Opinion: Rye Guilty Plea Spotlight's Action's of City Hall Insiders

Today’s revelations from The Journal News that former Senior Rye City Employee Scott Yandrasevich will plead guilty to grand larceny and falsifying records, will repay $271,120 to Rye and will spend up to 1 year in the county jail was a welcome first step in the long process of restoring accountability, credibility and trust at Rye City Hall.

More steps and important disclosures are now essential.

It’s a pure municipal fairy tale that Mr. Yandrasevich simply walked into city hall one day in early 2007 and presented his first tortuously skimpy invoice from his then unincorporated RM Staffing Co. and - PRESTO - it was mistakenly approved by some low level employee and the funds were disbursed.

Every RM Staffing billing was officially approved by a senior city official.

That RM Staffing was actually a no-bid, cut-out shell company designed for masking payments to substantial numbers of exploitable underpaid undocumented foreign workers at the golf club but this went somehow miraculously undetected was and is a pure fabrication.

Rye City municipal internal legal and financial controls require strict investigation, public bidding and public official disclosure and approval of any new material contract of this nature. I am a CPA and was once a member of the audit staff of Rye’s former independent public auditor so I know how Rye City internal protective vetting and approval controls are supposed to work.

And in fact at the time that first RM invoice arrived Rye had, in the very same building, senior elected and senior paid managers ranked well above Mr. Yandrasevich. Tasked by statute to act as legal fiduciaries for city residents in matters such as this, these fiduciaries were by name: Mr. Steve Otis, Mayor; Mr. Kevin Plunkett, Esq, Corporation Counsel; and Mr. O Paul Shew, City Manager.

Troublingly no attempt apparently has ever been made to interview any of these three men about the scam’s origination under oath.

None of these men – or former Rye City Manager Scott Pickup - has been asked on-the-record how no questions were ever asked about all the strange RM Staffing invoices, ultimately totaling over $7 million, which were paid along the way.

And none of these men – especially former Rye City Manager Scott Pickup - has been asked on-the-record why all Golf Club member inquiries on the RM Staffing billings met with an official wall of silence, and why lawful public record requests were denied and stonewalled about all the strange RM Staffing invoices or why Rye citizen questioners were publicly and repeatedly castigated and attacked by Rye City staff and Rye elected officials.

The reestablishment of systemic trust always comes from a candid and full public understanding of who did and approved what and to whom - which by definition requires disclosure and light and evidence as a foundation.

So Rye City Council - let your disclosures -and the healing- begin.