Results tagged “charlesobyrne”

In what is truly a case of politics making for strange bedfellows, it's reported that Governor Paterson's right-hand man, Charles O'Byrne (pictured), recently had a meeting with GOP operative Roger Stone. Stone of course is the man best known for helping bring down former Governor Eliot Spitzer, outing his penchant for socks-on time and chewing out Spitzer's elderly father along the way. Stone has publicly stated that he would like to see Paterson, and not Andrew Cuomo, get the Democratic nomination next year because he knows the governor appears more vulnerable to a GOP opponent. Could O'Byrne have been looking for assistance from a man eager to aid the governor's ultimate defeat?

Governor Paterson doesn't seem to be taking quite the shellacking he was receiving from the media a month ago, but his poll numbers continue to bottom out. The latest poll released today by Siena College shows the public's approval of the governor's job performance now below twenty percent.

Governor Paterson continues to replace staff members in rapid succession with hopes that putting a new face on his administration will keep voters from replacing him next year. With Charles O'Byrne back in the fold, it's no shock that one of his replacements upon resigning last fall, Bill Cunningham, has been told to hit the bricks. A Paterson adviser told Newsday, "Cunningham is a very nice guy. Everyone liked him—everyone. He was just in over his head." He will be replaced as secretary by Larry Schwartz, a political vet from Westchester who recently joined the administration. Assemblyman Richard Brodsky said, "He's going to provide a decisive core to an operation that has needed it." Paterson also announced the appointment of two former Clinton aides, Peter Kauffmann as director of communications and Tracy Sefl as a media consultant. One political consultant told the Times, “It’s a team to be reckoned with, for the first time since David took over.”

With new poll numbers coming out yesterday that look absolutely abysmal for Governor Paterson, his closest confidante is encouraging the governor to clean house and turn his staff upside-down. In their first meeting since O'Byrne was brought back into the fold this weekend, Politicker NY reports that the former chief of staff told Paterson to "get rid of some advisers and institute a wholesale change in staff." Paterson has already seen a rash of departures among his team since his public image went into freefall following the Senate replacement process. The reuniting of the governor and O'Byrne, who had resigned after revelations that he did not pay years of taxes due to depression, appears to have happened overnight—all beginning simply with the Post's suggestion in a Friday editorial that O'Byrne's return would be a "fascinating idea." Before his departure, O'Byrne was so domineering of Paterson's affairs that major figures in government allegedly referred to him as "governor" and some questioned how powerful his influence over Paterson was due to O'Byrne's control of what information could get through to the governor, who does not read.

Governor Paterson continues to defend the idea that his administration is not a sinking ship as criticisms keep getting launched at him from all sides. In today's Times, he admits errors in being lax with staff leading to the recent flurry of turnover among his aides but says he think that his managing of the financial crisis could put him back in the good graces of New Yorkers. He called his first year "a real challenge" and told the paper, "In spite of the fact that I get called the accidental governor and all that, I’ve never been treated like one.”

Governor Paterson is hoping that he has discovered the necessary glue required to put his tattered administration back together again with the announcement that his former right hand man, Charles O'Byrne, will return to his team in a volunteer role in preparation for the 2010 campaign. Just a few days ago Paterson had called the return of his former chief of staff "a fascinating idea." O'Byrne had resigned in the fall following revelations that he had failed to pay taxes for several years because he claimed that he was too depressed to do so.

The Paterson administration sounds like a very fragile operation right now. Even as the Kennedy-Gillibrand Senate debacle moves further into the rear view, sources are telling local papers that the state house is in shambles and possibly has been since the resignation of the governor's top aide, Charles O'Byrne. A Democratic leader tells Elizabeth Benjamin of the News, "He refuses to lead, and nobody is empowered enough to set things straight." Another one tells her, "(Paterson) has to demonstrate something he hasn't shown yet—that he can do the job." The Post doesn't talk to anyone much kinder to the governor with a policy expert describing one of his top aides as "insecure, easily rattled, verbally abusive...she's in totally over her head." Fred Dicker of the Post sums it all up by referring to Paterson's staff as "a collection of indecisive bureaucrats whose day-to-day operations are wracked by internal chaos and fraught with divided loyalties."

After a week of defending his years of missed tax payments as the amount he owed only grew from what originally revealed, Governor Paterson's top adviser Charles O'Byrne resigned yesterday. The governor accepted the letter of resignation from his closest aide "with regret" after publicly defending O'Byrne who had been lambasted by the NY Post and others in the press for claiming his depression and "non-filer syndrome" had led to years of tax delinquency that totaled over $300,000.

Previously Charles O'Byrne, an aide to Governor David Paterson, claimed he didn't pay $200,000 in income taxes between 2001 and 2005 because he was dealing with depression (and he's paid off most by now). Now, O'Byrne's lawyer says he suffered from "late-filing syndrome" that made working on his tax returns hard.

Some more fallout after revelations that an aide to Governor Paterson owed hundreds of thousands in back taxes. The Post reports that Charles O'Byrne "may have violated state ethics law by failing to list his massive tax debt on his financial disclosure statements." O'Byrne, who blames his non-filing of incomes taxes between 2001 and 2005 on clinicial depression, has paid off $200,000 of back taxes, but there's still almost $11,500 outstanding; O'Byrne's recent financial disclosure statement did not include any of the warrants. Additionally, the NY Times notes that while Paterson said he was aware of O'Byrne's tax problems, "a key unanswered question is whether Mr. Paterson knew that the aide failed to file and pay taxes even after assuring him that he would resolve the problem."

Senior in-house adviser to Governor Paterson Charles O'Byrne owed over $200,000 in unpaid taxes until settling recently with the government. His reasoning for not paying state or federal taxes from 2001 to 2005 while being employed by the state: depression.