For example, I do not recall having a problem, to date, when filing FOIL requests with the office of the New York State Comptroller.
The NYS Comptroller's office
(1) has a contact e-mail for FOIL requests;
(2) promptly responds to FOIL requests;
(3) promptly provides requested records, and
(4) even has a public list of types of records that are available for FOIL requests - whether that list is complete or incomplete, I did not have time to check yet, but it is long, 11 pages.
One of the items on that 11-page list is time-sheets of employees.
It is understandable that employees on taxpayers' payroll must have time-sheets showing whether they actually worked on a certain day or not.
If they didn't work on a certain day, they cannot draw their salaries and benefits for that day (or for hours not worked).
That principle is applicable to taxpayer-funded public officials on all levels, from state to county to local governments.
Apparently, not so for wifes-of-judges who are public officials.
I filed, long time ago, in September of 2015, a FOIL request regarding time sheets of Otsego County Attorney (NY) Ellen Coccoma, who is wife of the Chief Administrative Judge of upstate New York Michael Coccoma.
Yesterday, on March 28, 2016, as part of my administrative appeal of constructive denial of my FOIL request, after assurance of a prolonged "legal review" of my request, I finally got the answer to my inquiry for Ellen Coccoma's time sheets - there are none.
Now, why did Otsego County need 6 months and an administrative appeal of constructive denial of my FOIL request to provide an answer that there are NO public records responsive to my request?
To give Ellen Coccoma time to find and destroy those time sheets better? After her alleged "legal review" that Otsego County claimed they are doing?
So, either Otsego County Attorney Ellen Coccoma destroyed those as part of her alleged "legal review", or such time sheets were never filed by her.
And that's a shame.
Because I know for a fact - and there are court records to back me up - that Ellen Coccoma, during daytime, when she, as a full-time, taxpayer paid Otsego County Attorney was supposed to do work for Otsego County - was representing private clients in private court cases, in her side job as "special counsel" for Hinman, Howard and Kattel, a large law firm out of Binghamton, New York.
"Coincidentally", Ellen Coccoma was recently part of the Professional Conduct Commission of the Appellate Division, 3rd Judicial Department.
As an attorney and "officer of the court", spouse of a high-ranking judge, and a recent prosecutor of attorney misconduct, Ellen Coccoma should be beyond reproach - not in the sense that she is immune to criticism and above the law, but she should conduct herself to a higher standard than the lay public.
Yet, in a "strange coincidence", Ellen Coccoma did not file or destroyed her time sheets, so that they are not available for my review on FOIL request, and a recent attorney for the same Professional Conduct Committee where Coccoma was a recent member, of the NYS Supreme Court Appellate Division 3rd Department Steven Zayas (along with the Chief Attorney Peter Torncello and third attorney) was caught and "resigned" for falsifying time sheets - which did not cause them to lose their law licenses, as it did not cause Christina Ryba, "special counsel" for that court's chief judge Karen Peters, to lose her law license after she was fired in November of 2015 for unethical conduct.
Do they teach how to engage in unethical conduct and escape without discipline in that 3rd Department Committee - or is it just the wife-of-a-judge pedigree that went to Coccoma's head?
I will follow up with FOIL requests and other actions to several public authorities about this extraordinary admission by the Otsego County that I squeezed out of Otsego County only at the threat of a lawsuit.
Stay tuned.
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