David Andreatta

@david_andreatta

From a public relations standpoint, Cheryl Dinolfo's first year as Monroe County executive was something of a tire fire. Just when a fiasco appeared to flame out, it flared up again.

Dinolfo could have extinguished the blazes quickly, but her tendency to not answer questions about them directly was the bellows that inflamed the situation.

The best example of this was the months-long I-Square donnybrook, whose storyline was so convoluted it bears repeating anywhere else but here. That thing raged in part because Dinolfo, who is a lawyer by profession, wasn't forthcoming.

Her weakness for obfuscation was on display again Thursday during an interview on WXXI's Connections when the conversation turned to the matter of illegal fee waivers her office granted during her time as county clerk.

Recall that the current county clerk, Adam Bello, revealed in September that the office under Dinolfo shorted the county $35,000 by waiving transaction fees on passport and pistol permits for more than 660 people.

Illegal fee waivers cost taxpayers $35,000-plus, Bello says

It later came out that the office gave Dinolfo's husband, Monroe County Court Judge Vincent Dinolfo, a break on a $20 fee to renew his notary public license. Dinolfo has said her husband was exempt from the fee because he sought his license in an official capacity as a law clerk in Monroe County Surrogate's Court at the time.

The bulk of the waivers, 620 of them, were for $25 passport execution fees. Bello has since sent letters notifying beneficiaries of those waivers that they can voluntarily remit payment to his office. Who they are has remained a mystery, though.

While the U.S. State Department has ruled that those waivers violated federal law, it has refused to allow recipients to be identified because passports are confidential.

So unless someone publicly declares that they got a free pass, the public will never know who was among the chosen few. And there were just a few. The clerk's office issued 43,916 passports between 2008 and July 2016, the time period under scrutiny, meaning that less than 2 percent of applicants got waivers.

That was why Connections host Evan Dawson asked Dinolfo directly whether she or any other members of her family had fees waived. Her answer was evasive.

"We are looking at that and assessing that situation and if there were fees that were waived then they will be paid back given the (State Department) ruling," Dinolfo said.

Pressed on what an assessment entails and how long one might take, Dinolfo replied, "What we're hearing out in the community is that notifications that were being sent by the current county clerk were coming in stages and we're just assessing that as we go forward so that is the best that I can give you right now."

What poppycock.

In the unlikely event that Dinolfo and her kin didn't already know they received waivers, they would have gotten a notice weeks ago. The first notification letters went out on Oct. 21 and the last on Nov. 4, according to the clerk's office.

Even if she never got word, Dinolfo needn't inquire about this matter "out in the community." All she need do is walk across the hall from her office in the County Office Building to the clerk's office and ask. It's a distance of about 100 feet.

The clerk's office has fielded scores of inquiries from people wondering whether they got a freebie. The office won't reveal the list of recipients, but it will tell an individual whether he or she is on the list. Not every waiver recipient knew he or she was getting a break.

There must have been some method to the madness of the clerk's staff looking the other way if so few passport applicants got waivers, though. Dinolfo has said she understood those fees to be optional and that the waivers were intended to enhance "customer service."

To date, 138 waiver recipients have voluntarily paid the fee, according to the clerk's office.

The county executive no doubt already knows whether she or any of her relatives got a free pass. But instead of just saying so and either defending it or apologizing, she did what she does and reignited the blaze. Social media was abuzz during the program.

Dinolfo has a reputation as a smart, capable and kind-hearted person. She has already checked off a number of campaign promises and has the potential to be an effective leader. But dancing around direct questions is her Kryptonite.

New Year's is right around the corner and offers her a chance to resolve to snuff out the tire fire like a Christmas candle.

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David Andreatta is a Democrat and Chronicle columnist. He can be reached at dandreatta@gannett.com.