STATE AUDIT BLASTS AmeriCorps(WNY)

Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show...(the opening lines of David Copperfield as written by Charles Dickens;inspired by MTM). Or at least this ACCOUNT will, perhaps, have a reflection on whether I'm going to be the hero in my own life.

Time is never time at all
You can never ever leave without leaving a piece of youth
And our lives are forever changed
We will never be the same
The more you change the less you feel
Believe, believe in me, believe
That life can change, that you're not stuck in vain
We're not the same, we're different tonight
Tonight, so bright
Tonight... Smashing Pumpkins


Disarm you with a smile
And cut you like you want me to
Cut that little child
Inside of me and such a part of you
Ooh, the years burn... Smashing Pumpkins


This revelation cuts to my very core of my being, on so many levels. Some of you have known me for some time now, while others of you are just getting to know me. Briefly, I lost my 'Bread & Butter' at the end of 2008 when Airborne/D H L Express closed their doors. With the Handicap telegraphing my 'ALLEGED' inability to do any substantive tasks, gggrrr, I had been on the 'waiver-wire' for almost one year when AmeriCorps Buffalo put me on as a 'volunteer' and assigned me to THE BELLE CENTER where I; we, do community out-reach activities.

Sadly, even when one is trying to do OUT-REACH, politics ends up rearing its ugly head.

Unlike Mark Lazzara, and his WNY AmeriCorps entourage, which doesn't do anything WITHOUT the full ensemble of bells & whistles to get press and media attention, we at AmeriCorps Buffalo, and The Belle Center just go out every day~~~with the humility of Mother Teresa~~~and just do work. No Bells; No Whistles; No Fanfare.

So what happens when the FINITE grant monies have to be whittled-out to underwrite all this NGO activity~~~AmeriCorps Buffalo and The Belle Center~~~gets overlooked.

Lazzara, with his dog & pony show, gets the FUNDS while we are told to fold our tents.

Of course, we were not going to just go away tacitly. Those of us who could articulate and/or meet & greet local and state-wide politicos, did so. The plain and simple objective is to get the-powers-that-be, to understand the gravity of their decision to yank 'outreach' in an area that is so downtrodden, so marginalized, and so destitute. The vacuum that would result by phasing out AmeriCorps Buffalo at The Belle Center would, in effect, amount to~~~a crime against HUMANITY.

That is right folks. The Lower West Side is ravaged, and Damn-it, there is a VEHICLE by which we can get out and make some efforts to contend with the issues, and try to contain and reverse the causes and effects. This VEHICLE, my friends, is AmeriCorps Buffalo and The BELLE CENTER.

Mr. Lazzara~~~You want to Live by The Sword of the bells and whistles; the dog & pony show of the Media and the Press~~~Now...

The unusual financial relationship between West Seneca and AmeriCorps has cost town taxpayers more than $400,000 and the town could lose another $2.4 million, according to a scathing state audit town officials received this week.

Auditors from Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli's office examined the 17-year relationship between the Town of West Seneca and AmeriCorps, a national service organization, and concluded the town suffered financial losses because it did not have proper control over AmeriCorps activities.

The audit found:

* Misuse of credit cards, including $30,000 spent on gift cards and certificates, and $20,000 in cash advances without documentation the funds were used for town purposes.

* Mark Lazzara, executive director of AmeriCorps and director of the town Youth Bureau, "personally benefited" by using a credit card for a down payment on a car and to pay parking tickets.

* Town funds paid for a new floor in a Buffalo parochial school.

* Thousands of dollars were spent on meals, refreshments, entertainment and alcohol.

Lazzara maintains the audit is inaccurate, and that purchases in question were approved by the town's comptroller.

Western New York AmeriCorps also disputes the audit, with spokesman Patrick Metzger calling it an "ignorant, uninformed misrepresentation of WNY AmeriCorps," which he said was never a part of the town. The problems outlined in the audit refer to the Town of West Seneca, which ran its own AmeriCorps programs, he said. He said the agency did not want Lazzara to speak for it on this issue, but only to his time as a town employee.

The state comptroller's office turned the audit over to Erie County District Attorney Frank A. Sedita III, but a criminal case does not seem imminent.

Sedita said he has responded to the comptroller's office, noting that because it suggests there might be criminal liability, it would be helpful if the state identified what crimes were committed, who committed them, and what proof is available.

"I will prosecute a case when I am provided with credible evidence admissible in a court of law ... that demonstrates a crime has been committed, and an individual has committed those crimes," Sedita said.

The audit states that Western New York AmeriCorps and the town Youth Bureau "were essentially one and the same, functioning as a department of the town."

WNY AmeriCorps maintains that it is a separate organization that did not exist in its current form until August 2008, and it did not misuse town resources.

The town and AmeriCorps formally split in August 2008, but the organization is administering grants for the town until the end of this year.

The Youth Bureau, under Lazzara, applied for funds for a federal summer program in 1991, and was granted $80,000. The federal government converted that program to AmeriCorps in 1993, and Lazzara became the face of West Seneca AmeriCorps, gaining millions of dollars in grants. The program expanded beyond the town into Buffalo and Western New York, and later the Gulf Coast as it helped with cleanup efforts after Hurricane Katrina.

WNY AmeriCorps is paying the town monthly installments of $7,000 to pay back $804,400 it owes the town. Town Supervisor Wallace Piotrowski said that as long as WNY AmeriCorps stays in business, he believes the town will receive all of the money.

But current town officials see the report as a vindication for them, after they questioned the town's role in the operation of AmeriCorps.

"The report substantiates what my complaint was about how the town was running the Youth Bureau and the AmeriCorps program," Piotrowski said.

His complaint with the audit is that it does not distinguish between lax oversight by previous town boards and town comptroller and the current three-member board and comptroller, who came into office in 2008.

"No one's denying the AmeriCorps program isn't a fabulous program," West Seneca Councilwoman Sheila Meegan said. "But the Town of West Seneca taxpayers, we all were paying for it."

Meegan started examining vouchers submitted by AmeriCorps, and contacted the state comptroller's office when she found a disturbing lack of documentation for expenditures. The town has since instituted a credit card policy, and is working to improve oversight deemed lacking in the audit.

The town lost money because when it advanced funds for AmeriCorps programs, it was not always reimbursed, the audit said. Lazzara said the $1.6 million owed the town mentioned in the audit is coming into the town from various outside agencies.

He also complained that he had not talked to the comptroller's office in a year, and has had no chance to challenge the allegations in the report. He said he has proper documentation, but it will take some time to research the charges and locate the appropriate paperwork.

The audit, which examined financial controls and credit card activity within the town from Jan. 1, 2006, to Jan. 21, 2010, also blames former Town Comptroller Charles Koller for not performing "fundamental duties of his office."

Koller and former Town Supervisor Paul Clark could not be reached to comment. Clark was in office for AmeriCorps' rise in West Seneca, while Koller was the comptroller. The men are partners in a West Seneca accounting firm.

"It's amazing to me that it was allowed to happen," Meegan said. "It is disheartening that this went on for years and years and years."

Payback!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Hickok
The Promise