to read what you obviously can’t handle well, and try for a change breathing the air of freedom a I do, and I breathe that air of freedom, BECAUSE I bothered to fight for that freedom.
And have yourself a real glorious day, and a final piece of free advice – if you don’t want somebody, anybody, treating you like a flaming A-HOLE, don’t give them the opportunity by acting as one in the first place!
Give it a try, if you can.
And here is a really fantastic idea for you, Ray, er, I’m sorry, Scrapple Buffet!
Instead of me leaving the country I am a citizen of, the country I fought and bled for, given that you have a right to leave, why don’t you and the crowd of fascists you run with who hate the idea of FREEDOM OF SPEECH in the United States of America for anyone but yourselves, do something positive to make America great again by you leaving and invading Smith Island to start your own nation which you can call Scrapple Buffet’s Paradise, where you can spread your wisdom to your chosen flock and rule with an iron fist like Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now, and you can even start up your own newspaper and call it the Scrapple Buffet Paradise Mirror where you can refuse to allow anyone who is neither you nor one of your followers to post anything.
And as an aside, it is indeed interesting as we have this digression that in the Commonwealth of Virginia, this according to the History and Social Science Standards of Learning for Virginia Public Schools – January 2008, which I, being sane, rational and of sound mind am very much for, and who in their right mind wouldn’t be, Standards for Virginia and United States Government define the knowledge that enables citizens to participate effectively in civic and economic life.
Students will examine fundamental constitutional principles, the rights and responsibilities of citizenship, the political culture, the policy-making process at each level of government, and the operation of the United States market economy.
The standards identify the personal character traits that facilitate thoughtful and effective participation in the civic life of an increasingly diverse democratic society.
Civic education also must emphasize the intellectual skills required for responsible citizenship.
Students will practice these skills as they extend their understanding of the essential knowledge defined by the standards for Virginia and United States Government.
(Perhaps our dear friend Scrapple Buffet missed school that day, assuming that he hadn’t already quit when he turned 16 in the sixth grade.)
In GOVT.1, the student will demonstrate mastery of the social studies skills responsible citizenship requires, including the ability to
a) analyze primary and secondary source documents;
b) create and interpret maps, diagrams, tables, charts, graphs, and spreadsheets;
c) analyze political cartoons, political advertisements, pictures, and other graphic media;
d) distinguish between relevant and irrelevant information;
e) evaluate information for accuracy, separating fact from opinion;
f) identify a problem, weigh the expected costs and benefits and possible consequences of proposed solutions, and recommend solutions, using a decision-making model;
g) select and defend positions in writing, discussion, and debate.
end quotes
As I say, that is what I believe in, and it is my impression that the Cape Charles Mirror, perhaps alone these days in America when it comes to the “media” in this country, which is little more these days than an organ of propaganda, believes in that as well, which is why I post here.
Let us hope that the fascists who hate free speech in the Cape Charles Mirror do not ever gain the power to alter that balance.
Colonel,
You seem to attack all with the bitter fingers that strike your key board. We are having a discussion and you resort to name calling? I do not understand this way of life.
I commend your service to our Nation (that you bitterly attack) as well as other brave service men and women. Thank you for your service.
Now to the point. I as well as others usually do not get past your third paragraph due to the length of your essays. So, I personally do not read the whole kit and caboodle.
Anger issues can be controlled my medication. Maybe you should seek out a competent health professional so as to get a diagnosis and possible medication.
Raymond, or should I say, Scrapple Buffet, keeping with your undercover persona in here, you are an absolute hoot, the original item, and that is a fact.
If, as you say, and you would be the expert on that, that you as well as others usually do not get past my third paragraph due to the length of my essays, which incidentally are as long as and no longer than they have to be, given that words have meaning, so that, you personally do not read the whole kit and caboodle, why on earth do you and those others you are aware of even bother trying?
So you can have an excuse to come in here and whine to me about how unfair it is that I use verbose words and use too many of them for your comprehension level, which may in fact be true, which is no reflection on me in this case, given that I am a licensed professional engineer tearing to shreds some bull**** that I am being fed by lawyers for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, known as a criminal organization up this way, and so, have to use the proper words in the proper amounts to do so, and it is something that needs to be done, confront this lawyer BULL**** and beat it down with a big club!
And you call that whining?
What a unique viewpoint?
And as to being highly critical of where the United States has gone to, and incidentally, Joe Biden’s approval rating is going down like that plane just did in China, and check out the morning headlines and you will see Joe Biden is one of the most unpopular presidents in our history, you will see that I am not alone in being critical, and as to my dissenting, Scrapple Buffet, which seems to upset you so, as if I did not have such a right, surely you must be aware of the Baltimore Sun article titled “Fulbright: Dissent as the Highest Patriotism” by Pat M. Holt, a member of the professional staff of the Senate, on Feb 10, 1995, and if so, then you would know what I do in here, and what the Cape Charles Mirror stands for by its actions, is in fact the highest patriotism, which is why the Cape Charles Mirror is considered a grand palladium of liberty, and you should in fact be cheering us for it.
If you will recall, and I am sure that you do, and will, the pre-eminent distinguishing characteristic of J.W. Fulbright’s career in the Senate was independence — from presidents, members of the cabinet, fellow senators, the media, even on occasion, his constituents.
As was said in the article, these are the people whom most senators try to cultivate and while Mr. Fulbright was not disdainful of his relations with them, he almost never let those relations get in the way of speaking out for what he believed in, or of criticizing what struck him as mistaken, and there we have the spirit of the Cape Charles Mirror almost alone in America, which is what draws me back here day after day after day, because it is a last bastion of plain common sense intelligence in the AGE OF TWITTER in America.
In an era when politics was becoming increasingly driven by polls, J. William Fulbright held with Edmund Burke that a representative owes his constituents his judgment and that he betrays them if he sacrifices his judgment to their opinion, just as I would be betraying common people up here by sacrificing my judgment for the opinion of some lawyer, or pack of lawyers.
