Party foes tell Orsini to resign
Just days after the chairman of the Monroe County Independence Party resigned over charges that his wife accepted what critics called “bribe” money from the campaign of Democratic congressional candidate Jack Davis, top members of the party in Erie County are demanding the same from Anthony L. Orsini, their chairman.
Dennis Koziol and Mary Rose Gaughan, members of the Executive Committee of the Erie County Independence Party, made the demand last week because the Davis campaign had paid Orsini’s wife, Judith, $5,000 for “campaign consulting.”
Rafael Colon resigned earlier last week as chairman of the Monroe County party because of similar payments made to his wife under her maiden name — Blanca Semidey — at a time when some party officials say the congressional nomination remains unsettled.
“It’s very improper. It stinks,” said Koziol, the retired chief custodian for the Lackawanna School District. “It smells of bribery.”
“He gave the perception that the endorsement was for sale,” added Gaughan, a registered nurse. “That’s a poor way of moving government forward here.”
But unlike Colon, Orsini said he is not going anywhere. He described Koziol and Gaughan as an integral part of an attempt by Erie County Democrats to take over the Independence Party. He also charged that through the influence of Democrats, Koziol received Erie County Water Authority jobs for children of his girlfriend while Gaughan recently got a state Health Department job.
He blamed the effort on Rep. Brian Higgins, D-Buffalo, and Leonard R. Lenihan, chairman of the Erie County Democratic Party.
“I’m asking them to resign over the jobs they’ve gotten from Brian Higgins and Len Lenihan,” Orsini said. “It’s a travesty what these people have done to a minor party.”
The squabble highlights a new and strange period for the state’s “major minor” party after a recent Court of Appeals ruling vested new powers in its state officials. While Orsini acknowledges the claims by Koziol and Gaughan that he might not be re-elected chairman when the party reorganizes next month, he will remain head of a competing group that he says will be recognized by state leaders.
“If they form a constituted committee, I will form my own, and we’ll have dueling chairmen,” he said. “My committee will have teeth. They’ll be out there gumming it.”
Koziol and Gaughan accuse Orsini of living off the party through his Friends of Tony Orsini account, which accepts donations and routinely pays for many of the chairman’s meals, automobile expenses and, in the past, trips to plays and boxing matches. Orsini’s latest report filed with the state Board of Elections shows his wife was paid $4,885 for “professional services.”
“I knew that Tony didn’t have a job and needed money, and that he raised all this money under Friends of Orsini,” Koziol said. “But all the money has gone to Tony Orsini, and that’s why I oppose him.”
Orsini always has maintained that he does not receive a salary to run the party and that his expenses are legitimate. He also defended his wife’s consulting services for Davis after she established a company called Coastal Consulting South earlier this year at the couple’s mobile home in Venice, Fla.
“She opened a lot of doors in Amherst, Clarence and Lancaster,” he said. “I think you’ll see Jack do very well in the Democratic primary.”
But Orsini also said the party still backs Anthony L. Fumerelle, his godson and a Kenmore attorney who now holds the Independence Party’s line in the race to succeed Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds, R-Clarence. Earlier this summer, Orsini had broached the possibility of replacing Fumerelle with a major party candidate after the Sept. 9 Democratic primary, but he now says he does not consider that likely. He also said he plans to raise money for Fumerelle.
He said Fumerelle will not leave the congressional race for a Supreme Court nomination because not enough Independence delegates to the judicial nominating convention filed designating petitions to constitute a quorum.
“We can’t make an endorsement for Supreme Court,” he said.
Fumerelle also said that he is in the race to stay, though he would not flatly commit to remaining on the line. Election law allows for him to be replaced only in the case of death, moving out of state, or receiving a Supreme Court nomination.
“I don’t know why Tony even suggested that,” Fumerelle said of a potential substitution. “Right now, I’m on the line, and I’m running.”
Koziol and Gaughan, meanwhile, predicted state leaders eventually will recognize the group they hope will replace Orsini.
But Orsini pointed to recent expressions of support from Frank MacKay, the party’s state chairman, and Thomas S. Connolly, its vice chairman, that he says will allow him to control local Independence decisions even if Koziol and Gaughan succeed in ousting him from the local chairmanship.
“Regardless of whether or not I’ll be elected to the state committee, my wife and I will sit on the Executive Board,” he said. “They will not.”
