Updated: County exec in the hot seat (at the stadium)
No, your eyes weren’t deceiving you … that WAS Westchester County Executive Andy Spano in the third row behind home plate at last night’s Yankees-Red Sox game at Yankee Stadium.
Astute county government watchers might have also noticed his companion at left, former Deputy County Executive Larry Schwartz. Schwartz eventually departed, but Spano stayed on through the end of the game to watch the home team complete a four-game sweep of their Boston rivals.
County spokeswoman Donna Greene says of his appearance (he was clearly shown on live TV behind every left-handed batter): “I was as surprised as you.”
Asked how Spano scored such hot seats, Greene promised to get back to us with the details.
(Thanks to Matt Richter of LoHudLive for the screen grab).
Update: Greene says via email: “Andy was a guest of an old friend who has nothing to do with the county.” She says Schwartz was a guest of the same old friend. We’ve tried asking who (again).
Update #2: via Greene: “The person Andy got the tickets from is Peter Derby of Irvington. (FYI he was a village councilman years ago, but is a friend of Andy.)” Derby worked in the Russian banking industry, then for the SEC, and then went on to launch his own investment fund, according to an NYU alumni profile here.
| 
Email This
Advertisements
Where was Nick Spano? Busy at his kitchen table signing things?
Didn’t know there were Derbys in Russia. Live and learn.
Great job. I thought it was him all night and was wondering how he got those seats- great job again!
Do we the Westchester Tax payers own those seats?? The price on theose “Hall of Fame” Seats is in the range of 1500-2500 per depending on when we the taxpayers bought them. By the way I have been in touch with Nita Lowey’s office to find out when her Town Hall meeting was going to be, I was told to leave my name,address and phone # and they would contact me. Do you think I might be getting a visit from some of Obambi’s Brown Shirts?? Acorn, or SEIU members?? They have not called me back and I heard on the radio it is to be tomorrow and it is to be a telephone conference—Nita you are surprising me more and more every day—- It’s time to RETIRE to Florida.Then no more having to worry about the inconvience of reading these darn bills.
John Griffin
50 Beverly Road
White Plains,NY 10605
914-262-6033
Not a big deal all the VIP politicians can be seen in these seats.
If so, at $2000 or more per seat, per game, this scam should be documented and either included by all of them as income as per IRS rules, or investigated as pro-quid-pro transactions. Ever see any of them in a $22 seat at any of these events? Let’s face it – If those who own these Julius Caesar seats weren’t purchasing influence from the likes of ethically- challenged purchasing agents or seamy politicians, the Yankees (or Mets) wouldn’t sell six of them in the entire stadium.
There are many things to criticize CE Spano about: high taxes, out of control spending, screwing up this discrimination lawsuit, etc. Let’s give the guy a break on going to a ball game. Let’s stick to issues and not get nutty here.
The scent of even the slightest small turd of potential conflict of interest or putting oneself in palpable indebtedness by a public official is problematic, never mind accepting multiple two- thousand dollar seats at a ballpark and hoping all the while that no one is noticing.