Getting back to Senator Fulbright and what I do in here, and what the Cape Charles Mirror does, as he said in a 1968 speech, “criticism . . . is more than a right; it is an act of patriotism, a higher form of patriotism, I believe than the familiar rituals of national adulation.”
I rest my case.
So, Scrapple, dude, are you saying that it is better to get all doped up on meds to the point of where you longer know up from down and right from left than it is to get angry at this endemic corruption we are confronted with in this country and inep0t and incompetent and unresponsive “government” agencies as we are seeing in this real-world case and stand up to these lawyers who can lie with impunity because in the end, there really is no way to hold them to account outside of holding them up to opprobrium and obloquy and derision in a public forum like the Cape Charles Mirror which shines an intense spotlight on this kind of bull****?
And why is it, just out of curiosity, that meds are always the first thing modern Americans turn to, to deal with their many psychological and emotional issues?
And Scrapple, since you admit that you can’t get past a paragraph or two, and never reach the bottom on a post, so you are really clueless about what it even says, let me do you a favor by getting to the bottom line of the last post I made above here to the Office of General Counsel, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, 625 Broadway, 14th Floor, Albany, NY 12233-1500, on 2 April 2022, where I concluded as follows:
And now that the whitewash attempt is blowing up in your faces, panic has ensued, and so you are now abusing FOIL in a continued vain attempt to put the wheels back on the whitewash train, and the train back on the tracks, but it is too late for that now.
The lies have been exposed, and stacking more lies on top of those already debunked cannot do anything to salvage the whitewash now.
So stop lying, because it has gotten to be quite tiresome!
end quotes
That, Scrapple, is what you didn’t get to see because you could never get there to see it, and that is an example of the clear difference between a P.E. and a lawyer, lawyers lying while the P.E. rips those lies to shreds, because the lawyers do not answer to the public, and in fact, could give a damn whether the public lives or dies, while the P.E. stands up for those who cannot defend themselves against the lies the lawyers tell, and oftentimes, not very well, at all.
Not so fast there Paul Psaki. Too many pressers by you dull the senses.
What does Joe Biden have to do with all of this? Hey, I did not vote for the guy and never will. But, we all have to make do with the current administration until the next election and hopefully vote out the far left.
But brow beating a party in my mind is pretty weak. Give proper solutions to the issues.
I have thoroughly enjoyed our communications so now I shall move onto greener pastures.
Scrapple Buffet for President 2024
Uh, okay, Scrapple, dude, I’m down with whatever it is you are going to do and good luck at it, is my thought.
As to not only the right to dissent as an American citizen, especially those who have actually stood up for this country on the field of battle to protect those who didn’t go, like Joe Biden, Bill Clinton, and Charley “Chuck” Schumer, all
lawyers, by the way, but the duty to dissent, which includes brow beating a party, even if in your mind that for some unknown and unexplained and perhaps unexplainable reason is pretty weak (actually, keeping quiet instead of brow-beating a party when it needs it is very weak, and craven, even, but that is just me), in the excellent book “The Arrogance of Power” written fifty-six (56) years ago now, as an indication of how much further downhill we have come since then, by then-Senator J. William Fulbright, in the section titled “The Fear of Dissent,” the author wrote as follows, and again, this is 1966, to wit:
The discharge of the duty of dissent is handicapped in America by an unworthy tendency to fear serious criticism of our government.
In the abstract we celebrate freedom of opinion as part of our patriotic liturgy; it is only when some Americans exercise it that other Americans are shocked.
No one of course ever criticizes the right of dissent; it is always this particular instance of it or its exercise under these particular circumstances or at this particular time that throws people into a blue funk.
Intolerance of dissent is a well-noted feature of the American national character.
Louis Hartz attributes it to the heritage of a society which was “born free,” a society which is unnerved by serious criticism because it has experienced so little of it.
Alexis de Toqueville took note of this tendency over a hundred years ago: “I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America.”
The malady in Toqueville’s view was one of democracy itself: “. . . The smallest reproach irritates irritates its sensibility and the slightest joke that has any foundation in truth renders it indignant!”
From small-town gatherings to high-policy councils Americans are distressed when a writer or a politician or even a private citizen interrupts all this self-congratulation and expresses himself with simple unadorned candor.
The problem is worsening, among other reasons, because more and more of our citizens earn their livings by working for big corporations and other large organizations, few of which are known to encourage political and other forms of heterodoxy on the part of their employees.
The result is that more and more Americans face the dilemma of how, if at all, an individual can safely exercise honest individual judgment, indeed retain his capacity for it, in an environment in which the surest route to advancement is conformity with a barren and oppressive orthodoxy.
end quotes
And here we are today!
Do you recognize yourself anywhere in there, Scrapple Buffet?
Very well said. Let’s not forget Donald Trump on his lack of military service.
You seem to be overcome with anger issues. Is this your nature? Bullied as a youngster? Laughed at in the locker room?
I am just curious. Were you drafted or were you a career military man?
I have to thank you on behalf of a grateful nation, Scrapple, dude, for the comic relief you are bringing to not only the people of America with your inane comments in here, but also the people of the world as well, who tune in here on a daily basis to study the habits of different kinds of Americans just like you and me, so how about that, now will you!
And it is so important these dark days, especially with the Pale Rider now firmly entrenched in the Washington white house, to have something, anything, no matter how small and seemingly insignificant it might seem to others, to laugh at on a daily basis.
And so it is with this post of yours above here, which I actually enjoyed reading, as it shows off your wit quite well, as well as your ability to mix up some metaphors and serve them up as word salad in here.
And yes, being small when young, I was a target of bullies, who always go after those smaller than themselves, thinking them easy targets because of their small size.
Being pragmatic when young, I solved the bully problem by nailing the bully right square in the middle of his pumpkin head and rocked him back on his heels and that was the end of me being a target of that bully.
And that is how you do it, Scrapple, dude!
