Minority-leader status would provide 'equal access to info'

By Chris McKenna

Times Herald-Record

CENTRAL VALLEY — With his bow ties and argyle socks, his owlish glasses and neatly trimmed beard, Michael Amo looks like an Ivy League professor who somehow got mixed up in politics.

At the moment, he's knee-deep in intrigue over his bid to be recognized as a minority leader on the Orange County Legislature — which he threw into a deadlock by leaving the Republicans and joining the Independence Party last month.

Another simmering issue is the role he'll play in electing a Legislature chairman, since he would now cast the deciding vote in any party-line roll calls. Both dramas will play out over the next few weeks.

In short, the pensive politician from Central Valley has caused a lot of commotion.

In an interview Friday, Amo explained that being named a minority leader was important both on principle and for the courtesies shown to past majority and minority leaders — namely, copies of important letters and heads-up chats with the county executive.

"Primarily, it's equal access to information," Amo said.

But the notion of rewarding his party switch with elevated status — and labeling him the "leader" of his one-man caucus — both amuses and irritates his colleagues.

"One person does not lead one person," Legislator Tom Pahucki, D-New Hampton, argued at a committee meeting on Friday. "You can't have a leader without a follower."

What gives the debate an added charge are his ties to the leaders of Kiryas Joel, the large Hasidic community that makes up — by his estimate — about 90 percent of his constituency.

When he was appointed in 1998 to replace the late Roberta Murphy, Amo inherited from his steely predecessor her role as advocate for a village that often has few others — especially when it clashes with its neighbors over its growth and infrastructure needs.

That makes his recent moves suspicious to legislators who represent those neighbors.

"It's just a pathway to political power," said Frank Fornario, R-Blooming Grove, who's "unequivocally opposed" to the minority-leader request. "That's all that this is about."

Amo denies any power interest. He's candid about his fidelity to Kiryas Joel's interests, but argues that lawmakers like Fornario are just as beholden to their own constituents when it comes to fighting something that Kiryas Joel wants.

Opposing K.J., he argues, has become politically expedient. The 61-year-old nursing-home consultant has called for a less partisan approach toward the selection of chairmen for the Legislature and its committees. Competence and fair-mindedness should take precedence over party affiliation, he argues.

Whether Amo casts a deciding vote for chairman will be seen at the Jan. 3 reorganization meeting. Fornario and Roxanne Donnery, D-Highland Falls, have proposed a bipartisan coalition to rob him of that clout.

Amo is free to declare himself a minority leader that same day, but whether he's treated as such is unknown. If nothing else, his request has forced his colleagues to confront ambiguities in their leadership rules.

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