Legislator Ed Day told me recently that he’s expecting his eldest son to be deployed to Iraq within the next month.Christopher Day, a 2003 graduate of Clarkstown North, is now stationed at Fort Bragg, N.C. He’s a member of the elite Army Airborne Rangers. His unit is already overseas and Day said he expects him back in three to four months, after which he may be sent to Afghanistan.Day said that he’s nervous, but “I’m proud of what he’s doing and I understand why he wants to do it.” 

The County Legislature Tuesday will formally pull a proposal to ban metal bats from all pre-high school baseball games at the request of its sponsor, Legislator VJ Pradhan, D-Nanuet.

The proposal had been vehemently opposed by local Little League organizations, with officials coming to a recent committee meeting on the subject.

“I’m pulling it out for one reason: because Nanuet Little League has taken the first step toward safety,” Pradhan said. “They are asking their pitchers to wear a shield to protect their heart.”

Pradhan said he hopes other local Little Leagues will follow Nanuet’s lead. Nanuet started using the chest guard recently.

The whole issue came back into the limelight in May when the family of a 12-year-old New Jersey Little Leaguer sued an aluminum bat maker, the league and the store where the bat was sold. In 2006, the boy’s suffered brain damage after a line drive off such a bat hit him and stopped his heart.

Minority Leader Ed Day, R-New City, called, as a longtime coach, to say he was glad the matter was being pulled, saying the ban would have been unnecessary.

Working for a morning paper, the Rockland County Legislature meeting lasted long after my deadline last night. When I left around 9:30 p.m. or so, the Legislature was only halfway down a long list of people who had signed up to speak on the so-called “flow control” proposal that would give the Solid Waste Management Authority the right to mandate that all trash haulers, even private carriers, bring waste to county-owned facilities.

The vote didn’t happen until around midnight. Yikes.

After hearing hours of comment, mostly negative, legislators voted 11-4 to approve the law with the “nay” votes coming from Legislators Gerold Bierker, C-Bardonia, Ed Day, R-New City, Joseph Meyers, D-Airmont and Frank Sparaco, R-Valley Cottage.

The Legislature previously struck down a motion to table the issue, 5-11 with Bierker, Day, Meyers, Sparaco and Legislator Doug Jobson, R-Stony Point, voting in favor of tabling the proposal.

Several members of the Legislature sit on the Solid Waste Management Authority.

Legislator Ed Day’s proposal to request the State Legislature suspend state and county taxes on gasoline during the summer hasn’t been referred to the full Legislature.

The proposal died in committee last week with four “ayes” and three “nays.” Proposals need six “ayes” to make it out of committee.

Day, R-New City, also the Legislature’s minority leader, had faced criticism for the proposal. The county executive and county finance commissioner said it would end up costing Rockland about $1.5 million in lost revenue that would need to be made up through an increase in property taxes.

Day said he would try to get the item put on tomorrow’s full Legislature agenda as a new business item, but Chairwoman Harriet Cornell, D-West Nyack, said she wouldn’t support it.

Day, she said, is welcome to make a motion to do so, but if it is going to be considered it needs to go through the proper channels, i.e. the committees.

The battle continues… Dum, dum DUM!

Okay, not it’s not that bad. But there has been a running theme this year of the Legislature complaining that County Executive C. Scott Vanderhoef has been less than forthcoming with information, something his office says just isn’t true.

Last month, at the April 30 Government Operations Committee meeting Legislator Ed Day, R-New City, asked Hospitals Commissioner Richard Maloney for a detailed breakdown of how much overtime pay is included in the department’s payroll figures.

At last night’s Multi-Services Committee meeting, Day again asked Maloney about the figures and Maloney replied that he’d gotten the numbers to the county executive’s office two days after the request was made.

So Day, visibly miffed, questioned Vanderhoef staffer Vince Altieri who told him he’d have to check and get back to him.

Other legislators, including Jay Hood Jr., D-Haverstraw, Philip Soskin, D-Monsey and Alden Wolfe, D-Suffern, said they were disappointed that the county’s administration had shared so little with them regarding the construction of the new hospital and nursing home. Soskin said he’s gotten most of his information about the project from media reports.

The Legislature, earlier this month, also accused Vanderhoef of not communicating effectively with them when his office requested approval for a $24 million bond related to the Mirant tax dispute.  Vanderhoef countered that the Legislature knew about the issue because it was discussed at a 2006 meeting.

C.J. Miller, spokeswoman for the county executive, said yesterday that claims the Legislature can’t get information on finances are bogus. The  Legislature’s fiscal analyst has access to the same numbers as the administration’s finance personnel.

“That information is open and accessible to everyone,” she said

As to the rest of the complaints, Miller said Vanderhoef’s office isn’t trying to hide anything or play games with the legislators.

“Maybe communication isn’t the problem here,” she said. “Maybe it’s a lack of understanding … a lack of comprehension.”

County Legislator Ed Day, R-New City, is scheduled to give his first report as minority leader at tomorrow night’s Legislature meeting. I haven’t gotten any hints yet as to what might be in it (I don’t think its finished yet.) But keep an eye on Friday’s paper for details.