You stand up to bullies like this chief counsel for the New York state Department of Environmental Conservation, which agency is known up here as a clear and present danger to the environment and children, as bullies are, because children can’t fight back, not having the words yet with which to do so; you don’t back down, especially when children are the ones being harmed.
Stating silent when you know better and could speak out, but don’t, is an act of moral cowardice, plain and simple, and who in their right mind wants to go through life being known as a moral coward?
Not me, anyway, Scrapple, dude, which is why you see these post above here detailing how we are being lied to in what has been an amateur-hour, bush-league whitewash attempt by these lawyers for the NYSDEC, a dangerous enemy of children, indeed.
And Scrapple, dude, let me tell you, the anticipation runs high these days up this way as the multitudes up here await with bated breath your upcoming essays on the summer crop reports or any upcoming spring festivities in town.
And of course I wasn’t drafted!
I bought the cheap lies Democrat Lyndon Baines Johnson, himself a thug and a bully, was peddling back then, and I enlisted, thinking MY country was in danger, which it was, except from LBJ, not the Viet Cong, and you bet there are still a lot of veterans out there with anger issues over that betrayal, but I’m not one of them.
Why be?
And while we are on the subject of suppressing dissent in America, and the role the “media” are supposed to play in uncovering government corruption, as opposed to protecting it, to put some necessary “meat on the bones,” here, so to speak, to make this on-going drama more comprehensible to the reader, these correspondences above here all relate to an amateur-hour, bush-league whitewash being conducted by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC), the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH), the Rensselaer County Department of Health (RCHD) and the town of Poestenkill to protect a politically powerful polluter from charges of nuisance, negligence and trespass for allegedly contaminating the NYSDOH-regulated public water supply serving a middle school in the area of a NYSDEC-permitted industrial garbage transfer station sited by the negligent NYSDEC on top of a ridge above the well-field of the school, guaranteeing that the well-field would become contaminated from run-off from the transfer station while all the “regulators” looked the “other way,” which is how you keep your job up here as a “public servant,” by having a blind-eye and knowing where to keep it turned until one reaches retirement age.
Protecting the financial health of corporate polluters up this way is far more important than protecting the health of children for the simple reason that children do not make political contributions to buy protection with, while the corporate polluters do.
This contamination was discovered due to water testing last January 2021, and the Whitewash began at that time, with the “BIG HUSH” being put on, while the NHYSDEC, the NYSDOH, the RCHD and the town of Poestenkill kept telling everyone to be patient, that they were doing this “big investigation,” and the source of the contamination would be found and justice would be done, all of which, of course, was “THE BIG LIE,” which is the most potent weapon that corrupt government in a state with corrupt media has.
As a licensed professional engineer and grandfather who feels a “DUTY” (and what a ridiculous concept that has become in America today, where the lies have it, and the truth gets buried deep), I have been attempting to debunk this “BIG LIE” about this “investigation” through Freedom of Information, which is a law in NYS, pursuant to New York Public Officers Law § 84, wherein is stated as follows:
The legislature hereby finds that a free society is maintained when government is responsive and responsible to the public, and when the public is aware of governmental actions.
The more open a government is with its citizenry, the greater the understanding and participation of the public in government.
As state and local government services increase and public problems become more sophisticated and complex and therefore harder to solve, and with the resultant increase in revenues and expenditures, it is incumbent upon the state and its localities to extend public accountability wherever and whenever feasible.
The people’s right to know the process of governmental decision-making and to review the documents and statistics leading to determinations is basic to our society.
Access to such information should not be thwarted by shrouding it with the cloak of secrecy or confidentiality.
The legislature therefore declares that government is the public’s business and that the public, individually and collectively and represented by a free press, should have access to the records of government in accordance with the provisions of this article.
end quotes
All of that really is nothing but BULL****, starting with the fact that up here, we do not have a “free press.”
To the contrary, we have a “captive press” which exists for no other reason than to spew propaganda while lying to us and keeping the facts suppressed.
As to how that is all BULL****, because those are empty words that cannot be enforced against the “state” that lies to us, and as to how FOIL has been turned into nothing more than a joke by the corrupt state, this following serves as a prime example of exactly how this sick game is played here in corrupt Democrat-controlled NYS, to wit:
FOIL Appeals Officer
Office of General Counsel
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation
625 Broadway, 14th Floor
Albany, NY 12233-1500
RE: PUBLIC RECORDS REQUEST of 4/7/2022, Reference # W099240-040722
Date: 04/07/2022
Dear Paul R. Plante,
I write in response to your 4/7/2022 Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request, seeking:
Any and all records related to “THE INVESTIGATION” that dec.sm.derweb states in an official NYSDEC communication dated Apr. 6, 2022 at 3:14 PM was on-going as of that time, as follows:
“The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation has received your emails dated March 24, 25 and April 1 regarding the ongoing investigation of PFAS contamination underway in your community.”
“We acknowledge your interest in this important matter, and as previously advised, the investigation is ongoing and additional information and community updates will be provided as it becomes available.”
end quotes
It is those records of that on-going investigation I am seeking.
*********************************
Be advised that your request has been denied in accordance with one or more of the following provisions of the Public Officers Law (POL):
POL 89.3.a. Request does not reasonably describe record(s)
Sincerely,
Mark Sarnacki
One would think that there might be a cautionary tale for those in Cape Charles contemplating what life for them would be like after the water system is given over to the total control of a for-profit corporation with no accountability whatsoever to the people of Cape Charles.
What kind of conflict resolution is there going to be for the citizens in the event of low water pressure, or the water still has a funny taste?
Who do those citizens put in a complaint to?
The corporation?
The Commonwealth of Virginia?
And how?
How does a citizen prove his or her water pressure is low?
And where is that proof to be proffered?
And in what form?
And those are not at all idle or silly questions.
