everyone at nassau otb has opinions not only of november but of the day to day operations of joseph g cairo president of nassau otb
opm can do what nassau otb cannot
https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/leave-administration/fact-sheets/voluntary-leave-transfer-program/
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Nassau GOP chair intends to collect fat paychecks for 3 jobs
https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/leave-administration/fact-sheets/voluntary-leave-transfer-program/
On the heels of pay-to-play corruption scandals that have tarnished the Long Island GOP, the Nassau County Republic Party has elected a one-time disbarred lawyer to be its new leader — and the retirement-age politico intends to collect fat paychecks from three different jobs simultaneously.
Joseph Cairo, 72, the new chairman of the Nassau County Republican Party, is also head of the Nassau County Off-Track Betting Corporation. He’s paid $198,000 at OTB.
The long-time No. 2 to former Nassau GOP boss Joe Mondello had his law license yanked in the 1990s for misusing client funds. His license was reinstated and the politically-connected lawyer now has an established law practice, GOP sources said.
He also has not ruled out collecting a third paycheck from the Nassau GOP.
Mondello, his predecessor, made more than $250,000 last year as GOP boss, and pulled in $1.5 million from his private law practice and real estate investments, records filed with the government show.
At one time, Mondello also simultaneously headed the Nassau GOP and OTB.
Cairo’s law office is in Valley Stream, his OTB’s corporate office is in Mineola and Nassau GOP headquarters is in Westbury.
A Post reporter found him at GOP headquarters.
Cairo said he was not relinquishing his OTB executive job or suspending his law practice after taking the reins of the GOP.
“I’ve been at OTB. This is a crucial time at OTB with possibly sports gambling coming so we’re deeply involved with that there now,” Cairo said.
“This is a political position. My attorneys tell me there is no conflict and I think having a position in a political party is such that it’s been done in the past by people on both sides of the aisle. And I think it’s currently done, too, in some other counties — their elected officials are also party chairmen,” he said.
But watchdogs have long complained that allowing people to simultaneously hold top positions in government and party leadership opens the door to conflicts of interests and potential corruption.
“It’s business as usual. This is an example of the rotten political system in Nassau County,” said George Marlin, who formerly served on the Nassau County Interim Finance Authority, a state agency set up to monitor the county’s shaky finances.
Marlin said the multiple paid gigs for Cairo is remarkable, especially after the Nassau Republicans lost the county executive’s race and the Town of Hempstead supervisor’s race last year amid concerns over corruption.
“They’ve learned nothing,” Marlin said. “They don’t care.”
Cairo chalked up the suspension of his law license to a mistake from the distant past.
“I think that’s something that happened — it was earlier than ‘95, that’s 25 years ago, and I think people who know me know the type of person I am,” he said.
With that, Cairo grabbed a suit jacket from a parked black Cadillac before jumping into the passenger seat of a Jaguar driven by a friend.
Cairo is right about one thing. On Long Island particularly, politicians simultaneously collecting hefty paychecks from top government and political party posts is a time-honored tradition.
The Post reported last week that Rich Schaffer is drawing down a combined $350,000 from three paychecks as head of the Suffolk County Democratic Party, as the full-time Town of Babylon Supervisor and from a law practice that includes representing plumbing contractors.
But Long Island Democrats have their scandals, too.
Gerard Terry, the former North Hempstead Democratic Party chairman, was convicted of tax evasion for failing to report his income that included payments from legal services provided to eight different local government agencies.
New Nassau County Executive Laura Curran, a Democrat who won the election on anti-corruption platform last year, passed executive orders barring county government officials from holding party positions or from accepting gifts.
New York City has a law that bars top government officials from serving as party bosses, following the municipal corruption scandals of the 1980s.
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Trump’s Pittsburgh Speech Was a Paying Gig for the Audience
Thousands of union workers at a multibillion-dollar petrochemical plant being built outside Pittsburgh were given the choice of attending a speech by President Trump on Tuesday or staying away — and losing some of their pay for the week.
“Your attendance is not mandatory,” one of the construction site’s contractors wrote in rules for the speech that were shared with its employees, according to The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which first reported on the matter. But the rules said that only those who arrived at 7 a.m., had their work IDs scanned and then stood waiting for the president for several hours would get paid for the time.
“NO SCAN, NO PAY,” a supervisor for the contractor wrote, according to the paper.
The president’s appearance at the Royal Dutch Shell facility in Beaver County, where natural gas will be converted into plastic for a wide range of products, was publicized as a speech about energy, but it was hard to distinguish it from a standard campaign rally. Mr. Trump repeatedly targeted rivals and aired his political grievances.
At one point, Mr. Trump said he was going to speak to some of the union leaders representing the assembled workers about supporting his re-election. “And if they don’t,” Mr. Trump told the workers, “vote them the hell out of office, because they’re not doing their job.”
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Ray Fisher, a spokesman for Shell, said in an email to The Times that workers who didn’t show up for the speech would still have gotten paid for their workweek, but not as much as those who scanned in and stayed on site all day.
The day “was treated as a training (work) day with a guest speaker who happened to be the president,” Mr. Fisher said in the email.
“We do these several times a year with various speakers,” he said, adding that there was a morning session before the speech that started at 7 a.m. and lasted for three hours. It “included safety training and other work-related activities,” Mr. Fisher said.
“It was understood some would choose not to attend the Presidential visit and were given the option to take paid time off” instead, he wrote. “As with any workweek, if someone chooses to take PTO,” he said, referring to paid time off, “they are not eligible to receive the maximum overtime available.”
According to The Post-Gazette, workers were told that “anything viewed as resistance” to Mr. Trump would not be tolerated at the event, which, the workers were told, was intended to foster “good will” with the building trade unions.
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The decision was greeted with acceptance by some union leaders.
“This is just what Shell wanted to do, and we went along with it,” Ken Broadbent, a business manager for Steamfitters Local 449, told The Post-Gazette. He said that workers respected the office of the president, and that people could have chosen not to show up.
A White House spokesman did not respond to an email seeking comment.