The Legislature is meeting on a Thursday this week in deference to Super Tuesday.

And in other speech-before-the-full-Legislature news, the county executive will give his State of the County speech sometime next month.

Legislator Ed Day said he did not accept anything from a county vendor last weekend when his campaign was treated to a fundraiser at the Nyack home of Carl Wortendyke, a principal of Cal Mart Enterprises. Cal Mart is a county vendor.

“Cal Mart is a county vendor,” Day said, “Carl Wortendyke is not.”

Day, R-New City, has been outspoken in his support of a 1997 county law that prohibits candidates running for county office from taking more than $100 from any entity that does business with the county. He recently proposed amendments to the law that included prohibiting candidates from taking any money from county vendors.

“I think what this is, this is a reach by some of my political enemies,” Day said.

He noted that while the fundraiser was hosted by Wortendyke, his campaign paid for the catering and the invitations. And that hosting a fundraiser does not count as an in-kind contribution according to Election Law.

Legislator Ilan Schoenberger, D-Wesley Hills, said that this is part of the problem with the 1997 law, which many have called unenforceable.

“It’s a very difficult area,” he said.

“I think Mr. Day will have a better understanding of how difficult it is.”

Schoenberger said he heard about the fundraiser from “a buzz going around.”

As for Day’s response about Wortendyke himself not being a vendor, Schoenberger said, “I guess I can make any excuse he wants and that’s a very fine splitting of hairs.”

Three members of the Rockland County Legislature are celebrating a birthday today!

• Ed Day, R-New City, is the youngest of the three. He’s 56.

• VJ Pradhan, D-Nanuet, the “middle” child so to speak, is the big 6-0.

• Gerold Bierker, C-Bardonia, turns  68 today. No worries—you don’t look a day older than 67!! Ha!

Their birthdays aren’t all they share. Bierker and Day were quick to point out this week that they both graduated from Brooklyn Tech.

August is a popular month for Rockland County Legislature birthdays.

We’ve also got:

• Bruce Levine, D-Montebello: 8/1

• Phil Soskin, D-Monsey 8/10

• Connie Coker, D-South Nyack: 8/13

Legislator Ed Day wants to make the controversial campaign finance a little more clear—and more strict.

Day, R-New City, announced today that he has submitted several amendments to the county’s 1997 campaign finance law that prohibits candidates in county races from taking more than $100 from any entity that does business with the county.

Those amendments include:
—Prohibiting vendors from donating ANY amount of money to county candidates and prohibiting candidates from taking any money from them.
—Fining vendors as well as the candidates for violating the law.
—Referring possible violations to the county’s Board of Ethics, rather than the Board of Elections.
—Making the definition of “candidate” more clear by stating that anyone who has an active campaign committee at the beginning of an election year would be a candidate.

Day made his announcement this evening on the steps of the county courthouse, flanked by Legislators Doug Jobson, R-Stony Point and Minority Leader Gerold Bierker, C-Bardonia as well as Republican Legislature candidates Edna Rivera and Paul Valentine.

Day said that while the argument has been made that the law is unenforceable there has never been a court decision to that effect.

A lot of the candidates, mostly elected officials, he said, “are making a lot of excuses instead of complying.”

Valentine was one of three Legislature candidates that accepted vendor money according to the July periodic filing. He said he had thought the law applied only to incumbents and has since written checks back to those companies.

Bierker said candidates and elected officials should do whatever they could to keep their campaigns ethical.

“If you want to find the loophole, you will find the loophole,” he said. “But shame on you if you do it.”
 

County Legislator Ed Day, R-New City, will host an outdoor community forum from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday in front of DeCicco’s Marketplace at 180 South Main Street in New City.

Also scheduled to attend are representatives from the Little Tor Neighborhood Association, the New City Chamber of Commerce and the New City Hamlet Center Vision Plan Advisory Committee.

In a news release issued today, Day said the forum would provide “one stop shopping” for residents looking for information about the issues affecting the community.

Rockland County Legislator Ed Day, R-New City, said today that he will not run for the 94th Assembly seat, which is now vacant following the March 18 death of Assemblyman Kenneth P. Zebrowski.

(Vincent DiSalvio/The Journal News)

Day said he received several phone calls encouraging him to run, but decided he could best serve the public on the Rockland County Legislature.

“I just felt that I wanted to finish what I was doing,” he said.

For the time being, at least.

The County Legislature was scheduled to hold a public hearing and a vote on Legislator Ed Day’s proposal to give county employees one extra personal day for donating blood at least four times in a year. The public hearing was held last week, but the vote has been postponed.

Day, a New City Republican, said Chairwoman Harriet Cornell pulled him aside before the meeting and told him that it wouldn’t be voted on then. Four legislators were absent that night and there were several questions legislators needed answered, Day said of Cornell’s reasoning.

“She assured me it would be coming back,” he said.

His proposal was met with mixed reactions. Some people were of the thought that any incentive to get people to donate blood was a good thing. Others were concerned about the legal and cost ramifications.

Stay tuned…