Should the County Attorney lose her law license?

[Rumor Beasty]

Now she's quoted in Newsday as saying they've appealed the lawsuit decision preventing Tom Suozzi from selling his Garden City Department of Social Services Property because they are buying time to try and work out a solution to the problem of parking. Isn't that an abuse of process?

Also - isn't the sale of this property already included in Tom Suozzi's budget? How could he claim the budget is balanced when in fact, he's included revenues that have not yet come to fruition?

[Disgruntled Taxpayer I]

Interesting..... I don't know about her specific arguments in the Supreme Court Parking Lot case, but I do know that Ms. Goodman was the attorney of record on the City of New York's frivolous public nuisance case against the gun manufacturers when she served in the Corporation Counsel's office. I agree that Ms. Goodman does present some troubling concerns as the County's chief executive office.

I also do agree that Ms. Goodman's quote in the article is troubling, particularly since she appears to characterize her appeal of the Court's decision as a stalling tactic.

Indeed, there is ample precedent and case law that Nassau County has to provide safe and adequate parking at the Courthouses which they own. The County had a similar battle several years ago with respect to the maintaining the parking facilities near the District Court in Hempstead. The County was pasted in that one.

If Ms. Goodman read and understood the precedent from that case, and consulted the counsels who argued that previous case, and it was concluded that the County has no leg to stand on in the current case, it may very well be that her argument is frivolous.

It would also appear that the "sale" of DSS was another ass-brained Suozzi hack move in which the County failed to consider all of the ramifications and fall out from the deal, including winding up in a battle against the Court Officers' Benevolent Association and the State of New York which they cannot possibly win. The County was b*tch slapped by the 2nd Department in the Hempstead District Court Parking Lot case. So I must agree that claiming to "balance the budget" based upon this questionable land sale must be considered irresponsible.

One also must wonder about the political fall out from this mistake which include, but are not necessarily limited to: a) angering the powerful Corrections Officers' Union, a result which could have an impact upon the political races in 2005, including the County Executive, the Legislature, and several judgships, and b) arming Eliot Spitzer with more ammo against Suozzi, since Mr. Spitzer is the Attorney of Record for the Courts and the State of New York.

This is a case which could come back big time to harm the County Executive and could help Mr. Spitzer. If the Courts, the Court Officers' Union, and the State of New York decide to close ranks upon Suozzi, this can have a devestating impact upon his political viability in 2005 and in 2006.

[District Court Parking]

The situation in Hempstead was completely different. The Garden City situation is strickly motivated by greed and fear. Greed because of the high price of real estate and fear that without this money, people are going to catch on that Suozzi is spending way more in government than he's taking in through squeezing the Nassau County taxpayers every way he can. He wants to put the DSS workers of 1700 into a building with a maximum safety number of 700, not accounting for all the hundreds of visitors that agency gets daily. The new building has parking for only 200. Suozzi wants to lease property at an adjacent site or make everyone park in the Nassau Colliseum and then buy or lease buses and drivers to taxi people back and forth all day. And it will have to be all day because DSS field workers and their clients come and go all day long and emergency workers are on call nights and weekends too. None of this matters to Tom Suozzi. He doesn't care about the inconvenience or long term costs as long as it provides a short term fix to his budget - which is really running a deficit - and he has something big and visible he can show to the public as something he managed to accomplish during his 4 years in office. As for selling the building and it's parking lot, he also didn't care that 2 courts - the county court building that also houses surrogate's court and the supreme court as well as the matrimonial center and board of elections - all use the parking lot that is part of the deal he agreed to sell off. He doesn't care who he disturbs. The plan had no details and now that a court has found it unworkable - Lorna Goodman and her Deputy County Attorney - Sheldon Cohen (he is on the County Attorney's payroll as another of about two dozen "administrators" ) want time to better plan for the deal that failed - using the appellate division to buy time. It's unethical for a lawyer to do that. And this is not the first time her gang's legal decisions and strategy have been questioned on this board for their unethical, if not illegal, judgments.

