Foul play
Bacalles accuses Spitzer of withhoding Lakeview funds
By ROB PRICE THE COURIER-ADVOCATE

FILE PHOTO Lakeview Apartments residents enjoy a stroll along the newly opened walkway linking the senior citizens' residence to Deal's Plaza. Concrete for the walkway was to have been paid through Assemblyman James Bacalles' office.

BATH - A newly constructed sidewalk celebrated for improving Lakeview Apartments residents' access to a nearby shopping plaza is turning into a bad dream for the senior citizen's residence.

Funding for the project hinged on Lakeview Apartments receiving $3,200 in state funding to pay for the concrete needed for the walkway. Lakeview administrator Cary Muller moreover had been promised the state funds in the form of a "member item" legislative grant through the office of state Assemblyman James Bacalles, R-Corning.

The promise appeared to evaporate last week, as Gov. Eliot Spitzer announced he would eliminate dozens of community grants for projects throughout New York state. Three such grants were to be awarded in Bacalles' 136th Legislative district: $3,200 for the Lakeview project; $2,000 for the Town of Hartsville to purchase a computer, and $2,300 for Greater Southern Tier BOCEs to purchase sidewalk forms for its construction students.

In a blistering press release issued Friday, Bacalles accused Spitzer of reneging on the grants in retaliation for the assemblyman's opposition to Spitzer's plan to allow illegal immigrants to obtain New York state drivers licenses.

"The Village of Bath, the Town of Hartsville and their residents have been cheated of grant money that had been promised to them," Bacalles charged.

Contacted last week, Lakeview's Muller said she is "very upset and angry" over the withheld funds. She noted an area contractor had supplied the concrete with the expectation of being paid once Lakeview received the state funds.

Now, Lakeview is on the hook for the concrete, which already has been poured.

"We're going to have to come up with more fundraising (to pay for the concrete)," Muller said, adding she would not have agreed to the project had Lakeview been originally responsible for the cost of the material."We work under a tight ship," she said. "We would not have done this."

Part of the issue involves the fact the money intended for Lakeview originally was included in the 2006-07 state budget as a grant to the Steuben County sheriff's Department for new computer equipment, according to Robin Lattimer, legislative aide to Bacalles.

When the Sheriff 's Department decided it didn't need the grant, the funds were shifted into the state's 2007-08 fiscal year, Lattimer said. "This was reapportioned money from the prior fiscal year," Lattimer said. "The money came to the Assemblyman for another project."

Spitzer spokesman Jeffrey Gordon, told The Courier Spitzer promised only to honor member item grants approved before January 1, 2007.

"Member items totaling $405,583 were disapproved by the governor's office because they represented new grants in 2007," Gordon said. "Therefore (they) were not consistent with the governor's commitment to only use governor's funds for member item commitments made prior to Jan. 1."

He added the Lakeview grant - and other member items - remain under review "to determine whether they were made pursuant to commitments made prior to Jan. 1."

Lattimer maintained reappropriated member items had been guaranteed in discussions between legislators and Spitzer's staff in January.

"Reappropriations have never been a problem before," she said.