Lawsuit claims political patronage at Water Authority
A veteran Monroe County Water Authority computer programmer claims high-ranking authority officials forced him to support the hiring of a political crony whom he alleges went on to botch a job that left the authority open to a software piracy probe and subsequent $35,000 settlement.
The programmer, Gary Stanton, contends in a lawsuit filed Friday in state Supreme Court that he was demoted partly as a result of the piracy debacle and that the authority bucked civil service rules to promote the friend of authority Executive Director Edward Marianetti who was behind the software mistake.
The lawsuit is loaded with explosive charges against the Water Authority, which has spent four years attempting to restore public trust after state auditors revealed in 2006 that it had improperly padded the pay and benefits package of former Executive Director John Stanwix.
A lawyer representing the Water Authority called the lawsuit’s allegations “unfounded and misguided.”
Among the lawsuit’s charges:
“The Water Authority is run on giving people in politics and friends jobs when needed,” said Stanton, 51, whose pay was cut by $17,211, or 16 percent, when his position was eliminated.
Stanton, a Henrietta resident who is a 29-year veteran of the authority and had been a supervisor since 1987, is seeking to have his title and pay reinstated and back pay.
Marianetti said that neither he nor any authority employee would comment on the complaint, citing pending litigation, and referred questions to an authority lawyer.
“(Stanton) has alleged that the Water Authority has violated two sections of the Civil Service law and, simply based on the facts that I’ve seen, there isn’t any basis for a legal claim by him,” said David Kresock, a partner at Harter Secrest representing the authority.
“Obviously, many of the allegations in the complaint are inflammatory, to say the least,” Kresock continued. “But frankly, they are unfounded and misguided.”
The lawsuit’s depiction of the authority as a Republican-run political patronage mill resistant to public scrutiny follows criticism in the local media last month over the authority’s hiring of former Republican county Legislature President Wayne Zyra, who became the third legislature president in recent memory to land an authority job following the presidency.
State law requires the authority board to consist of seven members, no more than five of whom can be affiliated with one political party. The current board comprises Republicans and members of the Conservative Party, which is closely aligned with the county Republican Party.
“The Water Authority is a cesspool of political patronage and cronyism,” said Stanton’s lawyer, Matthew Fusco, a partner at Chamberlain D’Amanda. “They act like civil service doesn’t apply to them.”
Hiring questions
According to the 20-page complaint, Marianetti and James Smith, who was leaving as the authority’s executive director to become deputy county executive, informed Stanton in September 2005 that he would hire Jack Walsh, who had allegedly worked as a computer technician for the towns of Greece and Ogden, where Marianetti had headed the public works departments. Stanton says he was told to write a letter of recommendation for Walsh, although he had never met him, and was instructed to “not mention Walsh’s employment at either the town of Greece or the town of Ogden in writing his reference letter as it would tie Walsh to Marianetti.”
Three years later, according to the complaint, Stanton conducted a software audit upon suspicion that the authority may have inadvertently been using unlicensed software.
Stanton says he discovered unlicensed software and instructed Walsh to remove it.
But the software was not removed, despite Walsh allegedly informing Stanton that the job had been completed.
In the ensuing months, a software piracy watchdog group threatened to sue the Water Authority for using unlicensed software. The authority settled the claim for $35,000 in July 2009.
The settlement was reported by the Democrat and Chronicle in September and, according to the complaint, authority board members were upset with Marianetti’s remark in the article that no one was disciplined for the software oversight.
The complaint asserts that Marianetti informed Stanton five days after the story was published that Uschold would replace Stanton as head of the information technology staff.
Earlier in 2009, Stanton had received a negative performance evaluation, which he says was a first. The evaluation, included as an exhibit, cites poor management skills.
Civil service sidestep?
The authority board promoted Walsh in March 2009 to the position of network technician at a salary of $57,907. Walsh was to start the job on March 16.
But at its next monthly meeting in April, the board amended the start date to March 9. According to the complaint, the board acted because it was discovered that the civil service list on which Walsh was competing for the promotion had expired on March 10.
In addition, the complaint alleges that Walsh did not score high enough on the competitive civil service exam to be considered for the job, and that the authority arranged for Walsh to take another exam on a promotional basis five months later.
Reached at work on Friday, Walsh declined to comment on the case, saying he was unaware that a complaint had been filed.
A phone message left for board Chairman Anthony Quattrone at his home on Friday was not returned.
The complaint also alleges that the authority broke the civil service law by directing Stanton to develop a software program related to sewer taxes for Monroe County.
Stanton maintains that he spent thousands of hours on the project between 2004 and 2009 but was paid by the authority.
A county spokesman did not immediately return a phone message left for him late Friday.
“It’s the big picture that’s really troublesome,” said Fusco, the lawyer for Stanton. “To have this kind of feather-bedding, this kind of cronyism, it just sticks in your craw.”
Kresock, the authority’s lawyer, declined to discuss specific allegations but said the Water Authority complies with all civil service regulations.
“The image of the Water Authority as a political patronage mill is simply not based in fact,” Kresock said.
“The Water Authority, through this process, is going to have an opportunity to present its side of the story. When you see that, you’ll get a very different picture of how the personnel system is administered.”