The situation in Hempstead was completely different. An engineer came along and did an inspection of the multi-level garage that was then in use and determined that it was designed with serious enough flaws to render the structure dangerous and the structure was condemned. While new parking fields were being constructed, the workers in Hempstead District Court were offered parking at the bus depot and were able to take buses back and forth temporarily until the new parking fields were constructed. The new parking fields - several in fact - were designed and built and are currently operational and their are designated fields now for the workers as well as general public parking.

The two situations are completely different. And whereas Gulotta was honest about including the cost of new construction and the temporary parking situation into his budget, Suozzi was dishonest. He failed to include any future costs for obtaining alternative parking for either the old or the new properties, including the all day transportation the county will need to fund, but he did include estimated sales revenue for the property that the court has already told him - he can't now sell.

It's a fake surplus. Suozzi has been setting the county up for this estimated deficit since the day he took office. There is no fiscal recovery. Greg Peterson will be inheriting the county just as it was in 2001, but in worse shape because of Suozzi's crazy schemes.

[Disgruntled Taxpayer I]

I completely agree with "District Court Parking" that the County's position in the Hempstead District Court Parking case was stronger than the Supreme Court matter. I just wanted to note the precedent that the County is obligated to provide safe and adequate parking for the Court facilities. Yes, and I agree that the Gulotta Administration acted in good faith in the Hempstead case, and the Suozzi Administration has not acted in good faith with respect to parking at the Supreme Court. You're right, Suozzi appears to be greedy and fearful.

We are in accord, and I thank you for your further clarification of just how wrong Herr Suozzi and Frau Goodman are with respect to this matter.

[TruthSpeaker]

Having dealt with Ms. Goodman on several occasions, I was nearly compelled to describe her as being dumb as a rock. However upon further consideration I realized how insulting that would be for the rock.

[Shelly Da Man]

The parking debacle:

Shelly Cohen says "OOPS" again!

And again!

And again!

You know what "The Donald" would say!

[Except that]

The Donald has to choose among successful people who have actually accomplished something. Even the losers won something - made a profit, completed a tasc whatever. Suozzi would have to choose from people who either do nothing or can't do anything right. Besides - where do you think Donald is getting his story lines from? Dilbert Cartoons?

[CPA 2]

Am I missing something here? The sale of County buildings are capital assets which would NOT be included in revenues of an annual budget. Those funds would be used to pay off debt or for other capital expenditures, such as new office buildings.

I think the County's budget is in balance and has run a surplus. Certainly the accusations here do not prove otherwise.

[Land preservation bond]

Don't apply strict accounting methods - you have to apply Suozzi creative accountings. What typically is does not apply. It's a business. The bonds are based on credit - the credit ratings from standard and poors are based on assets and liabilities. Get it? You sell real estate and it's revenue - a one shot deal. The revenue comes from sale of a capital asset BUT the asset is not sold yet so it still remains as an asset of the county. Like double billing. The debts aren't included as part of the debt because they aren't reduced to judgments yet - or final judgments anyway. That's because of the county's magic trick of frivolously appealing everything and setting up things like assessment review committees that are backed up in reviewing the administrative decisions. Until the appeals are resolved, the debts can stay off the books. Fake assets, fake shots of revenue and real debts not being accounted for. Floating land preservation bonds to take care of basic issues like park maintainance and repairs. And now what is he doing with it? He's doing encroachment cases - following the lead of the state (he's always following someone else's lead, always stealing the ideas of others and taking credit for it) and he's funding the county attorney's office. He's got a couple deputy attorneys running around revoking permits from people he claims "encroached" on county land, at the same time he's paying them to be chairpeople on some private preservation group that he's got them fundraising for. He's paying for all this with the land preservation bond money. He is getting way too big for his own head. Way too dangerous. He is getting bolder and bolder. He threatens that you must contribute money to him or you won't get any work, any contracts, any permits in nassau county. He closes down catererers and ice cream trucks to all but those he hand selects, he hand selects children's day camps and gives them permits and licenses that don't go through any bidding process, yet the people who got permits - legitimately - those he calls encroachers and those people he goes after. First he checks the contribution payrolls I'm sure. He is making life here miserable for everybody but the very small circle he runs with. And Suozzi doesn't run very long with the same crowd so even they can't rely on him anymore.

