Liz pointed out yesterday that something was amiss about the whole Paterson trying to appoint Aubertine to the NYPA thing. Unfortunately I fell for it hook, line and sinker. The bait was enticing though, Senator Aubertine came out with a press release stating that he was declining a job with the NYPA that would have tripled his salary to stay loyal to his constituents in the 48th District. Well now Aubertine seems to backtrack, but just a little bit.
From The Daily Politcs:
Sen. Darrel Aubertine, whose NYPA job offer uproar got lost in the Sen. Joe Bruno-retirement shuffle, just issued the folowing statement:
"If there was a misunderstanding, then there was a misunderstanding. The Governor is a friend and ally and someone that I've worked with extensively on important energy issues.""What's important right now is that we move on and not let this story distract from the important work we need to do before the end of session. We need to provide real property tax relief to working families across the state and reform and reauthorize IDA's so we can get them creating jobs."
"Above all, we need to do the work people elected us to do. I'm proud to serve the people of the Central and Northern New York and that includes working with my colleagues in the Legislature and the Governor to accomplish as much as we can before the end of session."
Senate Democrat sources insisted that the governor's chief of staff, Charles O'Byrne, called Aubertine on his cell phone last Tuesday while he was in session and then subsequently met with him on the second floor later that day and offered him the NYPA job.
The governor's office couldn't confirm the meeting to CapConf, which also reported that Aubertine and some of his fellow Democrats had a meeting with O'Byrne earlier today that got rather heated.
Hmm, that certainly does sound like a big misunderstanding. Perhaps he was offering the job at a date to be determined? Or maybe he wanted to give him the chance to have input over the next head of the NYPA? All of this seems odd, but the important thing is that at the end of the day, Aubertine is sticking around....and thankfully Joe Bruno isn't.
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