{"id":3253,"date":"2010-11-19T04:39:00","date_gmt":"2010-11-19T09:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=3253"},"modified":"2010-11-19T10:47:29","modified_gmt":"2010-11-19T15:47:29","slug":"morning-read-former-dec-chief-fired-for-telling-the-truth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2010\/11\/19\/morning-read-former-dec-chief-fired-for-telling-the-truth\/","title":{"rendered":"Morning Read: Former DEC chief fired &#8220;for telling the truth&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>How lucky is former Conservation commissioner Pete Grannis?\u00a0 In the waning days of Governor David Paterson&#8217;s administration he was fired for what the administration described as insubordination and poor performance.<\/p>\n<p>But the result is that he&#8217;s been thrown clear of the general disaster that is state government at present and is now seen as &#8220;a hero&#8221; by all sides &#8212; from greeny enviromentalist to pro-property rights local government leaders in the Adirondacks.<\/p>\n<p>During testimony yesterday before an Assembly panel, Grannis blasted his former boss.\u00a0 This from the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.timesunion.com\/local\/article\/Fired-for-telling-the-truth-821451.php\">Albany Times-Union<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Grannis, a former state assemblyman who was picked to head DEC by former Gov. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.timesunion.com\/?controllerName=search&amp;action=search&amp;channel=local&amp;search=1&amp;inlineLink=1&amp;query=%22Eliot+Spitzer%22\">Eliot Spitzer<\/a>,  took aim at Paterson&#8217;s layoffs at DEC, calling them a &#8220;shell game&#8221; that  would save relatively little money because three-quarters of the  agency&#8217;s budget comes from outside the state general\u00a0fund.<\/p>\n<p>Citing  the warnings in his memo, Grannis said the cuts would put the state in  danger of &#8220;environmental backsliding.&#8221; He said the governor&#8217;s budget  office demanded job cuts but not expense cuts, and was not interested in  the\u00a0consequences.<\/p>\n<p>For example, earlier reductions at DEC have  left conservation officers and forest rangers with too little gasoline  for their vehicles to conduct patrols, Grannis said. &#8220;At times, we had  people who had to sit at home,&#8221; he\u00a0said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How lucky is former Conservation commissioner Pete Grannis?\u00a0 In the waning days of Governor David [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[884,20],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3253"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3253"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3254,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3253\/revisions\/3254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}