[Grievance Committee]

Well, I don't think the Grievance Committee in Syosett is paying much attention or she would have been at least censored for the conflict of interest she involved herself in - being a personal defendant in Campanelli's federal suit and keeping the legislative hearings in-house, intimidating witnesses then representing them while representing the legislators at the same time. Nevermind, threatening someone they owed money to that she'd breach his contract and fail to pay unless he kicked back money.

[Victoria Cowboy]

Lorna Doone gets $131,000 each year. GREAT JOB SLOB!

[How stupid is she?]

She's so stupid that now she's quoted in the New York Law Journal as trying to explain that the reason she appealed the order restraining the county from the selling the property the same day the order was issued is because she thinks it "precludes us from working out the very problems which the lawsuit was designed to address." !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You don't have to be a lawyer to understand that NO court's restraining order can preclude a county - required by law to provide parking for it's employees - from working out an employee parking problem, nor can any order preclude litigants from working out a private agreement (a complaint can always be withdrawn), nor can any order preclude the county from coming up with a solutiont to the problems which would then render the sale of property to be acceptable. (Of course then CSEA should bring a lawsuit because the DSS workers will have no practical place to park in their new quarters, but that's another story).

How stupid is she? So stupid that instead of a raise, she should be getting investigated by the Grievance Committee.

[reality guy]

If Goodman were ever to have been investigated by the bar, they should have taken action after the Association of the Bar of the City of New York's Civil Rights Committee recommended that the bureau she supervised in the NYC Law Department be stripped of nearly 4,000 cases that she supervised. There, you can arguably say that she neglected client matters, an offense which would have received attention from the grievance committee.

With government lawyers, you do not have private clients making a complaint. Nobody complained to the bar about Pete Sylver abusing the County Credit Card, a direct theft of the County's assets.

My prediction is that Ms. Goodman will continue to say stupid garbage in the newspapers that would get her fired or even professionally reprimanded if she were in the private sector, as long as her bosses tolerate her nonsense, and as long as she or her friends, family, and associates keep on giving those big campaign dollars.

Is it offensive that a woman who fired handicapped people, men with pregnant spouses, and caused so much hardship to so many Long Island familes, while passing out law jobs to unqualified cronies, continue to get a "bye" merely because she is a wealthy social x-ray slumming in the County Attorney's Office? Yes, it is. The only way to get rid of her apparently is to do it at the ballot box.

[Money buys Jobs]

Under the Suozzi Administration money buys jobs. Goodman doesn't need her salary - it probably just gets funneled right back to Suozzi. Her NYLJ comment was obviously thought up to try and cover the Newsday comment which her outside counsel probably told her was inappropriate and improper. Her inside counsel would not have known better. I'm surprised that she's still allowed to talk to the press though. I would have thought Tom Suozzi would have insisted public relations become Bull Cunningham's job now that he's hanging out in Goodman's office too.

[You are right about that]

Goodman's affirmative action bureau in corporate counsel's office was a disgrace when she ran it with Feinman and now Suozzi is giving them money to hire MORE lawyers to develope an affirmative action bureau here in Nassau County. It's not bad enough that they are bungling everything they handle now, and spending money hand over fist over there as it is - but Suozzi is pouring even more money into that wasteland to let her further destroy Nassau County. He is letting her set-up the very same bureau that drew criticism in NYC why? So he can DESTROY what is left in Nassau County by foreclosing on property when homeowner's miss a tax payment or two, condemn property in the way of his NYC high rise apartment building complexes he wants to build, throw out working class citizens living in illegal basement apartments while building more Glen Cove like huts to shelter day laborers? It's disgusting when they are doing.

[bill takeover]

is cunningham taking over?

[not till next year]

next year if suozzi gets reelected.