As I write these words in here and consider the role the Cape Charles Mirror plays in our society today in terms of bringing forth real-life stories such as this one which would never see the light of day, otherwise, being from a different century than this one, when the concept of citizenship was much different in terms of the duties of a citizen, any citizen in a Republic such as ours, and in turn brings me to the History and Social Science Standards of Learning for Virginia Public Schools – January 2008 for the role that the Cape Charles Mirror would also play there in the civic education of these young Americans, as we see by going further into those standards, as follows: Standards for Virginia and United States Government define the knowledge that enables citizens to participate effectively in civic and economic life.
Focus for a minute, if you will, on that phrase “Standards for Virginia and United States Government define the knowledge that enables citizens to participate effectively in civic life.”
As to the question, “what is the civic life,” according to the website youth.gov, it means promoting the quality of life in a community, through both political and non-political processes, while civic engagement includes both paid and unpaid forms of political activism, environmentalism, and community and national service.
Civic engagement involves “working to make a difference in the civic life of one’s community and developing the combination of knowledge, skills, values and motivation to make that difference.”
And when does that end?
When we get out of high school?
Or does that duty continue throughout our lives?
And it should be obvious from my writings in here courtesy of the Cape Charles Mirror, I am in that latter category of believing this to be a life-long duty to stand up for those weaker than I am and to be their voice, when they yet lack one of their own, as is the case with the children who go to this Middle school where their water supply was contaminated for some undetermined period of time, while all of the responsible adults who were negligent, or guilty of neglect of duty in allowing it to happen in the first place, then got together and concocted this bush-league, amateur-hour whitewash which they are still trying to defend by bending, twisting and perverting the Freedom of Information Law with a specious and absurd proposition that if you ask for records in exactly the same way the NYSDEC has described those records, you haven’t requested the records properly, so your request is DENIED!
BUT – you can always appeal, they say, figuring that that is not going to happen, since the word “appeal” generally means having to go through the time and trouble of hiring a lawyer to do that for you, which is going to set you back a few grand, anyway, and so they taunt you with your weakness and helplessness, or so they believe, because being immune from the law themselves in terms of ever being held accountable in a court of law, this is nothing more than a game with them that is known as “being on a power trip.”
So, do you need a lawyer to file your appeal?
And that answer is clearly no, you do not, because when the law is inaccessible to the common citizen, it is no longer law.
So I did the unexpected and I did file an appeal, which I believe arrived today in their mailbox, and that appeal begins as follows:
8 APRIL 2022
FOIL Appeals Officer
Office of General Counsel
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation
625 Broadway, 14th Floor
Albany, NY 12233-1500
RE: FOIL #W099240-040722
Dear FOIL Appeals Officer:
Be advised that pursuant to the provisions of the New York State Public Officers Law, I am appealing from a decision of NYSDEC FOIL Officer Mark Sarnacki on 04/07/2022 denying me these following records based on “POL 89.3.a. Request does not reasonably describe record(s).”
The grounds for this appeal are that the FOIL Officer, in denying my request:
1. failed to perform a duty enjoined upon the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation by law; and
2. the determination was arbitrary and capricious; and
3. the determination was an abuse of discretion.
end quotes
And yes, people, as citizens, we most certainly do have the right to assert those claims against “the government” because in America, the government works for us, we do not answer to it, and we sure as hell are not subservient to it, that we have to tolerate being treated with abuse as was the case here.
Having that as the preamble, the appeal then continued as follows with respect to each claim, to wit:
I. In denying my request the FOIL Officer failed to perform a duty enjoined upon the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation by law.
New York State Public Officers Law § 84 provides in clear and unambiguous statutory language that “The legislature hereby finds that a free society is maintained when government is responsive and responsible to the public, and when the public is aware of governmental actions,” so that, “The more open a government is with its citizenry, the greater the understanding and participation of the public in government.”
With direct respect and relevance to this appeal, in New York State Public Officers Law § 84, the legislature further stated that “The people’s right to know the process of governmental decision-making and to review the documents and statistics leading to determinations is basic to our society,” so that “Access to such information should not be thwarted by shrouding it with the cloak of secrecy or confidentiality.”
In New York State Public Officers Law § 84, the legislature concluded by stating that, “The legislature therefore declares that government is the public’s business and that the public, individually and collectively and represented by a free press, should have access to the records of government in accordance with the provisions of this article.”
By denying my request on the specious and downright absurd grounds that the “Request does not reasonably describe record(s),” when the agency records sought were agency records that the agency itself had just notified me existed, and the request was made using the description of the records sought in the same exact form that the agency identified those records to me, the FOIL Officer was intentionally thwarting my access to the information sought.
As to the definition of records, New York State Public Officers Law § 86(4) provides that the term “Record” means any information kept, held, filed, produced or reproduced by, with or for an agency or the state legislature, in any physical form whatsoever including, but not limited to, reports, statements, examinations, memoranda, opinions, folders, files, books, manuals, pamphlets, forms, papers, designs, drawings, maps, photos, letters, microfilms, computer tapes or discs, rules, regulations or codes.
Thus, this Petitioner was well within his rights pursuant to New York State Public Officers Law § 86(4) to seek the records sought after in the FOIL request denied on such absurd, specious and downright stupid grounds that the request did not adequately describe the records sought, and by denying the request on such absurd and specious grounds, the FOIL Officer failed to perform a duty enjoined upon the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation by law.
II. In denying my request the FOIL Officer’s determination was arbitrary and capricious.
Black’s Law Dictionary defines “arbitrary and capricious” as “a willful and unreasonable action without consideration or in disregard of facts or law.”
“Capricious,” as applied in this specific case, is defined as “governed or characterized by impulse or whim,” as well as “lacking a rational basis.”
Denying a request for records that seeks the records based on the exact words the agency used to describe the sought-after records on the grounds that the request did not adequately describe the records sought is capricious precisely because being an absurd proposition, it is not rational, but rather is governed or characterized by impulse or whim, which in turn makes it arbitrary, that is “a willful and unreasonable action without consideration or in disregard of facts or law.”
