Alden Wolfe v. Bruce Levine, Round 659
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- July
- 27
This morning, Rockland County Legislature candidate Alden Wolfe held a news conference to tie his opponent, Legislator Bruce Levine, to the Spring Valley mayor’s hiring of illegal immigrants for a government public works project.
Reporter Steve Lieberman attended the news conference. Here’s his account of the news conference and a discussion afterward with Levine:
Levine, the village attorney, called Wolfe’s accusation false, saying he had no role in the hiring of illegal immigrants and was on vacation when it happened.During the news conference in front of Spring Valley Village Hall, Wolfe said Levine should explain what role, if any, he played as village attorney in Spring Valley Mayor George Darden’s decision to hire illegal immigrants and to discuss the advice he had given the mayor.
At one point, Wolfe asked, “What other advice did he give the mayor to cover up the illegal hiring?”
Wolfe denied that he was accusing Levine of committing a crime. He also said his demands that Levine explain himself were not political.
“This is about good government,” Wolfe said. “This is about accountability. … As an elected official [county legislator] … Mr. Levine needs to be held to a higher standard.”
Wolfe said Levine had been silent for more than a week since The Journal News reported that Darden had shelled out his own money to hire 10 people from Route 59 for a urban renewal job.
Wolfe also charged that Levine’s job as village attorney conflicted with his being a legislator  a charge he has made previously. He said Levine was voting on issues that might be good for the village but not necessarily good for the county and all his constituents.
Reached by telephone, Levine said when he learned about the illegal hirings, he told the village treasurer not to reimburse the mayor. When he was told that already had happened, Levine said he told Darden to return the money until he could resolve the issue.
“When someone in government makes a mistake like this,” Levine said, “it creates a complex legal situation.”
He called Wolfe’s accusations “Nixonian” in nature.
“It’s classic for people in political campaigns to make false accusations for the purpose of the trying to divert the people’s attention from the real issues,” Levine said, adding that he believed people were more interested in taxes, the county’s fiscal problems, affordable housing and environmental issues.
Wolfe said the key issue was that Levine couldn’t serve two masters—Spring Valley as village attorney and residents as a county legislator.
“This is not a political issue,” Wolfe said. “Rockland taxpayers deserve the highest level of service from their elected officials, but when scandal clouds the air, we need to know that our elected officials can stand above.”
This is the second campaign between Levine and Wolfe.
Wolfe was appointed to the Legislature in 2006 to replace Robert Berliner after the latter won election to the bench as Surrogate Court judge. Levine, a former legislator for 10 years, decided to seek the seat last year after an 11-year hiatus.
Wolfe won the party’s nomination for re-election with the support of Ramapo’s political leaders.Levine forced a primary and soundly defeated Wolfe. Wolfe and Levine each gathered enough signatures to force a primary, during which Levine soundly defeated Wolfe. Levine won election in November for the remainder of the term, which expires at the end of this year.
This entry was posted
on Friday, July 27th, 2007 at 5:50 pm by Amy Vernon. 
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Category: Alden Wolfe, Bruce Levine, COUNTY LEGISLATURE, Democrats, George Darden, Illegal immigrants, Immigration, Rockland County, Spring Valley
I’d like to point out a serious error in this blog entry. It’s stated that after my appointment in 2006, I “won the party’s nomination for re-election with the support of Ramapo’s political leaders.” This is absolutely untrue. In 2006, there were no endorsements made by the Town or County Democratic Committees for either candidate. Mr. Levine and I both collected signatures, like all Democratic candidates, and went straight to the primary.
Mr. Wolfe, don’t worry about what reporters post in their blogs. I’ve come to find the Journal News rather inacurate about Rockland County.
Sorry Mr. Wolfe – I left the office perhaps 5 minutes before you sent me the e-mail last night and so only got to check my e-mail this morning; you are indeed correct and I’ve changed the above to clarify that.
Andrew P. – I’m sorry you feel that way. We are only human and do indeed make mistakes sometimes. But we always strive to correct our errors. If there’s something you feel we’ve reported incorrectly about Rockland, I’d appreciate you sharing that with me and I’d be more than happy to look into it.
Ms. Vernon,
It’s the WHOLE way that the newspaper covers Rockland. In the Your World section that comes to Rockland, let it be ALL about Rockland. The main section can highlight Westchester, and national news, and front page local headlines. Let Your World be about OUR community. Plus, let’s have writers actually be NON PARTISAN about what they write when it comes to anything about municipalities and elections.
Actually, Wolfe received the appointment of the County Legislature based on the support of the Ramapo Town Democratic machine. He won the support of the Democratic committee for District 6 to recommend him after arm twisting and job threatening of a number of committeepersons by various political leaders who did not want my independent style to be expressed on the Legislature. In typical Orwellian newspeak (ala “1984”), Wolfe still claims that he is the only true independent candidate for legislator. His record of ignoring crucial issues in the Town and the County relating to growth (like Wal-Mart) and spending (ignoring huge losses in expected sales tax revenues and mortgage tax revenues) proves why he was put there.
By the way,it is a crime to cover up illegal activity. I called my spouse Ann after I learned of Wolfe’s false and baseless accusations to tell her that he had stepped over a line by accusing me of a crime. She repeated.”He accused you of a crime?!” My twelve and one half year old daughter Zoe overheard and said “He accused you of what!!!” I told Ann to reassure her and I heard Zoe gleefully yell “Sue!, Sue! Sue!” Of course, I won’t bother to do that, but you can’t fool kids (and their parents) by calling political attacks “Good Government.” Unfortunately, some in politics seem to think the voters are stupid. I have for over twenty five years but my faith in the voters and not in the leaders of political machines. I know that the people of Rockland County are among the most fair minded people I have ever met. They are also smart enough to size up my character and my public service.