[celeste hadrick wrote]

back when suozzi was coming in celeste wrote an article on the county attorneys office how more than half the attorneys on staff earned less than 40,000 a year and each lawyer had a caseload approaching 600 cases per lawyer. now more than half the attorneys there are starting at salarys in excess of $60,000 and 1/3 of them are supervisors with no caseload at all. a dozen are making well over $80,000 and many more hover around there with less than a dozen files, if that many, sitting on their desks. outside counsel is alive and well. what's the county getting out of the new county attorney's office?

[very good question]

next year if suozzi gets reelected.


If Cunningham is taking over as County Attoney, what is Lorna Doone going to do? Power walk and eat cucumber sandwiches? How about all of Lorna's deadbeat Corporation Counsel Cronies. Are they going to form a firm of retarded lawyers or something?

[Meadow Mary]

The County Attorneys are so shallow that they can't even cite case law when making arguments. They do first and then find out that precent shows a project can't be done. Apparently they don't even know how to research topics. The least we can expect of our County Attorneys is that they know what they are doing. Sorry "girls" but going through the motions isn't good enough. You have to know the law -- and advise the County Executive of what he can and can't do or everything will wind up in litigation!!!

We can do better than this!!!

[Meadow Mary]

The County Attorneys are so shallow that they can't even cite case law when making arguments. They do first and then find out that precedent shows a project can't be done. Apparently they don't even know how to research topics. The least we can expect of our County Attorneys is that they know what they are doing. Sorry "girls" but going through the motions isn't good enough. You have to know the law -- and advise the County Executive of what he can and can't do or everything will wind up in litigation!!!

We can do better than this!!!

[That's a Laugh]

These are the same morons from the city who hired Moses & Singer to teach them about the HIPAA regulations when they first came out because they were unable to both interpret and apply new law themselves. It took them 2 years to figure out there exists a thing called a County Charter. They are still unable to figure out how they got socked in Federal Court as often as they did for laws they never heard of. The County Legislature had to point out the conflict of interest they were creating during the Peter Sylver trials and the entire Campanelli fiasco started and ended at their doorstep. Incidentally, how many lawyers did they hire to replace him and how much are their salary and benefits coming out to? Have they brought anything into the County yet? And if there is already in existence a whole Bureau dedicated to Asset Forfeiture - why are they trying to form another whole Bureau for Affirmative Litigation?

[Place your betss]

In all probability - she might not even make it to November if Suozzi can find a replacement for her sooner. I just can't figure why he's holding back on cunningham unless he's thinking of running him for DA incase Driscoll chickens out.

[Cunningham Jr]

Cunningham is running for Suffolk Ce in 3 years. Suozzi tries againto kick the crap out of the Jewish kid.

The County Attorneys are so shallow that they can't even cite case law when making arguments.....
We can do better than this!!!

That's what you get when hire a bunch of New York City leftovers who could care less about the people of Nassau County.

[Lost another one]

Didn't they just lose another bureau chief? They can't even keep the people they hire themselves!

[Really fast turnover]

Double whammy. They pushed out all the good lawyers and the really experienced county workers and filled the jobs with people who don't know very much. They just figure out how to swim upstream and then they veer off at the first bridge they come to because they can't stand the office. And these are people getting hired at huge salarys. Under the republicans there was alot of loyalty and very little turnover - even at $35,000 salaries. That's why you had some really experienced, county-wise people in the place and that's why they could handle twice the caseload with half the staff. They just knew what they were doing. These people just don't.

[Lorna Doone Patrol I]

Hey Lorna, are you missing those "City Parts" yet? How does it feel to litigate in a county where the Judges don't coddle the government lawyers?

[Still giving money away]

They''re still afraid to try cases and are settling everything that comes through the office - giving everything away in discovery too because noone there knows the rules. It's a plaintiffs field day - unless you happen to be a county employee suing the county - THOSE are the cases they fight - and LOSE!

