David Andreatta

@david_andreatta

After explaining to a roomful of reporters how he'd uncovered a "culture of fee waiving" that cost taxpayers $35,000 over eight years, Monroe County Clerk Adam Bello was incredulous when one of them suggested his news conference was politically motivated.

Bello, a Democrat who was the recipient of a controversial gubernatorial appointment to the clerkship earlier this year, is expected to face a tough election in November. A Republican had held his office for over 20 years.

"Well, let me say this, this has nothing to do with politics, and I'll tell you why," said Bello, who proceeded to tell them everything he claimed the law would allow him to reveal except why his announcement wasn't political.

He told of how his office, under his predecessor, broke state and federal laws in waiving fees for passports and pistol permits and records searches for as many as 668 people and one company, and how he planned to recoup the money, which he noted was "equally important to me."

"This has nothing to do with an election. This has nothing to do with my opponent in an election," Bello said. "Frankly, the election is six, seven, eight weeks from now."

Seven weeks, but who's counting?

Bello wouldn't reveal the identities of those who got preferential treatment or how they were selected for the county's charity, other than to say the rank-and-file clerk staff "was essentially trained to look for certain individuals to give fee waivers to."

But the inference anyone listening was supposed to draw was that the beneficiaries were local Republican Party loyalists and their families, otherwise known as F.O.B.'s, F.O.M.'s and F.O.C.'s — Friends of Bill's, Friends of Maggie's and Friends of Cheryl's.

Bill is County Republican Party Chairman Bill Reilich. Maggie, of course, is former County Executive Maggie Brooks. And Cheryl is Cheryl Dinolfo, the current county executive who was the county clerk when all of this fee-waiving was going on.

How was the clerk's staff "trained" to identify these "friends"? Were they to look for anyone dressed like the Monopoly Man or Mr. Peanut? Perhaps "friends" just flashed the red, white and blue elephant pin on their lapel or the F.O.B.M.C. tattooed on their knuckles.

Bello wouldn't say. Whatever the method, it was apparently good for a waived $25 passport execution fee or a $12 pistol permit conversion card fee. Bello said there were 15 members of one family who got their fees waived.

Make no mistake, Bello's announcement was entirely political. He wants to keep his job. But that doesn't make his announcement less worthwhile.

If what Bello claims to have found is true, he'll have peeled back yet another layer of evidence that Monroe County government has operated for years like a corrupt clout machine built to enrich a relatively small circle of "friends."

There's been ample proof of this — from the Robutrad and LDC scandals to the patronage hires and recent I-Square controversy — yet the circle never seems to widen.

That's because favors for friends equals votes. What's going on in Monroe County isn't the democracy of the Federalist Papers or government by the people for the people. It's democracy in a one-party echo chamber, and government by back-scratching.

In the absence of effective political opposition, corruption is inevitable and the job of keeping government in check falls to the media. But journalists aren't on the inside, where the power to right wrongs lies. Most of them don't even know where to look for abuse.

To find his list of passport waiver recipients, Bello queried his office's database for passport applicants with a "passport execution fee" equal to $0, recognizing the fee as one that could be manually manipulated. What journalist would know to look for that?

Coming soon: Access to state-court records

Brett Walsh, a spokesman for Dinolfo, all but accused Bello of political grandstanding in a prepared statement.

He noted that there are several reasons a person might qualify for a fee exemption, and said that without knowing who got a waiver there was no way to understand the context under which the waivers were granted.

Bello said he was prohibited by law from revealing the names of people whose passport fees were waived, but that he was seeking permission from the U.S. State Department to do so.

"There's no politics involved here," Bello said. "It's about finding abuse in the system."

That's not true, but if politics can help root out abuse, then bring it on.

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

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