Mclaughlin quick with an insult
Too busy to explain trip to Costa Rica, executive resorts to obscenity
Rensselaer County Executive Steve Mclaughlin wouldn’t discuss why he’s in Costa Rica when reached by telephone Thursday morning.
Asked by a reporter if he was traveling on vacation or county business, Mclaughlin inquired if there was a GPS tracker on him.
“F__ off,” he said before hanging up.
Spokesmen for Hudson Valley Community College and the state University at Albany were subsequently able to cast more light on Mclaughlin’s whereabouts: The county executive is traveling with the presidents of both schools.
The delegation was invited by a Costa Rican congressman and agencies to make the educational and economic development trip, said HVCC’S Dennis Kennedy.
HVCC President Roger Ramsammy is on the trip to explore opportunities for workforce
development and opening an “educational pipeline” to bring students from the Central American nation to the community college, Kennedy said.
Ramsammy’s expenses are being paid for by HVCC, the spokesman said. Kennedy noted that the Costa Rican organizations who had initiated the visit had asked the county executive to attend.
Ualbany President Havidán Rodríguez also went along seeking to build connections with Costa Rican institutions to attract students to HVCC who would then transfer to Ualbany to complete their four-year degrees, said Ualbany spokesman Jordan Carleo-evangelist.
Albany County Executive Daniel Mccoy was not invited to take part, according to his spokeswoman Mary Rozak.
A post on Rensselaer County’s Twitter account said Mclaughlin’s travel was covered by the county’s industrial development agency, and that the county executive had spoken to “300 Costa Rican business leaders about opportunities big and small in Rensselaer County.”
Mclaughlin’s own usually active Twitter feed made no mention of the trip until the Times Union posted an initial version of this story.
A few hours later, Mclaughlin explained his initial response by saying on Twitter he had “just woken up, was busy getting ready for a packed day of meetings, said I would call back and (the Times Union) kept pestering me with questions rather than stop and accept that I’d call back so he was being rude and I’d had enough of it. Rather than be a man he whines.”
In the afternoon, Mclaughlin’s Operations Director Rich Crist issued a press release containing slightly more conventional quotes from Mclaughlin about the trip.
“All of us at Rensselaer County are very proud of our role as sponsor of Hudson Valley Community College and helping keep education both excellent and affordable at the college,” Mclaughlin said in the release. “We are particularly happy to join in reinforcing the message that Hudson Valley is a world-class institution that can help create opportunity and provide education in Costa Rica and elsewhere in the West Indies.”
HVCC Board of Trustees Chair Neil Kelleher — a former Rensselaer County legislative chair who was hired by Mclaughlin last fall to the newly created part-time post of “opioid recovery coordinator” for $30,000 a year — also traveled to Costa Rica, Kennedy said.
Like other SUNY community colleges across the state, Rensselaer County appoints several members to HVCC’S board of trustees.