Over the last few days, County Executive Cheryl Dinolfo’s reelection team has crossed the line at least twice with their politically motivated actions. It is our position that they have violated the peoples trust and demonstrate why Monroe County is in dire need of change.
During the workday on Friday, November 1st, Monroe County Human Resources Director Brayton Connard sent an email to all county employees under the subject “Congratulations to MC DOT,” further saying “Checkout (sic) the Democrat and Chronicle to see a video of MC DOT staff putting the Outlet Bridge into place for the winter season”. Upon clicking the link, employees were met with a Cheryl Dinolfo campaign commercial that took over their entire screen and began playing automatically. This event happens every year and has never been promoted this way in the past. Further, Brayton Connard has an extensive history of belittling County employees and we are unable to recall a single instance of him praising the work they do.
We join several other organizations in calling for an investigation into this email, which we firmly believe to be a thinly-veiled attempt to illegally influence and potentially intimidate employees - many of whom are actively supporting the Adam Bello campaign - into voting for Cheryl Dinolfo. Brayton Connard is a politically-appointed holdover that previously served as the campaign manager for former Monroe County Executive Maggie Brooks. CITY Newspaper reported he has donated $5,075 to the Friends of Cheryl Dinolfo campaign committee which paid for the ad that is still running on the Democrat and Chronicle website.
The second event took place on Saturday when registered voters around the county received a multi-page campaign booklet from the New York Republican State Committee. These mailers promoted Cheryl Dinolfo, District Attorney Sandra Doorley, and the County Legislature Candidates for each respective district. On the back page of these booklets, which many recipients likely saw first, was a list of endorsements each of the Legislature candidates have received. At the top of that page was a large, contrasting logo for Cheryl Dinolfo that gave the impression the endorsements were hers. Many recipients did not actually notice their legislature candidates names as they are at the bottom of the page and blend in with the text immediately above.
We are not aware of a single endorsement for the incumbent County Executive and feel these mailers were designed with the intention of trying to steal the endorsements of these organizations. This is not just dishonest and misleading, we believe it to be illegal. We also feel it is not a coincidence these slimy tactics happened to occur on the final weekend before election day, giving the organizations affected almost no time to respond and correct this misinformation.
The candidates we’ve spoken to have said the endorsement logos were not in place when they approved the designs. We call on them to go further and publicly denounce the State GOP for these shameful tactics and apologize to the impacted organizations and voters for misleading them. This type of political gamesmanship may work with some voters, but it is immoral and reprehensible.
For more information or interview requests, please call or email President Paul Miller.
Irondequoit Bay Outlet Bridge reopens Friday
Monroe County unions cry foul over HR email
Download all three of our press releases;
Airport Firefighters Call For Investigation Into Email From Human Resources Director
Airport Firefighters Protest Misleading Political Mailers
Politically Motivated Actions Demonstrate Need for Change