The Commission to Investigate Public Corruption
October 28 Manhattan Hearing:
(1) In conjunction with my registration to attend Monday’s hearing of the Commission to Investigate Public Corruption, which I also combined (in the address section, with a request to testify), I have sent a protest to the Commission, on behalf of the public, reading:
“On behalf of the public, I protest that the Commission's October 28th 'public hearing' is not only 'topic limited' to prevent the public from testifying as to the breadth of public corruption within its knowledge and experience, but that it explicitly excludes the public from even testifying as to that limited topic, relegating We, The People, to nothing more than spectators who may 'attend only'.”
(2) For those who already registered to attend Monday’s hearing of the Commission to Investigate Public Corruption (Oct 28), the start time of the hearing has been changed! It now begins at 5 pm (with doors opening at 4 pm).
(3) The end time also has been changed. It is no longer 9:30 pm, but to “Conclusion of Invited Speaker Testimony”. This change is obviously to prevent the embarrassment to the Commission that occurred at the Sept 24 Albany hearing – where the last scheduled witness finished 1/2 hour before the announced 9 pm ending time, yet the Commission did not use the opportunity of the free ½ hour to invite members of the public who had come to the hearing hoping to testify and who had registered to testify to do so. And, by the way, the reason the Commission had announced a 9 pm ending time for the Sept 24 Albany hearing was because it thought it could be “smart” and prevent a repeat of what happened at the Sept 17 hearing in Manhattan – which had not ended until 9:40 pm.
(4) For those who have not yet registered for Monday’s hearing, you can still do so – notwithstanding the registration page says on top “”Submissions for this form are closed”. Just proceed to the bottom & click to registration form.
(5) Please let me know if you are planning to come, so that we can coordinate strategy, vis-à-vis, media, which will be there. Again, if you have not furnished me with your written statements about your requests to the Commission to testify at public hearings – and its responses, if any – please do so, as soon as possible.
September 17 (Manhattan) Hearing
It is extremely important that witnesses who testified at the Commission’s September 17th hearing in Manhattan compare the stenographic transcription of their oral testimony with the video – both posted on our webpage “The People Have Something to Say -- & Evidence to Back It Up”, accessible via our homepage, www.judgewatch.org. Here’s the direct link: http://www.judgewatch.org/
By the way, my October 25th letter will be invaluable for our demand that court proceedings be audio/video recorded because of the inaccuracy &/or doctoring of transcripts. Your experience &, more importantly, your filed complaints about inaccurate, doctored transcripts – and about court proceedings for which neither transcript nor recordings are available – are essential to our presentation on the subject to the Commission. Let me hear from you!
September 17 (Manhattan) Hearing & September 24 (Albany) Hearing
Only by making public what the public is saying to the Commission about judicial and other governmental corruption will we be able to prevent the Commission from getting away with its intended cover-up. Read my October 24th letter to the Commission entitled “Public Access to the Record of the Commission’s September 17 and September 24th Public Hearings: Written Testimony & Other Supporting Materials”, posted on our website, here:http://www.judgewatch.org/
Other Important Info
I probably don’t need to tell you that I will be voting NO on Proposition #6 – a constitutional amendment to extend the retirement age of NY Court of Appeals judges & Supreme Court justices to 80, from its present 70. Earlier this week, I sent you an e-mail identifying that that ballot proposition had NOT been the subject of any legitimate legislative process in the Legislature.
Catherine Wilson, who testified at the Commission’s Sept 17 Manhattan hearing, responded to that e-mail. She stated she had done a financial analysis of the constitutional amendment proposal, available through Amazon:
She described it, as follows: “Uncover the history and reasons behind the 2013 proposed NYS constitutional amendment to increase the judicial mandatory retirement age to age 80, an multi-million dollar exercise that will benefit only 1% of all NYS judges. Includes information regarding the mandatory retirement ages for other NYS employees, statistics regarding judicial retirements and demographic breakdown, and financial disclosure regarding current judicial compensation for judges over 70 collecting both court salaries and NYS pensions.”
Thank you, Catherine, for your important contribution.
Lastly,
I have not yet written our Petition about the Commission and its hearings – but will do so, hopefully, within the next week. Our target date for presenting it – to the Governor, etc. – with hopefully thousands of signatures -- will be December 1st – the date on which the Commission’s preliminary report is due.
Thank you. As always, SPREAD THE WORD….FORWARD THIS E-MAIL!
Elena Sassower, Director
Center for Judicial Accountability, Inc. (CJA)
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