03/14/11 No Wonder This Rag Is Called The Westmore Snooze: Former Westmore News Reporter Nik Bonopartis Has Filed Another Report About The Latest Building Department Police Raid And Richard Abel Is Still Asleep At The Switch

Photo: Once Again Westmore News Publisher Richard "My Daddy Gave Ne This Newspaper After He Forgot To Pay Over 100 Tax Bills" Abel Is In A Self Induced Coma.

Ace Nik Bonopartis Files One Breaking Port Chester News Story After Another At The New AOL / Patch News Website.

Staffing Changes Pending for Building Department as Authorities Review Thousands of Records

Of some 3,000 building permits issued over a decade, more than 1,000 are incomplete, creating a major time-sink for investigators.

By Nik Bonopartis - AOL / Port Chester Patch

Staffing changes and new leadership are in store for the building department as police and prosecutors dig through "thousands" of records that span more than a decade, officials said Monday.

For all intents and purposes, the building department remains frozen in time after police detectives installed new locks on the beleaguered office on Friday. The office is physically off-limits to anyone except investigators from the Port Chester Police Department and the Westchester County District Attorney's Office, as authorities look to preserve records and evidence.

An investigation into corruption at the building department began on April 29 of last year, when police closed the office for the first time and carted away boxes of records. Some employees were sent home Friday after police returned to lock the office down, but the department's clerical staff has been moved and will remain available to take applications and answer questions, Mayor Dennis Pilla said.

Police have remained mum of the details of the investigation, but former Building Inspector Frank Ruccolo was suspended in the aftermath, and officials say police have been digging through thousands of individual paper records that span a decade, when Leonard Cusumano – Ruccolo's predecessor – helmed the department.

When maintenance worker Daniel DeLisa was fired in February for allegedly outsourcing his $5,400-a-year cleaning job, DeLisa told authorities the late Cusumano gave his blessing to outsource the job a decade ago. Similar stories abound in the village.

One major time-sink for investigators is the sheer number of records in disorganized paper files. Those records pre-date recent modernization and digitization efforts at village hall, and Pilla said investigators are working through a cache of 3,000 building permits.

Of those permit files, 1,000 were never closed, meaning current staffers don't know what happened with those cases.

The process involves "reinspecting all of the suspicious-looking inspections from the past, to make sure that in the present tense there are no violations," Pilla said. "There are thousands of records that are abnormal. And the people of Port Chester need to understand that's going to take time."

While Pilla said potential criminal charges would come "not soon enough," he said the investigation's scope has expanded beyond the records at village hall.

Police have not discussed details, but a source familiar with the investigation said authorities are looking at the bank statements, property assets and financial records of suspected employees. The source pointed to one former employee who owns a home worth almost $1 million and likely could not have financed the home with official, reported income.

Sources say those patterns have increasingly become a focus of several concurrent criminal investigations – including the building department case and the parking meter theft probe.

In the meantime, Port Chester's leaders are exploring several options for the future of the building department. Pilla said staffers are exploring the possibility of combining building department operations with a nearby municipality, while Village Manager Christopher Russo interviews civil service candidates for the building inspector role. Russo will present a list of candidates to the board "very shortly," possibly at the next public board meeting.

Check back with Port Chester Patch for updates on the building department investigation.

HERE IS NIK'S PREVIOUS BREAKING NEWS STORY FROM EARLIER TODAY:

03/14/11 Where's The Westmore News? Here Is Another Port Chester Patch Breaking News Alert

BREAKING NEWS

TWO THUMBS UP FOR THE PORT CHESTER PATCH !!!! FORMER WESTMORE NEWS REPORTER NIK BONOPARTIS HAS ONCE AGAIN SCOOPED HIS OLD BOSS RICHARD "MY DADDY GOT ME THIS NEWSPAPER BY FORGETTING TO PAY OVER 100 PROPERTY TAX BILLS" ABEL . GOVERNMENT Police Shutter Building Department Again; Employees Sent Home Ten months after launching an investigation into corruption at Port Chester's building department, police have shut the office down again. By Nik Bonopartis | Mar 14, 2011

In a sign that a 10-month corruption investigation may be coming to a close, Port Chester police shuttered the building department at village hall on Friday, freezing operations and sending employees home. Details remain few. Port Chester police Lt. James Ladeairous confirmed detectives closed the office on Friday, saying the office is physically off-limits pending action by the police and village government. Mayor Dennis Pilla also confirmed the lock-down. "This is yet another step in the journey of rooting out corruption in Port Chester," he wrote in reply to a query from Patch......

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02/10/11 More Of The Building Department's Coruuption Exposed: Port Chester Maintenance Worker Fired Over 'Outsourcing' Cleaning Duties

The Building Department's Chicken's Are Coming Home To Roost

Port Chester Village Manager Christopher Russo fired Daniel DeLisa, a cleaning and maintenance employee, after learning that he had been collecting a check and having someone else do the work.

Mr. DeLisa said he was authorized to "outsource" the job 10 years ago by a supervisor in the Building Department, Leonard "Let's Make A Deal" Cusumano, who is now dead.

Port Chester Village Manager Christopher Russo is handling the situation, because Port Chester is a village manager form of government and the manager is responsible for monitoring, directing, managing and firing village employees.

