Senate-race rhubarb: McG man at Todd event

A press conference called by Assemblyman Todd Kaminsky to discuss a bill that he was sponsoring in the Assembly was interrupted by an operative from Christopher McGrath’s campaign.

Kaminsky, a Democrat from Long Beach, was holding a press conference outside of the office of former Senator Dean Skelos, and was joined by Assembly Democrats Chuck Levine and Michaelle Solages, to announce a bill he was putting forward that would require counties and other municipalities to create a publicly accessible database of their contracts to increase oversight.

“For too long, our contracting process throughout all the municipalities in our state has been shrouded in darkness,” Kaminsky said. “Today, we come together to introduce legislation that will shine a light: a light on what is happening with our precious taxpayer money.”

The bill that Kaminsky is sponsoring is the Assembly companion to a bill that Sen. Michael Gianaris (D-Astoria) put forward in the Senate. It would require that counties and municipalities to create an electronic database of all companies and individuals that apply for government contracts. The database would show who is submitting bids for contracts, show if the company has any bad records, if it has had disciplinary action brought against it and who the company has hired as lobbyists.

“[The bill] would have stopped scandals such as we saw with AbTech, which occurred right here,” Kaminsky said as he stood in front of Skelos’s office. Skelos and his son, Adam, were found guilty in December of corruption. One of the charges against them involved AbTech, a company from Arizona that Adam helped to secure a contract with Nassau County.

Levine and Solages joined Kaminksy to talk about how needed they felt the bill was.