III. In denying my request the FOIL Officer’s determination was an abuse of discretion.
The FOIL Officer’s discretion is stated in clear and unequivocal statutory language in New York State Public Officers Law § 84 wherein is provided “The legislature hereby finds that a free society is maintained when government is responsive and responsible to the public, and when the public is aware of governmental actions,” and “The people’s right to know the process of governmental decision-making and to review the documents and statistics leading to determinations is basic to our society.”
The FOIL Officer does not have discretion to concoct specious, absurd, and ridiculous reasons to deny a request based on the flimsy and made-up excuse that the request does not describe the records sought when the request itself names the records exactly as the agency has done, and yet, in this specific case, that is exactly what the FOIL Officer has done, acted in abuse of his discretion by concocting a hare-brained excuse to deny the records and thus and thereby harass this Petitioner by forcing him to have to file this appeal.
For all of the reasons stated, the determination of the FOIL Officer to deny the records sought should be overturned as being a failure to perform a duty enjoined upon the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation by law; the determination was arbitrary and capricious; and the determination was an abuse of discretion.
end quotes
Will this do any good?
Who can know?
But it sure beats doing nothing in my view of things, and perhaps if more people felt the same way, we wouldn’t have to suffer this abuse by arrogant fools on a power trip – perhaps we would have truly responsive and responsible government then, which is reason enough to not quit and totally surrender the field to those in government who hold us in such contempt that they toy with us as if we were nothing more than dirt beneath their feet.
8 AUGUST 2022
Kristin O’Neill
Assistant Director
New York State Committee on Open Government
One Commerce Plaza, Albany, NY 12231
RE: NYSDEC uses FOIL PORTAL to make a malicious, vicious and cowardly CYBER-ATTACK on my computer
Dear Assistant Director O’Neill:
On 4 August 2022, one (1) day after your agency responded to a complaint of mine on 2 August 2022 as a citizen of the state of New York who is also licensed as a professional engineer concerning what I know to be an intentional abuse of FOIL by both the NYSDEC and the NYSDOH concerning records related to what is alleged to be an investigation of how PFAS came to be in the groundwater of the town of Poestenkill, Rensselaer County, which intentional abuse makes a mockery out of the Freedom of Information Law by both agencies to cover up and whitewash neglect of duty on their parts as well as to protect politically powerful Waste Management of New York, LLC, which corporation is permitted by NYSDEC to operate an industrial scale garbage transfer station at the intersection of NY Routes 66 and 351 in Poestenkill, in which response, your agency on 3 August 2022 assured me that your Committee is not authorized to investigate complaints, compel an agency or public body to take certain actions, or to determine whether a violation of law has occurred, which essentially renders your Committee quite useless to law-abiding New York state citizens, I received this following response to a FOIL request of mine received by the DEC thirty-nine (39) days before on 6/26/2022 and given the reference number FOIL #W103020-062622 for tracking purposes, with the Department’s response to my request supposedly coming no later than 7/26/2022, to wit:
Office of General Counsel
P: (518) 402-9522 | F:
http://www.dec.ny.gov
RE: PUBLIC RECORDS REQUEST of 6/26/2022, Reference # W103020-062622
Date: 08/04/2022
Dear Mr. Plante,
This is in response to your 6/26/2022 Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request seeking:
Any and all records as that term is defined in New York State Public Officers Law § 86(4) for the period between 1 January 2021 and 27 September 2021 related to a response from DEC to an invitation extended to DEC by the Town of Poestenkill, which invitation was the subject of an article in THE ADVERTISER LOCAL GOVERNMENT titled Poestenkill PFOA Community Meeting dated September 23, 2021, wherein was stated “A Community Meeting is scheduled in Poestenkill, Rensselaer County to discuss PFOA found in drinking water at local school and nearby homes,” and “Representatives from the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation, NYS Department of Health, and Rensselaer County Health Department have been invited to participate.”
The Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has identified records responsive to your request and has uploaded those records into DEC’s online FOIL request system.
Please visit the customer portal for DEC’s online system by clicking here to log into your DEC FOIL account, where you can view and download the records.
Please reference FOIL #W103020-062622 in all future correspondence with DEC concerning this request.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Records Access Office
end quotes
For the record, when I went to the customer portal for DEC’s online system to log into my DEC FOIL account, what I found waiting for me was a long list of garbage that had nothing whatsoever to do with my FOIL request, and when I clicked randomly on two different entries, both times I got warnings from my security system that it would not open the files because they contained MALWARE or bugs or viruses that would damage my computer, which CYBER ATTACK I believe was intentional on the part of the NYSDEC using the FOIL portal as an offensive weapon with which to cause me harm, knowing from your 3 August response to my complaint about DEC’s intentional abuse of FOIL that they are literally above the law and consequently, are untouchable, and cannot be held to account for this COWARDLY CYBER ATTACK on my computer on 4 August 2022.
Sincerely,
Paul R. Plante, NYSPE
Kathy Hochul, like the disgraced Andy Cuomo and the disgraced Eliot Spitzer before her, is a lawyer:
21 AUGUST 2022
The Honorable Kathy Hochul
Governor of New York State
NYS State Capitol Building
Albany, NY 12224
RE: The true “state” of the state of New York; NYS Const. Art. I §19 worthless, a “publicity stunt”; NYSDEC’s Toilet-Bowl Politics; A long history of whitewashes; The “watershed whitewash”; NYSDEC defines “good moral character” for PE’s; OPD investigation alleged launched; Dareth Glance pleads the Fifth; Thuggish NYSDEC lashes out, retaliates with cowardly Cyber-attack; Dealing with your NYSDEC a thoroughly disgusting experience, like swimming in a sewer; NYSDEC’s “partnership” with the Town of Poestenkill a history of lawlessness, fraud, dishonesty and collusion; Coliform in Poestenkill drinking water a sign of a backwards, primitive civilization with a third-world health department; A torrent or cavalcade of lies, untruths and distortions from NYSDEC involving New York state licensed professional engineers
Dear Governor Hochul:
As you will recall and be cognizant of today, pursuant to §3 of Article IV of the New York State Constitution, in addition to taking care that the laws are faithfully executed, as governor, you shall communicate by message to the legislature at every session the condition of the state, and recommend such matters to it as you shall judge expedient.
