The top elected official in Rensselaer County recalls the letter from the administration of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo threatening $100,000 fines if his jurisdiction’s batch of COVID-19 vaccine supplies wasn’t delivered on time.
It turns out that Rensselaer County, in east-central New York, abutting Massachusetts and Vermont, was among 17 counties in the state to receive similar threats. And it’s emblematic of what Rensselaer County Executive Steve McLaughlin calls a “hostile” approach to governing taken by Cuomo and his aides.
Other state and local officials around New York have their own stories of what they call Cuomo administration bullying. For example, in 2014, Cuomo wanted to advise his Moreland Commission on Public Corruption, which the governor claimed he established as an independent panel, but adviser Larry Schwartz reportedly interfered with the commission’s work, and it soon shut down.
The episodes have a familiar ring as Cuomo faces mounting calls to resign by fellow Democrats over allegations he sexually harassed numerous women and obscured the COVID-19 death toll of nursing home residents after mandating that coronavirus patients be sent to the facilities. Cuomo also brought back former top aide Schwartz last year as his “vaccine czar” to help with New York’s pandemic response.
Several Democratic county officials told Marc Molinaro, executive of Dutchess County and president of the New York State County Executives Association, they received phone calls of an uncomfortable nature from Schwartz. One county executive found the call to be so troubling, the official filed an ethics complaint against Schwartz.
“They all left that call feeling it was very troubling. There’s no way around it. I did speak briefly with Larry subsequent to all this. Whether intentional or not, and several of these county executives felt it was intentional, it is not a line you cross,” Molinaro, a Republican who ran for governor against Cuomo in 2018, told the Washington Examiner.
“Anyone else who could have made that phone call,” Molinaro said. “The person in charge with a great deal of discretion of vaccine distribution shouldn’t be making that phone call.”
McLaughlin recalled another incident when Schwartz sent 6,000 vaccine doses intended for one county, but McLaughin, Albany County Executive Dan McCoy, and Schenectady County Manager Rory Fluman all ended up sharing the doses among their residents in neighboring jurisdictions.
“They dumped 6,000 on Dan McCoy’s head at the last minute, and those were Walgreen vaccines that were thawing out and had to be used rapidly because Walgreens couldn’t get it done,” McLaughlin said. “So they just magically dump it on Dan.”
Schwartz previously worked in Cuomo’s administration between 2011 and 2015 before serving on the board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. He has known the governor for 30 years and is working in a volunteer capacity to spearhead the vaccine distribution.
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Cuomo’s office defended Schwartz’s role in the governor’s response to the state’s pandemic and disputed claims he acted in any unethical way.
In an email statement to the Washington Examiner, the governor’s acting counsel, Beth Garvey, wrote: “Larry answered our call to volunteer in March and has since then worked night and day to help New York through this pandemic, first managing surge capacity, and procuring necessary supplies for the state, setting up the contact tracing efforts, and now assisting with vaccine distribution. Any suggestion that he acted in any way unethically or in any way other than in the best interest of the New Yorkers that he selflessly served is patently false.”
