Almost a year ago, I was elected the chairman of the Dutchess County Legislature, and I did exactly what every legislative chair before me has done: I appointed a full-time assistant. That was Mr. Fred Knapp. The 25 county legislators, myself included, serve part-time. There is a small administrative staff for all the legislators. The chair, who has many responsibilities beyond those of the other legislators, has always had a full-time assistant.
But County Executive William Steinhaus had different plans. Instead of allowing the Legislature to go about its normal business, Mr. Steinhaus wasted everyone’s time, and $41,000 in taxpayer money, on a political vendetta against Fred Knapp and the newly elected Democratic majority. Mr. Steinhaus abused his executive authority and refused to put Mr. Knapp on the payroll. In doing so, Mr. Steinhaus violated not only the county’s charter and administrative code but also the fundamental principal that the Legislature is a separate and equal branch of government.
Don’t take my word for it. No fewer than five New York State judges on two different courts have agreed that Mr. Steinhaus illegally refused to allow Mr. Knapp to be hired. It took 11 months of legal wrangling to get Mr. Steinhaus to finally do the right thing and allow Mr. Knapp to be hired. During that entire time, Mr. Knapp served as my assistant without pay. Fairness demands that he be paid for his work from the time he was hired. To deny this simply rewards Mr. Steinhaus for his illegal actions and his political shenanigans. Although Mr. Knapp would be well within his rights to seek the back pay for which he is entitled, I’m sorry to say that he probably will not do so. Mr. Knapp would prefer to move forward in his job rather than allow Mr. Steinhaus to embroil him and the taxpayers in more wasteful litigation.
Yet in spite of the county charter, the administrative code and two court decisions, Mr. Steinhaus stubbornly refuses to acknowledge the most important point of all: the Legislature is an independent, separate and equal branch of county government. The charter gives the Legislature its role, just as the county executive has his.
The sooner Mr. Steinhaus accepts the decisions of the courts and starts working with his colleagues rather than against them, the better off we will all be.
(Roger Higgins is the chairman of the Dutchess County Legislature)
Almost all of the new NFL stadiums built in the last 10 years have been financed by … you guessed it, financial institutions. M&T Bank Stadium, Edward Jones Dome, Invesco Field, Qwest Field, Lincoln Financial Field, Reliant Stadium and Bank of America Stadium come to mind first, and then there are a host of other corporate giants who have joined the “Let’s Get Our Name on a Stadium” game. I am in the dark about the actual financing, but apparently the NFL, individual team ownership and the cities involved all seem to benefit.
Sometimes I wonder what it is that they know that we don’t. For instance, there has never been any talk of a Bear Stearns Stadium or an AIG Dome. But maybe I am giving the NFL too much credit here. Perhaps these financial giants knew long before their demise that they couldn’t afford to finance anything more substantial than what they were – houses of cards.
I am very old-fashioned, though. When it comes to football, a game of brute physical contact, playing the game in Qualcomm Stadium just doesn’t sound right. Give me names like Veterans Stadium, Arrowhead, Giants Stadium, Texas Stadium, Lambeau Field … and going all the way back to the good old days, what could have sounded more like a house of pain than Franklin Field, where you sat on cement bleacher seats? Heck, the fans were almost as tough as the players.
Few remember this today, but Franklin Field hosted the pre-Super Bowl NFL Championship game in 1960. Born in Philadelphia and raised on the Eagles, I can tell you every detail of that game, played on a field that was not financed by a bank … or by anyone for that matter, but it was the “Real Thing” in every sense. The grass was mostly weed, frozen solid that day as the dreaded Green Bay Packers came to town, and no one gave the Eagles much of a chance, especially since the Packers would be playing on a surface they loved … frozen tundra. It was 10 degrees that day, but I don’t recall ever feeling cold. Guilty, yes. The circumstances by which I got there with my friend John, the only other Eagle fan in Levittown, would have given my father fits, but as far as he knew, I was spending the day in intense violin practice. My teacher, a professional deadbeat, had a girlfriend in Camden, which was no more than a short hitch-hike to Franklin Field.
We bought scalped tickets for $10 each and they were good seats – only 10 rows above field level. At Franklin Field, that was practically like being on the field. Out came the Packers, a scary bunch of ex-cons and hoodlums except for the brain of the players, Bart Starr, and the genius who molded that team, Vince Lombardi. Then came the Eagles, in their Kelly green uniforms and helmets adorned with silver wings. Just the sight of them raised my pulse. (Today, there is no green at all in their uniforms, and it is hard to tell what it is exactly that is on their helmets).
As I said, no one gave the Eagles much of a chance. They weren’t as mean as the Packers and they weren’t as big. But we knew they were faster, more agile and they had running backs that were slightly ahead of their time … lightning-fast and able to break tackles, turn the corner and be “gone, baby, gone.” They also had one large and criminally minded linebacker named Chuck Bednarik.
The game itself went quickly. Timmy Brown and Ted Dean chewed up yardage on the ground, Van Brocklin launched a ball that fell from the clouds into the diving, outstretched hands of Tommy McDonald, and time flew by – until the last play. With only a one-point lead and eight seconds left on the clock, the Eagles were backed up to their own nine-yard line. The stadium went silent. Jim Taylor had been making nine-yard runs look easy all day. Sure enough, Bart Starr flipped a short screen to him and suddenly there was nobody between him and goal line but one, mean and grizzly looking crouched figure. I guess ego was in play for Taylor, because he made no attempt to run around Bednarik, which would have been a sure score. Instead, he attempted to run over him. Mistake. At the five-yard line, Bednarik slammed Taylor to the ground and the game was over. The Eagles had beaten the mighty Packers in Franklin Field.
I have been to many games since, in many places, but none could ever match that one. It was a real football game, in a real stadium, and to this day, I get teary-eyed thinking about it. Of course, I shed a few more tears when my father found out where I had been. It was still worth it.