Legal cases follow one of the three scenarios. When the law is in favor of the case, the attorney bangs on the table and cites the law.
When the attorney has the evidence in his favor, he bangs on the table and brings the evidence. However, if the attorney doesn’t have the law nor the evidence in his favor he bangs on the table and screams something immaterial.
I’ve seen numerous episodes of this concept in circumstances not relevant to the courtrooms. Recently I came across a scenario in local politics.
Typically, prior to an election, individuals who are challenging the incumbents use their success stories from a previous political history as their main platform.
However, if the challenger has no prior political experience she or he resorts to a campaign promise relevant to the position s/he is seeking to get if elected.
I came across James Wu’s flyer who is running for mayoral election in the village of Great Neck, his chief agenda, in bold and flyer wide is “Support Our Schools.”
One might wonder why he is resorting to this something so irrelevant to to the responsibilities of a mayor?
It prompted me to do some google searches “James Wu campaign.” I came across a Dec. 12, 2013 Daily News article by Celeste Katz entitled “NYC Campaign Finance Board Fines Ex-City Council Hopeful For Faked Records And More.”
It was a bit of surprise to find that:
“James Wu, a business consultant who ran in the 2009 Democratic primary for Council District 20 in Queens, got jammed up when his campaign submitted false documents”
According to Daily News, James Wu was caught for committing 10 different counts of campaign violations. For instance:
“Intentionally furnishing false documentation and information
[James Wu’s] Campaign reported receiving a $20,030 loan from [his brother] Thomas Wu on Sept. 2, 2009, and submitted a notarized loan agreement, dated September 2, 2009. However, this amount was never deposited into the Campaign’s bank account. The Campaign made subsequent payments to Thomas Wu, in 2009 and 2011, totaling $20,030. In the online version of the article I was able to download the citation (list of 10 violations and the fines assessed for each violation
Obviously, “the bang and scream something” was no real surprise.
Wu did not choose a relevant platform as apparently, he had no choice other than “banging the table and scream something immaterial.”
A village municipality deals with issues such as: road maintenance, buildings, new construction, garbage removal, street cleaning, permits for renovations, traffic signs, etc and the budget for supporting all of these activities while minimizing the tax burden in the constituents.
The current administration of VGN, i.e., the mayor and the board of trustees, has unprecedented success in the history of the village by providing better than ever services to the community with no increases in tax for three consecutive years.
The current village administration has shown a responsible fiscal behavior protecting the interests of its residents by getting rid of $1,000,000 structural deficit inherited from the previous administration and keeping a flat tax for the past three years. They are transparent.
In fact, they are the only municipality that streams their hearings. We wish the other municipalities which I am paying taxes to would follow suit.
Wu has failed to provide anything to support his claim for running a better village other than banging on the table.
Leon Manoucheri
Great Neck
