Syracuse, NY -- With some 50 people cheering, state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli strutted into the state Democratic coordinated campaign headquarters in Syracuse sporting a bright orange Syracuse Orangemen T-shirt over his dress clothes. It was mid-way through the SU-Pitt football game Saturday and DiNapoli acknowledged he had a little competition. “We’re competing with (SU’s) homecoming and the first day...
View full sizeState Comptroller Tom DiNapoli stopped in Syracuse today for a campaign rally. He spoke with supporters at the state Democratic coordinated campaign headquarters on East Water Street in Syracuse. Syracuse, NY -- With some 50 people cheering, state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli strutted into the state Democratic coordinated campaign headquarters in Syracuse sporting a bright orange Syracuse Orangemen T-shirt over his dress clothes.
It was mid-way through the SU-Pitt football game Saturday and DiNapoli acknowledged he had a little competition.
“We’re competing with (SU’s) homecoming and the first day of hunting season, but we’re hunting for votes,” he said.
During his stop in Syracuse, DiNapoli told his supporters a little more about his competition for the state comptroller’s seat. DiNapoli, 56, a Democrat, said his Republican challenger Harry Wilson made millions as a former hedge fund manager.
“Look at how Harry Wilson has made his money through the hedge fund world — the least transparent and the least regulated financial services — being involved with financial institutions involving predatory lending,” DiNapoli said.
DiNapoli, who grew up in a middle class home on Long Island, has served as the state comptroller since 2007 when the state Legislature appointed him to replace Alan Hevesi who had resigned in the midst of a scandal.
Wilson, who turns 39 this month, was a hedge fund manager at Silver Point Capital when the company purchased FiberMark, a specialty paper manufacturer with a factory in Lowville, Lewis County. Wilson served on the FiberMark board of directors during a company restructuring.
Roger Turck, a 36-year FiberMark employee and president of the local steelworkers’ union, drove two hours from his home in Castorland to attend the rally on Saturday. DiNapoli told the crowd to just ask Turck and others at FiberMark about what the restructuring meant to them.
Turck, 56, said some employees’ wages dropped from $17.50 an hour to $12.33 an hour. Life insurance and health insurance benefits for retirees were taken away, Turck said. And employees’ pension benefits were frozen in 2007. At other plants, workers were laid off.
By January 2008, Silver Point sold the company to American Securities. Turck said in the roughly three years Wilson and Silver Point led FiberMark, they “took away $9 million in wages and benefits.”
Wilson said cuts were made in staff, wages and benefits at FiberMark, but said employees now have viable jobs. The investors made “a lot of money” because they bought it cheaply when it was in bankruptcy and sold the restructured company at market price, he said.
“We created a business that was competitive,” he said.
Wilson also has disputed criticism from DiNapoli that he made Wall Street millions at the expense of ordinary people who lost their mortgages and investments in the stock market meltdown and national recession.
Turck doesn’t agree.
“They came in, stole our wages and benefits and sold us,” Turck said. “The morale still isn’t where it was. I wouldn’t want someone like that (Wilson) representing me.”
DiNapoli said that’s a reflection of Wilson’s management style.
“That’s not the value system to bring to the comptroller’s office where you’re supposed to be safeguarding people’s pensions,” DiNapoli said, “where you’re supposed to be making choices about investment that should grow our economy not talk about turnaround when that’s nothing more than a code word for hurting working people.”
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
Catie O’Toole can be reached at cotoole@syracuse.com or 470-2134.