As to the “condition of the state,” as a citizen of this state who has resided in this state for over three-quarters of a century now, based on my real-world experiences, I would characterize the “condition of the state” as being ramshackle, a shambles, something shabby, tawdry, unsavory and third-rate that one would expect to be confronted with in some third-world country like Haiti or Uganda, and here I am referring specifically to your Department of Health and your Department of Environmental Conservation.
To see what I am talking about when I call it a shambles (a state of total disorder), we need go no further than the first sentence of a propaganda document titled “May 2022 Community Update: Poestenkill PFAS Investigation; Updates: PFAS Assessment, Phase II Work Plan” which was put out by the NYSDEC and forwarded to me personally by your subordinate, Dareth Glance, appointed on 5 January 2022 by NYSDEC Commissioner Basil Seggos as his Deputy Commissioner for Environmental Remediation and Materials Management pursuant to New York State Environmental Conservation Law §3-0107, in which capacity, she is to oversee DEC’s Divisions of Environmental Remediation, Materials Management, and Mineral Resources as a dedicated and talented professional bringing a wealth of knowledge and experience to the Seggos team to bolster the ability of the Seggos team to meet DEC’s mission at a critical moment for environmental protection in New York State and the nation with your leadership to safeguard New York’s environment from challenges both new and known, and who in a 31 May 2022 writing to myself invoked her Fifth Amendment right to silence lest she further incriminate herself in connection with an investigation she states is being carried on by the Office of Professional Discipline of the New York State Education Department into conduct by licensed professional engineers at DEC that she supervises and sets standards of conduct for, despite her not being licensed as an engineer, wherein was stated as follows, to wit:
The New York State Departments of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and Health (DOH), and the Rensselaer County Department of Health (RCDOH), are working together to protect the public health and environment of the Poestenkill community.
end quote
Now to see exactly what is meant when the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation says it and the DOH, and the Rensselaer County Department of Health are working together to protect the public health and environment of the Poestenkill community, and to see how absurd and ludicrous the statement is in light of reality, all that is necessary is to look at this entry from the Town of Poestenkill website, to wit:
ALERT POESTENKILL WELL OWNERS:
As a result of recent testing of 15 Poestenkill resident wells for the presence of bacteria, particularly Coliform and E-Coli, it is apparent that most well owners do not regularly test their wells for bacteria, as recommended by the DEC and are therefore not aware of dangerous bacteria in their water.
Of these 15 wells recently tested 11 (73%) tested as “This result indicates that the water WAS NOT of a SATISFACTORY SANITARY QUALITY when sampled”.
end quotes
For the record, coliform bacteria in the drinking water of a community is a sure sign of a backwards, primitive society with a third-world health department which you would expect to find in some place like Haiti or Uganda.
That is what your DEC and DOH working together with their partners the RCDOH and the town of Poestenkill have managed to bequeath us with in Poestenkill – conditions one would expect to be confronted with in a third-world county where human sewage runs in the street because the society is too ignorant to have it be otherwise and the government too corrupt and uncaring to prevent it.
Frankly, it is an embarrassment, and yet, your DEC brags on it as an accomplishment of theirs, and with their long history of causing environmental degradation, reducing Poestenkill to condition of a Haiti is indeed a feather in their cap as they see things.
And it is a reflection on your “leadership” of the DEC and DOH, as well, which does not reflect well on you, at all, and the truth is that your DEC has never protected the public health or environment in Poestenkill going back to 1970, and the DOH and RCDOH have not protected the public health or environment in Poestenkill since in or about 1977 or 1978, all of which is a matter of public record for those who believe in facts, not falsehoods put forth by your DEC and DOH for political reasons, as we can clearly see from this following Report of Investigation of the Rensselaer County Department of Health that was filed as a public record in the files of the Rensselaer County Clerk by then-New York State Health Commissioner Dr. David Axelrod on March 15, 1989, in the cover letter to which, Dr. Axelrod stated as follows:
“The investigation found significant deficiencies in the Rensselaer County residential subdivision program and individual sewage program.”
“The investigators concluded that the great number of sewage system failures in the county, ‘is a result of a County program which is inadequate to assure protection of public health and the environment!'”
end quotes
That Report of Investigation of misfeasance and malfeasance in the Rensselaer County Department of Health was also the subject of a March 27, 1989 Report of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) concerning a federal Hobbs Act investigation of corruption in the Rensselaer County Department of Health, wherein was stated as follows concerning that report:
According to (Dr. Axelrod), the results of the State’s investigation were that New York State laws were not being followed by the Rensselaer County Health Department, Rensselaer County laws were not being followed by the Rensselaer County Health Department, and there was very little “enforcement activity” even in the face of illegal sales.
(Dr. Axelrod) advised that the Rensselaer County Health Department’s oversight of realty subdivisions in that county is “unsatisfactory.”
(Dr. Axelrod) also faulted the State of New York Health Department for not auditing Rensselaer County’s program.
(Dr. Axelrod) advised that he would not expect to find a worse county in the region (the Capital District region which comprises 17 counties).
According to (Dr. Axelrod), the object of any county health department is to protect the public and not to facilitate development.
In the case of Rensselaer County, it appears that the Rensselaer County Health Department was in business to facilitate developers and development rather than to protect the public.
end quotes
That was 1989, and here we are in 2022, going backwards from there, thanks to your DEC and DOH working together with the RCDOH and Poestenkill, which takes us to page 7 of the 1989 Axelrod Report, under “Discussion,” where Dr. Axelrod was more emphatic about what that sentence above really meant to we who live in Poestenkill, to wit:
“Based upon a review of the County’s subdivision and private water and sewage programs, it is clear that Paul Plante’s concerns about its integrity are justified.”
