Make that check out to…
 Mayor Clinton Young and state Senate Minority Leader Malcolm Smith will be
the big draws Sunday at a fundraiser honoring Devereaux Cannick as the new
chairman of the Mount Vernon Democratic party.
When the invitation was first posted on the party website, it required a bit of a rewrite.
That was because on the line where it told people how to make out their
checks, it indicated “payable to Chairman’s Club.’‘’  It was gone within a few days, replaced by “payable to the Mount Vernon Democratic City Committee.” But not before it raised a few eyebrows.
The last two party leaders, Reggie Lafayette and Serapher Conn-Halevi, each had
similar funds. Such political committees are legal, but public interest groups have criticized them as slush funds that exist as loopholes in election law. The Journal News reported earlier this year that Conn-Halevi paid herself and her daughter more than $20,000 from the Chairwoman’s Trust last year.
Cannick has not registered such a committee with the county but said he may
do so down the road. He maintains it was always his intention for the proceeds of his first big party fundraiser to go directly to the party committee to help it address some recent fiscal trouble. He said he never saw that initial invitation on the website so he does not know how the wording was placed there or how it came to be taken off.
—-Jon Bandler
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the big draws Sunday at a fundraiser honoring Devereaux Cannick as the new
chairman of the Mount Vernon Democratic party.
When the invitation was first posted on the party website, it required a bit of a rewrite.
That was because on the line where it told people how to make out their
checks, it indicated “payable to Chairman’s Club.’‘’  It was gone within a few days, replaced by “payable to the Mount Vernon Democratic City Committee.” But not before it raised a few eyebrows.
The last two party leaders, Reggie Lafayette and Serapher Conn-Halevi, each had
similar funds. Such political committees are legal, but public interest groups have criticized them as slush funds that exist as loopholes in election law. The Journal News reported earlier this year that Conn-Halevi paid herself and her daughter more than $20,000 from the Chairwoman’s Trust last year.
Cannick has not registered such a committee with the county but said he may
do so down the road. He maintains it was always his intention for the proceeds of his first big party fundraiser to go directly to the party committee to help it address some recent fiscal trouble. He said he never saw that initial invitation on the website so he does not know how the wording was placed there or how it came to be taken off.
—-Jon Bandler
| Email This
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Charlatans all. What they call “loopholes,” any rational person would call codified larceny.
Gov. Paterson has raised 3.2 million in the past two months for his war chest to retain the governor’s seat in the next election. Wonder where all those dollars came from. The poor? Unlikely. More likely, special interests who want to keep on his good side right now despite what happens in the next election. He, and most of the rest of them up there need to be dusted- off and put back in the box. They may as well staple a big sign to their foreheads that reads: FOR RENT. And, under that sign, another one that reads: UNFURNISHED!