It is reported that Mr. DeLisa was hired in 2000 to clean what was then a village office on Willett Avenue and outsourced his job in 2001,

Mr. DeLisa was paid $5,400 a year for the three day per week cleaning of the Department of Works office. That worked out to $34.81 per visit, before insurance and tax deductions.

It's not clear what amount of money the woman was receiving, but it was common knowledge in the Department of Public Works that she was working for Mr. DeLisa. There was some speculation that she got about half of the $34.81 for each cleaning visit.

The arrangement came to light when a public works foreman reported that the woman hadn't been paid.

Port Chester Village Manager Christopher Russo said he will do the right thing and to report the situation to law enforcement. Let's see if Port Chester Police Chief Joseph "I Had No Clue All Of This Corruption Was Going On" Krzeminski

When asked about the case Mr.Russo said it was just one more thing to clean up.

Port Chester Mayor Dennis Pilla said,"I brought in a professional management team that is uncovering patterns of corruption and rooting them out. These are things that have been going on for many years. They started before I got into office and are ending now. The buck stops here.”

The firing is the latest in a rash of disciplinary cases in the Port Chester Department and Public Works and Building Department.

• Public Works General Foreman Gary Racaniello, who was in charge of the stolen parking meter funds collection, was served with 36 disciplinary charges and suspended without pay last year. He resigned.
• Disciplinary charges concerning the village’s parking meter revenue, were also leveled four months later against William Oxer who was suspended without pay. A disciplinary hearing is currently being scheduled for Mr Oxer.
• Last May, Port Chester Assistant Building Inspector Frank Ruccolo was suspended without pay pending disciplinary charges and eventually opted for retirement.
• A slew of disciplinary charges have also been leveled against many other DPW workers for various infractions, and one was fi red for stealing gasoline.

Why isn't Port Chester Chief of Police Joesph Krezminski arresting these guy's.

Mayorial Wanna Be And Extremist TEA Party Lunatic Bart "The Bigot" Didden has repeatedly complained that Port Chester Village Manager Christopher Russo should have asked for an updated W-4 form.

Village Manager Christopher Russo said he didn’t see how this fraud would have been discovered even if DeLisa had been required to update a W-4 form to change his deductions every year.

Mayorial Wanna Be And Extremist TEA Party Lunatic Bart "The Bigot" Didden seems not to understand that Mr. Delissa could have come in and updated his deductions on a W-4 and still have subcontracted it out,

Does Extremist TEA Party Lunatic Bart "The Bigot" Didden think that Mr. DeLissa Would have just walked into the village manager's office and filled a W-4 form in a manner that would have said that he was defrauding the state retirement system.

Sometimes, it is just shocking how clueless Extremist TEA Party Lunatic Bart "The Bigot" Didden is.

All hell is going to break loose if they really ever start investigating all of the coruption surrounding Leonard Cusumano's tenure at the Port Chester Building Department. Many in Port Chester speculate of Mr. Cusumano would lead to Fritz Falanka and to former Department Of Public Works Head Billy "Ka Ching Ka Ching Ka Ching" Suma who went down south.

Maybe, they should independently look into how Lenny "Let's Make A Deal" Cusumano shook down and covered up the wrong doings with the building of the BMW Service Center that recently was able to emerge out of Bankruptcy.

But We All Know That Former Mayor Gerald "I Drive A Buick - Not A BMW" Logan and Gary "Forget About That Expensive Fire Exit" Gianfrancesco will never let that happen.

UPDATE:

Better Late Than Never

The Westmore Snooze Finally Reports

On The Story

Village custodian got paid while another did the work

BY JANANNE ABEL

Village Manager Christopher Russo has uncovered another skeleton in Port Chester’s closet. A custodian who was employed by the village and whose hours were being reported to the New York State Retirement System for the last 11 years was actually subcontracting the work to another for the last 10 of those years.

Daniel DeLisa was hired as a part-time cleaner in March 2000. When he was fi rst hired, he was responsible for cleaning 110 Willett Avenue as well as the Department of Public Works yard offi ces on Fox Island Road. His business got busier, so he asked and received permission from then Building Inspector Lenny Cusumano, now deceased, for another person to do it.....

Abel's Fables

Once again, The Newspaper Founded By Bernie "My Family Is Doing Okay, Because I Forgot To Pay Over 100 Property Tax Bills" Abel Fails To Tell Its Readers Just How Bad The Decades Of Village Corruption Really Is.

The Westmore News Is Not Going To Push The Story To Far, Because They Are Afraid That Department Of Public Works Employees Will Start Talking About How Bernie Transfered Multi-Tenant Apartment Building Over To Family Members For As Little As A Hundred Bucks When The Village Started To Foreclose on Them.

God Forbid, That The Department Of Public Works Employees Started To Talk About How Some Of The Buildings That Port Chester Took From Bernie On Willow Street Mysteriously Went Up In Flames.

Maybe One Day Port Chester Roundup Will Have To Release A Few Of The Documents On Bernnie "I Forgot To Pay Over 100 Property Tax Bills" Abel

Now You Know Why Westmore News Publisher Richard "My Daddy Saved So Much Money On Property Taxes He Gave Me This Newspaper" Abel Has Failed For Decades To Uncover Corruption At The DPW.

For Decades The Westmore Snooze Has Been A Sleep At The Switch When It Cames To Uncover Port Chester Corruption.

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