“The public health and environment are threatened by an inordinate number of sewage system failures, which are the legacy of mismanaged programs in prior years.”
“Further, the County may face many more system failures in future seasons to come, and immediate steps should be taken to properly manage a comprehensive program in the future.”
end quotes
That of course, was never done, and that whole matter was very effectively white-washed and covered up by the New York State Attorney General in conjunction with Rensselaer County, the Rensselaer County District Attorney, the Office of Professional Discipline of the NYS Education Department, and the Town of Poestenkill, all of which is a matter of record as can be seen in a Times Union article titled “Rensselaer County Housing Deals Probed” by Tim O’Brien, Staff Writer, on 18 March 1989, as follows:
TROY – A state Health Department report has sparked two separate investigations into whether Rensselaer County officials and developers allowed houses to be built without proper environmental approval.
A state Health Department report made public Friday charges that the county Health Department failed to follow state and local regulations on approving housing subdivisions.
The state probe was requested by County Executive John L. Buono after allegations of improprieties were made by Environmental Health Director Paul R. Plante.
The state report blames a number of individuals for the improper practices, including the county engineers, the county executive and Board of Health, as well as the state Health Department, for failing to properly oversee the department.
But the person credited as being “perhaps most directly” responsible is Van Praag, who has been health director since 1977.
“Clearly, there has been a failure (by Van Praag) to provide administrative supervision,” the report said.
The report has been forwarded to the state attorney general’s office and the state Education Department for study.
end quotes
And the state attorney general’s office and the Education Department buried that matter deep.
And I would note that as of 20 August 2022, and this not surprisingly, the Poestenkill website has been scrubbed clean of any mention of coliform in Poestenkill’s drinking water, which is a widespread problem, according to the information on the town website now deleted.
So the whitewashes go on, as can be expected from your DEC, your DOH, the RCDOH and the town of Poestenkill, all of whom share responsibility for these water quality problems in Poestenkill.
And speaking of whitewashes by the NYSDEC, and thuggish behavior by your DEC, I would like to share with you in your capacity as Governor of the State of New York the sense of disgust that I personally feel as a licensed professional engineer in this state as a result of trying to work with your corrupt New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and its Deputy Commissioner for Environmental Remediation and Materials Management Dareth Glance, which experience leaves me feeling as if dealing with your NYSDEC is akin to swimming in a sewer where you are going to come out covered with noxious slime, as a result, and here I am specifically referring to an incident which took place on 4 August 2022 when your NYSDEC, like the malevolent thugs they are, intentionally used my FOIL Access Portal in allegedly responding to a FOIL request I had made to try to slip a bug or virus or MALWARE into my computer to damage it and take me off-line, while at the same time depriving me of access to FOIL, which action by your NYSDEC makes a complete mockery of the Freedom of Access Law wherein is stated “The legislature hereby finds that a free society is maintained when government is responsive and responsible to the public, and when the public is aware of governmental actions,” and “The people’s right to know the process of governmental decision-making and to review the documents and statistics leading to determinations is basic to our society.”
Other than your NYSDEC, who else engages in that kind of malicious conduct, making CYBER-ATTACKS, other than thugs, bullies and outright criminals?
Sincerely,
Paul R. Plante, NYSPE
This is an expose of this “GREEN CRAP” or “GREEN SCAM” or “GREEN FLIM-FLAM” the Democrats are pulling on us:
23 AUGUST 2022
The Honorable Kathy Hochul
Governor of New York State
NYS State Capitol Building
Albany, NY 12224
RE: Continued; The true “state” of the state of New York; NYS Const. Art. I §19 worthless, a “publicity stunt”; NYSDEC’s Toilet-Bowl Politics; A long history of whitewashes; The “watershed whitewash”; NYSDEC defines “good moral character” for PE’s; OPD investigation alleged launched; Dareth Glance pleads the Fifth; Thuggish NYSDEC lashes out, retaliates with cowardly Cyber-attack; Dealing with your NYSDEC a thoroughly disgusting experience, like swimming in a sewer; NYSDEC’s “partnership” with the Town of Poestenkill a history of lawlessness, fraud, dishonesty and collusion; Coliform in Poestenkill drinking water a sign of a backwards, primitive civilization with a third-world health department; A torrent or cavalcade of lies, untruths and distortions from NYSDEC involving New York state licensed professional engineers
Dear Governor Hochul:
With it now firmly established on the record with incontrovertible evidence that thanks to your Department of Health and your Department of Environmental Conservation, which agency is an extension of your office, and hence, yourself, working in conjunction with the Rensselaer County Health Department, the “condition of the state” in the town of Poestenkill in the Rensselaer County Health District has to be considered ramshackle (in a state of severe disrepair, as in “a ramshackle county health district”), a shambles (a state of total disorder, as in “the Rensselaer County Health District is in a shambles”), something shabby (in poor condition through lack of care), tawdry (of poor quality), unsavory (disagreeable and unpleasant because morally disreputable) and third-rate, a “condition” that one would expect to be confronted with in a primitive, backwards jungle village in a third-world country like Haiti or Uganda where people drink water with sewage in it, the question before us becomes one of what do you expect to do about it as governor of the state of New York?
Or more properly and to the point, what can we aggrieved citizens expect from you in the light of what purports to be a professional engineer’s report titled “May 2022 – Poestenkill PFAS Investigation – Nearby Property Investigations Work Plan, (SPILL NO. 2105197), Poestenkill, NY, which professional engineer’s report, which contains false statements, has your name on the cover as the author of the report, notwithstanding you are not licensed to practice as an engineer in New York state, likely a trivial detail to you given your name on the document as its owner, which gives you ownership of the falsehoods contained therein?
With the reality of that document with your name on it before us, what message can we expect you to communicate to the legislature as to the condition of the state pursuant to §3 of Article IV of the New York State Constitution, and what matters can we expect you to recommend to it as you shall judge expedient?
Will you choose silence?
