-The Albany Police Department either destroyed records or failed to document its internal investigation of the illegal purchase of machine guns by dozens of Albany police officers and at least one civilian.

The gap in record-keeping was revealed recently when the city was forced by a judge's order to release its files on the machine guns to the Times Union under a freedom of information request made more than two years ago.

City attorneys turned over dozens of pages of documents that included invoices, copies of money orders, canceled personal checks and correspondence with the Vermont arms dealer that provided the guns.

The records indicate there were more purchases than previously estimated by Chief James W. Tuffey, who had pegged the total number of weapons at 48 with six missing.

But the documents show there were apparently 52 machine guns purchased, and that at least nine are missing.

Tuffey said the department destroyed 42 of the machine guns last year. In an interview last week, he said confirming the total number of guns has been difficult because the department had almost "no records" related to the purchases.

"He stated to us that they had all been recovered and destroyed," recalls Councilman James Scalzo, chairman of the Public Safety Committee.

"Any inference that we're hiding something is not true," Tuffey said, adding that he wasn't aware of the issue before this month. "Let's not jump to a conclusion because a newspaper article was written."

"I never lie and I never will lie. ... I said to you that all the guns we had in our possession were destroyed," Tuffey said. "I don't know how many guns were purchased. ... I don't know. There's no records, guys."

He blamed the city deficit on rising costs for health insurance, salaries, utilities and gasoline.

City Comptroller Thomas Nitido was more blunt: "The city was confronting some very significant financial problems before the loss of this money -- what was a pretty sad situation is becoming a desperate one"

The City's multi-year financial plan, as submitted to the NYS Division of the Budget on February 6, 2008, projects an operating deficit of approximately $14.9 million for 2009 and $20.4 million in 2010. To put it another way, if these deficits were to be funded by property tax revenue it would require a 30% increase in the property tax levy for 2009 and an additional 32% property tax levy increase in 2010. That's an unacceptable option and certainly not a burden that Albany property tax payers can sustain.

Once again, the Albany Police Department and Chief James Tuffey are stonewalling a request for information, this time from a Menands family trying to make sense of their son's untimely death in an accident involving a driver who was fleeing police.

So, one more time, Albany Police Department: Public information belongs to the public. Not to you.

It's not yours to decide if you feel like releasing it or not.

When a citizen follows the rules and goes through the process of filing a Freedom of Information request, you must comply if the information is public.

You don't get to invent privacy issues and decide you're going to withhold certain things, like the names of police officers or witnesses.

You can't claim the information is exempt from disclosure because it's the subject of an ongoing criminal investigation if in fact there is no investigation going on.

You're can't blanketly deny information under the cover of an internal affairs investigation.

You can't decide, just because the information might be embarrassing, or uncomfortable, or give people grounds to sue you, that you're justified in withholding it and breaking the law.

“The Director of Administration has demonstrated a total disregard for fiscal management, a total lack of compliance with county guidelines for the use of the petty cash fund and exhibits a sense of entitlement that is dangerous to the fiscal matters of the District Attorney’s office,” Conners wrote.

Conners said that in more than 130 petty cash audits during the past 12 years, his office had “never encountered the problems with basic bookkeeping, accounting and petty cash account management that the Director of Administration for the DA presents.”

"I think some of those people in that common council should think about leaving office after this," says Albany Police Chief James Tuffey. He said his investigators gave him reason to doubt Lisa Shutter - he says that's why the two officers who stopped Shutter in December were always kept on the job.

"They're elected officials. They should let the process take its place," says Tuffey. "They may not like it when I don't tell them everything but they're not entitled to know everything."

There are undoubtedly other ways in a tough economic climate to signal that Albany is still open for business than to build a $400 million convention center. Mr. Jennings, it’s time for your leadership, and a new vision.

This is a test of leadership, and the mayor is failing it.

We're still waiting for Mr. Jennings to go over the ATF data and offer his own assessment of it.

Again we say: Albany will either be a city with a gun problem that's very much under control, or it won't be much of a city at all. All eyes on you, Mr. Jennings and Mr. Tuffey.

ALBANY Mayor Jerry Jennings wants to take a wrecking ball to the city's abandoned houses, hiring a contractor to demolish as many as 50 at a time.

``I'm planning an initiative to knock those buildings down and get them out of the picture, get them out of the neighborhoods so we can focus on rebuilding,'' Jennings said Wednesday. ``Some neighborhoods have had houses boarded up for five to 10 years.''

The move to rid the city of structural eyesores is Jennings' latest hit on an issue he pushed as an alderman and campaigned on last year when running for mayor reversing neighborhood deterioration and a get-tough policy on city slumlords.

Now the controversial bill to give Albany fiscal aid for 30 years awaits action by Gov. David Paterson. Mayor Jerry Jennings is counting on the funds to close a growing budget gap.

Without the payments in lieu of taxes, Budget Director Christopher Hearley said, the city projects a $14.7 million gap for 2009. But the measure would still leave the city struggling.

"The $11 million on its face would not take care of the $14.7 million deficit," he said. "There is still work to be done.