Brian Kolb must resign from the New York state Assembly, and the political and social leaders of his party and district must join the call for him to do so.
As details have come out about the New Year’s Eve DWI charges brought against him, the degree of his culpability has become clearer and more intolerable. He didn’t make a mistake, he broke the law, and did so in a fashion dangerous to the public and disqualifying of public office.
Here’s what we’ve learned: He was drunk times two, he lied, he threw his wife under the bus, and he made a sexist remark.
Further, he violated a state policy against driving a government vehicle after drinking. For any non-elected state employee, violation of that policy is grounds for firing.
Brian Kolb has got to go.
Here’s what happened.
He apparently spent the late afternoon and early evening at the Erie Grill in Pittsford. He told an Ontario County sheriff’s deputy that he had about four cocktails while there. It is more likely, given his subsequent blood alcohol content, that he had consumed twice that many.
Which means he probably lied to that cop.
At any rate, the investigation showed that he drove from the Erie Grill to his new home in Victor. That’s 10 miles. Ten miles is a long way. The degree of threat he posed on the road, as a statistical matter, depends on whether he drove on Route 96 or Interstate 490. Both are major thoroughfares, and pass through communities with an aggregate population of 45,000.
That means Assemblyman Kolb took his drunk show on the road in areas of high population and significant vehicular traffic.
When he was so inebriated that, more than an hour later, he still had trouble standing unsupported.
Somehow, Kolb was able to get his state-owned SUV home, but foundered on the driveway, ending up in the ditch, resting against a guy-wire. From the looks of the tracks in the mud, he almost hit a utility pole.
And sometime after doing so, he called for road service, to pull him out.
That’s where his political career began to unravel.
Because the tow driver called 911.
That happened after he rolled up, saw Kolb leaning into and against the vehicle, and heard the 10-year Assembly minority leader say that his wife had been driving, and that “you know how women drive.”
Think about that for a second.
To cover his own ass, he implicated his wife, and to top it off, he threw in a little misogyny. He tried to put his guilt on her, and then he regurgitated a disrespectful stereotype from a half century ago.
That’s not cool.
An hour later, when they took him to the sheriff’s office, he blew a .16 BAC.
That’s twice the legal limit.
And also some 25 percent lower than he probably had been when behind the wheel.
Here’s how that works out. According to law-enforcement officers who work in DWI enforcement, the average person will metabolize about .02 BAC per hour. Brian Kolb took the breathalyzer about two hours after he left the Erie Grill. If the math holds up, that would put him about .04 higher BAC when he get behind the wheel of the state-owned SUV.
That would be .20 – two and a half times the legal limit – and it would probably take something like eight cocktails for a man of Kolb’s size to hit that level.
That’s a lot of drinking, and that is drunker than hell.
And that is how a sitting assemblyman chose to drive, in a state vehicle. He violated state policies, and state laws, and he created a risk to the community.
He’s got to go. And the failure of civic and political leaders in his district to call for his resignation is an indictment of them and of the clannish politics in his district.
There are some unanswered questions.
One is, if he had trouble standing an hour or an hour and a half after leaving the Erie Grill, what must his condition have been there, and what was the bar doing serving him or allowing him to drive away at that level of intoxication?
Further, though he told the investigating deputy that he had driven home from the bar, some of his political friends have floated the theory that he may have been covering for his wife, that he told the tow driver the truth, that he took the hit trying to protect her.
Oh chivalry.
Or, oh bull crap.
But either way, he disqualified himself for further service. One of the reasons being that he’s not supposed to allow anyone other than a state employee to drive his state vehicle, and he’s not supposed to lie to the police.
If the whispered speculations are true, then he lied to a police officer involved in a criminal investigation.
None of which is good.
And none of which changes the fact that Assemblyman Brian Kolb broke the law, and committed a firing offense under state policy.
And, in 2020, threw out a sexist stereotype that demeans about half the people he represents.
It’s pretty clear. Brian Kolb has disqualified himself from further service.
It remains to be seen if the people and institutions of power in his district have the backbone to say so.