Bruce Levine
I happen to agree with Andrew P. The Journal News is widely regarded as a newspaper that does little to mask its biased opinions. Mr Lieberman is perhaps the most guilty of clearly expressing his political favorites – as well as his not so favorites. Speaking of which, I see he joined in on reporting about the Spring Valley fiasco. Since then the Journal News hasn’t made another mention of it. Was Suzan Clarke doing too good a job for his liking? No surprise to me.
The Journal News is widely regarded as a newspaper that does little to mask its biased opinions.
I guess it’s good that it’s not a subversive effort, no?
I like to think the paper is an equal opportunity cage rattler, especially when it’s a situation where the subject has… “gone out of their way” to make trouble for themselves.
Andrew P. – Regarding the layout of our paper, we publish the local news in the front section rather than in the second “Your World” section. There’s more space for news in that section, and also prevents folks from always having to go through two sections for local news. That said, we do publish some local news on the front of the second section – some columns and if we don’t have room for something in the main section, we do sometimes publish other stories in the Your World section. I’m sorry you don’t like the layout, but that doesn’t make our paper inaccurate.
As for your other point, about our reporters’ supposed bias, I can say that pretty much everyone on both sides of the political divide have accused us on more than one occasion of being biased. So if both sides think we’re slanted in favor of the opposite point of view, I’m figuring we’re doing our jobs and are avoiding any slant.
In fact, we were accused of all sorts of bias with the coverage of the fireworks at Stephen Cole-Hatchard’s, and he’s a Republican. Those people were largely silent about bias when we covered the Spring Valley illegal immigrant hiring story; Mayor George Darden is a Democrat.
Thomas – regarding Spring Valley, we have done many stories since Steve joined Suzan on coverage of the story. First off, Steve has no say in what we cover, nor who covers it. He has little enough say in what he himself covers. Suzan is the primary reporter, though I have had Steve cover a couple of stories since our reporting began. Suzan works Sun-Thur and so Friday stories have fallen in Steve’s lap.
To suggest that we would drop coverage of a story that we uncovered in the first place is a bit puzzling. We are still pursuing various aspects of this story and will be publishing others as reporting allows.
Richard Tjoa – We like to think of ourselves that way, too. There’s an old newspaper saying that our job is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. There’s some truth to that, but the bottom line is that we do try to get to the truth. Do we always? Probably not. Do we always try? Yep.
Mr. Levine, I will not debate you in this forum, nor will I respond to blanket unsupported accusations about others that have nothing to do with my own personal conduct. I will simply say that I have never accused you of committing a crime. In fact, Steve Lieberman asked me that specific question and I responded that I was not suggesting that you did anything illegal; I was asking the questions that those of us who you represent deserve an answer to. I never once said that you committed a crime.
[...] The men are facing off again for the seat, which represents part of Ramapo. I’m not going to rehash the details of the news conference, but you can read it in detail here. [...]
Oh grow up Mr. Levine! After what I just saw you post, I’m sorry but good public servant you are not. What about your ties with Spring Valley as Village Attorney? Isn’t that a conflict of interest in general?
I’m sorry, but Mr. Wolfe seems more qualified. And, you talk of “machine” in describing a municipality is wrong.
Every time I see “Your World” I think “Local,” first. Maybe that’s because it’s the B section, and maybe because I think that “your world” refers to “my own local bubble,” rather than the planet, (which is too big for me to claim as mine, anyway).
What about your ties with Spring Valley as Village Attorney? Isn’t that a conflict of interest in general?
This county is just “too small” for there not to be any conflict of interest when scandal happens.
I will also say that a lot of “scandal” happens un-plannedly: official’s actions outrun their brains and then people jump up and down and get all nit-picky. Transgressions big and small (and medium) are all met with reflexive calls for resignations. Great political theater, and a good way to unseat an incumbent, but it doesn’t really help anyone, let alone the citizens of this great (“pretty good?” “okay?”) county/state.
Oh, along my logic, United Water gets a pass for not notifying us of arsenic in their wells. (It was their first crisis, and not having a mechanism for alerting their customers/local government in a timely manner might be “somewhat” understandable. At the least, “I can see how it happened.”)
But, when the need to notify customers or government happens again (big storm water release from Lake DeForest), and again (Stony Point water main break), and again (Valley Cottage), and now you’re talking “profits before customers” or “gross incompetence.” Maybe a bit of both. And they want us to trust them to provide clean drinking water from the Hudson?
I’m glad UW doesn’t run Indian Point.
Hello readers,
If anyone wishes to make a REAL difference in local government, I recommend that he or she support my public interest legal advocacy—all of which I have been self-financing. I have fought, for example, a $450,000+ local police chief annual salary give-away, and some similar pension system abuses.
Most recently, my Orangetown taxpayer lawsuit provoked a corrective NYS Comptroller audit regarding an improper gift of retroactive pension by the Town Board members to themselves. Simply outrageous!
I am examining other taxpayer abusives which may be even worse. If anyone wishes to help my public interest actions, please give me a call.
Sincerely,
/s/
Mike Diederich 845-942-0795
PS I also expect to help the public interest further by being elected to the County Legislature, District 1 (where I will look forward to working cooperatively with Mr. Levine or Mr. Wolfe).