Talespin: Jimino, Merola remain uncontested

The Democrats met a week ago today, and as expected, failed to come up with candidates to run against County Executive Kathy Jimino and County Clerk Frank Merola.

We can’t say as we blame them. To run a viable, countywide race against two popular incumbents is an expensive, and likely losing endeavor. It’s too bad as it would have made this year all the more fun.

Now we’re stuck with two judicial races and while one is shaping up to be more exciting than most judge races, it only means it’ll be like watching two old people drink lemonade and play chess rather than checkers.

There is a three-way Democratic primary shaping up for family court and the party’s nominee, Richard Hanft, was nominated to fill the vacancy by the governor. He is, however, facing a primary from Troy attorney Beth Walsh and East Greenbush attorney Geri Pomerantz, who secured the Working Families Party endorsement.

Hanft still needs confirmation by the Senate, and who knows what they’re doing, but we’re fairly certain a Rensselaer County Family Court judge is not high on their agenda.

In the meantime, while that all shakes out, whoever wins the primary in September will run against Republican Arthur Dunn in the November’s general election.

In the other judicial race, Rensselaer County Court Judge Andrew Ceresia, who was nominated by the governor and confirmed by the Senate before it blew up, is running against Republican Charles Wilcox. Yawn.

Outside of the judge races, there is primary shaping up in at least one of the towns we are aware of. North Greenbush Democratic Party Chairman Dan Ashley is circulating petitions for the Legislature in the hopes of running a five-way primary for the four open slots in District 2 against the party’s picks of incumbents Keith Hammond, Kevin Harrington and Brian Zweig as well as newcomer Phillip Malone.

In Troy, we hear the two candidates for county Legislature looking for an eight-way primary, city Democratic Chairman Frank LaPosta and former Councilman Dan Doran, are said to be doing pretty well collecting petitions signatures even though they don’t have the party’s support.

The party picked incumbent Peter Grimm as well as newcomers Kathleen Cassidy, Mark Fleming, Edward Manny, Louis Rosamilia and Troy Councilman Peter Ryan.

The last one makes not too much sense since Ryan gave up a safe seat in District 3 that was a lock for the Democrats, only to jump into an eight way city-wide primary and then, should he survive that, a city-wide general election.

Mirch and the NYCLU

The New York Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Sanctuary for Independent Media recently and named Department of Public Works Commissioner Bob Mirch both personally and as an employee of the city.

Thing is, we now know Mirch didn’t give the order to close down the Sanctuary the day after the controversial art exhibit “Virtual Jihadi” opened. That order came from higher up the food chain.

Actually, contrary to popular opinion, it’s not really Mirch’s style to just shut stuff down. We think he’d rather keep it open so he can stage protests, feign righteous indignation and get his face on TV and his name in the paper. It’s just too easy to just shut them down. And we don’t think he thinks it’s nearly as much fun.

The objective of the “Virtual Jihadi” video game/art exhibit, if you remember, is to kill Pres. George Bush. Offensive? Who knows. The only thing we know about “Art” is he runs a pretty cool bar on Fourth Street.

Legislature leaves

Today is the formally the last day of the state Legislature’s session but Gov. David Paterson said he will call the Senate back into a special session Tuesday and the next day and the next day and keep them in Albany indefinitely until they start doing their job.

It’s within his power to compel them to session but he can’t make them vote so the best-case scenario is the senators stay in Albany, they keep acting like a bunch of power hungry brats, it spills over into the Assembly and some legislators get voted out of office.

Absent parents pay up

The Juvenile Court of Memphis and Shelby County set a monthly record in child support collections, tracking down $12.7 million in May from absent parents, a 17 percent increase from the May 2008 total.

Larry Scroggs, the court’s chief administrative officer and chief counsel, said the court is also on course to collect $125 million for the fiscal year that ends June 30, which would set its second annual record in a row.”I think in context, when you look at the overall economic situation, it’s quite an achievement,” he said.

But the workers who helped set the collection records won’t have time to bask in their glory.

Juvenile Court has been collecting child support payments under state contract. But the state declared months ago that the court fell short of standards on the amount of money it’s supposed to collect, and in February, Maximus Inc., based in Reston, Va., won the contract.

The company starts work July 1.

“There’s a lot of ironies in this story,” Scroggs said. “Coming off record performance for two years in a row, the court will no longer have the contract.”

Maximus plans to hire some of the employees handling child support cases now, but many will lose their jobs, Scroggs said.

Though Maximus will handle administration of much of the child support system, Juvenile Court will still hold hearings on child support matters.

New state grants mean Juvenile Court can increase the number of cases from 600 per week to as many as 800 per week, Scroggs said.

About 100,000 children in the Memphis area depend on child support payments funneled through the court, Scroggs said.

“Child support touches a lot of people’s lives,” said Tennessee Department of Human Services spokeswoman Michelle Mowery Johnson. “A lot of people’s lives. It’s critical for children, to keep them out of poverty.”

Shelby County’s record collections reflect a staffing boost from last year, when the court used new state funding to hire eight attorneys and 42 case workers, bringing the total child support administrative staff to 242, Scroggs said.

The extra manpower helped tackle a massive problem.

In Shelby County, there are nearly 116,000 active child support cases, which Scroggs says is far higher than other metro areas in the state.

Most of the child support cases that Juvenile Court handles involve unmarried couples, and Shelby County has a very high percentage of out-of-wedlock births. In 2007, the percentage stood at 59 percent, according to the Urban Child Institute.

Collection efforts statewide are up, too, Johnson said. Aggressive techniques boosted collections in the first 11 months of the fiscal year by 5 percent, to $510.3 million.

The state is garnishing wages, seizing bank accounts, revoking driver’s licenses and even taking licenses to hunt and fish.

“It’s amazing how people come up with the money when we threaten to take their hunting and fishing licenses,” she said.

How child support works

Cases land in the child support system when a parent doesn’t pay the agreed-upon child support amount following a divorce, or when an unmarried parent taking care of a child seeks support.

In most cases, the parents who owe money are men, and the child support system first tries to prove through the father’s acknowledgement or through DNA testing that he is responsible.

The case then goes before a judge, who decides how much the absent parent should pay. The amount depends on factors including the parent’s income and how much time he or she spends with the child.