[Tell your friends]

Tell your friends about Suozzi's legal counsel scandals and about how expensive paying for lost and settled lawsuits has become. About the unqualified lawyers spending your tax dollars out of the County. Print out this thread and show it to them. Pass around the truth. Get Suozzi out in 2005

[Double troubles]

Goodman's management formula: Hire twice the staff to do half the caseload and triple their salary while using outside counsel too .

[LI Press Audit]

Compare the spending budget of the CA's office between 1999-2000 and 2000 - 2001 and now look at it. Look at the number of lawyers versus the caseload and the judgment/settlement amounts. Compare outside counsel fees, suplies, perks & training. They go outside for training - to corporate counsel and upstate ect. That's where the 20% tax increase is going - to a huge patronage staff with nothing to do and it's about time the public knows it.

[The new administration]

Whether it be Suozzi or Peterson, next year I hear Goodman & her supervisors are gone.

[Long Beach USA]

I think Zapson is still looking for a good attorney's job in Nassau County!

[Now hiring police lawyers]

Now the county attorney is hiring lawyers to work in police legal - maybe they'll do as good a job as little liz in the jail - snort snort. Traditionally the cop lawyers were cops themselfs, who became lawyers. I wonder how they're gonna like civilians in the roost. Just another knife in Delraba's back. Suozzi's vindicitive enough to make the taxpayers pay for more incompetent lawyers under a fool hardy legal administration who has a budget 5 times what it used to be and does 75% less work.

[lorna sounds safe then]

Now the county attorney is hiring lawyers to work in police legal - maybe they'll do as good a job as little liz in the jail - snort snort. Traditionally the cop lawyers were cops themselfs, who became lawyers. I wonder how they're gonna like civilians in the roost. Just another knife in Delraba's back. Suozzi's vindicitive enough to make the taxpayers pay for more incompetent lawyers under a fool hardy legal administration who has a budget 5 times what it used to be and does 75% less work.

If Suozzi is using the CA's Office to "civilianize" police legal, it sounds like Goodman is gaining power in the County, not losing it. On the other hand, like any political employee, she is just a bad article in the press or two away from a bad fate, especially as the head lawyer.

Save $300,000. Replace Feinman with a personnel clerk and Reinharz with an office clerk.

[Santa A]

Save $300,000. Replace Feinman with a personnel clerk and Reinharz with an office clerk.

Didn't Barbara Backer do Feinman and Reinharz's job until I killed her through over-work and harrassment?

[Yes and then no]

Barbara was a clerk and she did both jobs. That's not what killed her though. She had that hip thing going and even the cane was not helping after awhile. Plus, she couldn't stand the new people who wanted to push her out and give these high salaried "lawyers" something to do.

Barbara was a clerk and she did both jobs. That's not what killed her though. She had that hip thing going and even the cane was not helping after awhile. Plus, she couldn't stand the new people who wanted to push her out and give these high salaried "lawyers" something to do.

Barbara passed on before Lorna Goodman's reign of error.

[yes she should]

yes to the answer of this thread if she is suffolk county attorney

[Moussaoui & Peter Syl]

Well, I don't think the Grievance Committee in Syosett is paying much attention or she would have been at least censored for the conflict of interest she involved herself in - being a personal defendant in Campanelli's federal suit and keeping the legislative hearings in-house, intimidating witnesses then representing them while representing the legislators at the same time. Nevermind, threatening someone they owed money to that she'd breach his contract and fail to pay unless he kicked back money.

Who sees a similarity here? Transporation attorney Carla Martin almost destroys the Department of Justice's case because all their witnesses get precluded due to her interference with witness tampering. At least her bosses were smart enough to put her out on administrative leave - federal civil service protection and all. But they aren't done with her yet. Goodman, Feinman & Reinharz are appointed public officials who are suppose to be guarding the office against this type of thing - and what has Suozzi done about them when faced with a similar situation?

Filled his pockets. Ya - he's got a crack at Albany.

Anybody know Spitzer's email address? I'd like to forward this to him.

[About Carla Martin]

At least Carla Martin understood who her client was and was trying to act, albeit over zealously, in its best interest.