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11/11/2004: "THE TRIAL OF THE CENTURY"

One of the things you are not hearing about today is the trial of the century. Am I talking about Martha, Scott Peterson, OJ (oops that was last century), or Kobe? Am I looking at the future Enron trials? The insurance scandals? The Wall Street mess?

Of course not. This is a column on City governmental affairs. The trial of the century is the Allan Jennings disciplinary trial at the City Council which is occurring before the Standards and Ethics Committee.

You don’t even know who Allan Jennings is? Shame on you, because you should. He is impacting City government in ways you are not even aware of.

Jennings is a Council Member from southeast Queens. He represents an African-American district and is African-American. He is bright (the main stream press won’t tell you that), but at times his behavior borders on bizarre. Okay, it doesn’t border on bizarre, it is bizarre.

A few examples. Jennings voted against the 18.5% real property tax increase a few years back (not bizarre). As a result, he was stripped of his chairmanship of the Civil Service and Labor Committee, a perquisite he received because he was in Queens and he was on the winning side of the fight for the Speakership by Gifford Miller. Now he was on the winning side by virtue of the support of the Queens County Democratic machine.

When stripped, the Queens County Democratic machine made no effort to save his chairmanship. It is not as if the machine loved Jennings. He had been the maverick in the prior season’s primary battle for the seat he held, beating machine choice, Tony Andrews, another bright young man, but a bit less bizarre in his behavior.

So at the meeting where he lost his Chairmanship what did Jennings do? He compared himself to Jesus Christ. I kid you not. But you already knew this.

And you already know about the advertisements in the Asian press where he declared his love for his new Asian girlfriend (it seems as if Jennings has a prior wife who is Asian and who he has divorced). Now the media made this out to be a big deal. Frankly, Jennings can love, marry and divorce whomever he wants. But full page ads are a bit much.

And you know that Jennings has been accused of improper actions (both sexual and racial). The idiocy of it is that the accusing person is a lawyer who is one of the Council’s leading experts on equal employment. Let’s face it, if you are going to harass someone, you would tend to avoid the legal expert types. But this legal eagle is not one to avoid the issue and Jennings picked the wrong person to engage in bizarre and potentially illegal acts.

So now let’s face it. Jennings is a bit flaky, if not, much worse. But how is this impacting you?

Well, he has called forty witnesses for his Council trial contesting the charges. And this is taking up a lot of time at the Council. The trial is taking multiple days, all day and Jennings is going through his witnesses quite slowly. The entire Committee on Standards and Ethics is wasting their time on this trial. And who sits on this Committee?

The Chair, Helen Sears, is little known enough. But the rest of the Committee has some power. The other members include Gifford Miller, the Speaker, David Weprin, Chair of the Finance Committee, Melinda Katz, Chair of the Land Use Committee, and Madeline Provenzano, the Chair of Housing and Buildings (these may be the four of the five most powerful people in the Council). Even other members are not lightweights, including Joel Rivera, the Majority Leader, Peter F. Vallone, Jr., Chair of the Public Safety Committee, and Bill Perkins, Chair of the Governmental Operations Committee.

Two or three days a week, all day, these Committee Members trek on (we can add to the list above, Diane Reyna, Andrew Lanza, and Philip Reed since they are experiencing this torture as well and should be sent condolence cards as well). It is not done and it is distracting them from their Council duties.

Jennings is not going to change the outcome of his punishment with his trial and he has alienated himself from the rest of his fellow members. His effectiveness as a Council Member has been severely compromised. He is up for reelection next year. Last time around, his constituents gave him the benefit of the doubt and voted him back in. This time, they might want to think twice.

AND WHEN YOU SAY YOUR PRAYERS.

I saw this morning in the papers that the Prime Minister of Iraq had three relatives kidnapped. Despite what you might think of Allawi, I think most people would concede that he is trying to shape a democracy. Moreover, while we get casualty counts of Americans killed to date, we rarely get casualty counts of Iraqis killed to date.

I know we can be cynical about certain Iraqis, but most are hoping for something better and fighting to achieve it. Innocents are being killed for this. And they are fighting the terrorists due to US policy (let’s face it; if the terrorists weren’t there before, they are there now). So as our men help fight this war and you pray for them, add to your prayers the people of Iraq who want peace and democracy. They need your prayers as well.