In a New York Daily News article by Denis Slattery on Oct 25, 2021 titled “Hochul follows through on post-Cuomo promises to address harassment and discrimination in Albany,” it is stated therein as follows with respect to the bullying of citizens by your NYSDEC, to wit:
“From the moment I took office, I’ve made it a priority to radically change the culture in Albany politics and promote a respectful and collaborative environment as we serve the people of New York,” said Governor Hochul.
end quotes
Clearly, your message was never delivered to NYSDEC, or NYSDEC, arrogant and lawless as it is, being an extension of your office and thereby enjoying your immunity, has simply disregarded the message and has exempted itself from compliance with your consent, as it remains today what it has been since its beginning, a callous, thuggish, unthinking brute that is a sociopath, which is to say, a state agency under your direct control with a personality disorder manifesting itself in extreme antisocial attitudes and behavior and a lack of conscience, which is why we are living in a third-world country in New York state.
And absent a strong public stance by yourself that bullying of the public by your DEC will not be tolerated and offenders will be given the boot, and a strong public commitment by yourself to §19 of Article I of the New York State Constitution as law in New York state, coupled with a top-to-bottom house cleaning at the NYSDEC with a new broom with stiff bristles, and a reform of the Environmental Conservation Law to make the commissioner accountable to the people of New York, not your office, nothing is going to change and New York state will remain the third world country that it now is on into the future, and that will be your legacy in this day an age of the internet, where this will be posted for the sake of posterity.
§19 OF ARTICLE I OF THE NEW YORK STATE CONSTITUTION A PUBLICITY STUNT
Much has been made of §19 of Article I of the New York State Constitution in the Albany, New York Times Union.
For example, in an article titled “Commentary: On Nov. 2, affirm that a clean environment is a human right” by Dominick Calsolaro on Oct. 22, 2021, we were told as follows about the amendment, to wit:
On October 8, the United Nations Human Rights Council took a historic action and voted 45-0 to recognize “the human right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment.”
In the general election on November 2, New Yorkers have the opportunity to follow the UN’s lead and to vote “yes” on Ballot Proposal 2, the Environmental Rights Amendment.
The proposal amends the New York state constitution by adding the right of each person to clean air, clean water, and a healthful environment.
Ballot Proposal 2 is commonly referred to as the “Green Amendment.”
This simple, fifteen word constitutional amendment will guarantee us the right to clean air and water and the right to enjoy a healthy environment.
end quotes
As we see today, however, that last sentence about “will guarantee” is patently false, because the so-called “green amendment” guarantees nothing at all, where the word “guarantee” means “provide a formal assurance or promise, especially that certain conditions shall be fulfilled relating to a service.”
All the “green amendment” says is that we have a “right” to something.
In no way does that mean we are going to get those things, clean water, clean air and a healthful environment, as there is no obligation placed on the state of New York to provide those things by the “green amendment,” which was and is little more than an empty political stunt, given there are no definitions in law as to what “clean” water is, and how it is to be obtained, nor is “clean” air defined, nor is a “healthful environment” anywhere defined, so that those terms are merely chimerical (hoped for but illusory or impossible to achieve), and thus, there is no way to enforce that “green amendment,” which makes it worthless to the aggrieved citizens of New York state looking for a way to rein in the abuses of your DEC, which is seen as a destroyer of the environment and communities, something toxic to be shunned as a clear and present danger to our health and well-being in New York state.
Going back to the Times Union article, it continues as follows:
The passage of the Green Amendment, like the action taken by the UN’s Human Rights Council, will be historic for New York.
It will reverse the longstanding tradition of government agencies and departments approving corporate projects over the health and safety of citizens.
end quotes
That again is a false statement that the so-called “green amendment” will reverse the longstanding tradition of government agencies and departments approving corporate projects over the health and safety of citizens, because the “green amendment,” which the DEC and the RCHD and the town of Poestenkill know is unenforceable against them, gives them no incentive to change.
Going back to the Times Union, the delusional “pie-in-the-sky” put forth in that article continues as follows:
The coalition Vote YES for Clean Air and Water explains the proposed amendment this way: The amendment is a value statement that declares every New Yorker — regardless of the color of their skin, ZIP code, or how much money they have — has the right to clean air and clean water and a healthful environment.
It puts these rights in front of every decision the government makes.
end quotes
And no, it actually does not do that at all.
Unless rights can actually be enforced, they do not exist, and in that, I am a textbook case because twice in quick succession I took the DEC to court with Article 78’s, and after proving my standing, which is to say, my right to a healthful environment and clean water and clean air, prevailed, and all I ended up with was two totally worthless pieces of paper signed by a Supreme Court Judge that the DEC treated as trash, precisely because there is no way to enforce an Article 78 against DEC, even when the DEC acts in a criminal manner as was the case in both Article 78’s.
Going back to the Times Union, it goes on as follows:
For example, before a legislative body passes a law or a government agency issues a permit or provides a grant, such body or agency will have to consider if doing so would violate a person’s right to clean air or water.
Decision-makers would be obligated to minimize pollution, degradation, and environmental harms.
end quotes
Decision makers have been obligated to do that since at least 1975, and today, not only are people in Poestenkill drinking sewage, but PFAS, as well.
And then that Times Union article takes us to here, to wit:
Once this amendment is approved by the voters there will be no more Hoosick Falls, where residents have used water contaminated for decades with perfluorooctanoic acid or PFOA, a toxic chemical linked to a plastics plant.
No longer will landfills, such as the S.A. Dunn landfill in Rensselaer, be allowed to be built and continuously operated next to a school.
end quotes
In light of the fact that people in Poestenkill are drinking sewage and the state-regulated public water supply serving the Algonquin Middle School is contaminated with PFAS, and the Dunn landfill in Rensselaer continues to operate, despite not having a permit from DEC to do so, those statements are simply ridiculous and ludicrous, which is why the “green amendment” is treated as it is – simply a political stunt.
So where can we expect you to stand, Governor Hochul?
Sincerely,
Paul R. Plante, NYSPE