BOE Election 2013

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Next Tuesday, November 5, 2013, is Election Day.  While Chris Christie smothers his competition and Cory Booker feeds his oversized ego by having won a Senate seat, we have our own Fort Lee BOE election, four candidates for three positions on a nine person board.  

Jeffrey Weinberg, the only non-incumbent is highly likely to prevail.    I’ve never met Mr. Weinberg or heard him speak.  But he has one major attribute, “HE IS NOT ON THE CURRENT BOARD”.  Considering what has occurred over the past few years, that should be the only credential necessary to be elected. 

The biggest problem seems to be this “Oath of Confidentiality” which transforms itself into a total lack of transparency.   Laws regarding “Rice notices” prevent speaking about any public employee without giving them written notice.  But this cloak of secrecy about every other issue has been extremely frustrating, particularly when the school system appeared to be on the verge of a state takeover in August 2013.     

The Incumbents:  Yusang Park, BOE President, has been in charge since the departure of Arthur Levine in August 2012.    Charlie Luppino has been a Board member for many years and Candee Romba was elected in November 2012 to fill the vacancy left by Mr. Levine. 

It is impossible to ignore the fact that the district has been in utter chaos during the past year.  Lets look at the BOE accomplishments in 2012-2013: 

 (1)  As of August 2013, there was no Superintendent of Schools in Fort Lee.  Fortunately, when Paul Saxton was finally engaged, probably preventing a State takeover of our schools, he had absolutely no time to prepare for the 2013-14 school year.  Beginning in September 2013, he could not possibly have mentally prepared for the “hornets’ nest” of problems that were left unaddressed by our current BOE.  Mr. Saxton has been here for less than 60 days and continues to deal with the daily crisis that calls itself the Fort Lee school system.    

(2) As of August 2013, there was no high school principal.  Priscilla Church, prior principal, had been unilaterally dismissed and transferred to the preschool program with “two days notification” in late June 2013, showing total disrespect to a dedicated professional.  But the BOE, knowing that she was going to be transferred had “NO BACKUP PLAN”.  Any private corporation would have hired a replacement to be prepared for the upcoming 2013-14 school year. But our BOE decided to go into crisis mode. When Dr. Frank Calabria was finally engaged, he was not able to assume the position until after September 1, giving him absolutely no time to acclimate and to prepare for the upcoming year.

(3) On September 26, 2013, a letter outlining charges of possible misconduct was filed against a BOE member, Joseph Surace, and the Director of Buildings & Grounds, Jack DeNichilo.  The BOE says the matter is under investigation. Dennis McKeever, Board Attorney, when asked how long the investigation would take, responded with his usual candidness, “I don’t think it will take a year”.  Thank you Dennis for your forthrightness!  In the opinion of at least one community member, your legal bills totaling over $ 84,000 through July 2013 are a tribute to the BOE ability to squander budget money.   

Mr. Surace has also been accused of smoking on School grounds illegally, something I have personally witnessed.  Note: Diane Sicheri, head of the Homeowners Association, unwilling to recognize the fact that smoking is “forbidden on school grounds” publically announced that her husband is a smoker and she wishes the “smoking police” would leave these poor people alone.   

Jack DeNichilo has been allegedly using janitors, i.e. school personnel, and paying them overtime to set up the athletic fields for the Fort Lee Jr. Bridgemen, a recreational football league.  Coincidentally, it has been brought to my attention that Jack appears to be treasurer of this league, i.e. a major conflict of interest.   Note:  Diane Sicheri, again displaying her total lack of ability to comprehend misconduct and lack of ethics,  defended Mr. DeNichilo’s actions by stating that she knew he was being misjudged because he had assisted her with the Homeowner’s Candidates Night at the middle school.  The only conclusion to be drawn is that one has the right to misuse BOE funds for non-school purposes as long as you assist Diane Sicheri with her agenda. 

(4) In September 2012, virtually everyone in Fort Lee, apparently with the exception of the BOE members, knew that Linda Farrell, Director of the Academy of Finance, was retiring at the end of the school year.  Then when Nadege Stretz resigned in May 2013 and Brian McCarthy in June 2013, there was no Director and no teachers left in the Fort Lee High School Academy of Finance.    One of our finest programs was left floating on the high seas with no rudder, no pilot, and no crew, the Fort Lee version of the “Flying Dutchman”.   And then after the smoke cleared, the Board, out of desperation, hired Brian McCarthy back for the summer to manage the AOF internship program!  That was almost laughable. 

(5) In September 2012, virtually everyone in Fort Lee knew that Barbara Pastore, Director of the Community Service program, was retiring at the end of the school year.  Yet on October 1, 2013, after the school year had already begun, there was no director to run the Community Service program.  And it took members of the community to pursue this issue until the BOE finally appointed a current staff member to assume the responsibilities of this position. 

(6) Cheryl Balletto, our “permanent” Business Administrator, was given a ten month leave of absence upon having a child.   She had accrued a large amount of sick time and vacation time to allow her to receive full pay for the majority of this LOA.  In private business, leaves of that magnitude would probably never be granted, but for the Fort Lee BOE, it was just business as usual.   And if that weren’t enough of a “gift”, Cheryl was granted a contract where she only has to work “4 DAYS PER WEEK”, for full salary over the next FOUR YEARS!  Don’t we all wish we had that deal?! 

(7) But it gets better! Robert Brown is hired as interim Business Administrator, because Cheryl’s assistant, Ana Flores, decides she does not want to step up to fill the position (or someone decided she was not capable), costing the district major bucks.  But then Mr. Brown resigns and another interim Business Administrator, David Rinderknecht, is hired, for $ 70 per day more than Mr. Brown was making!   Is this Keystone Kops Finance or what? 

(8) Our new high school gym is finally complete and ready for action.  Unfortunately, it is now November.  Wouldn’t it have been nice if the project had been properly supervised and completed by school opening day in September 2013?

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It is highly probably that there are at least a dozen more examples of the BOE not performing up to reasonable expectations:  e.g. missing chrome books: no Honors Chemistry textbooks; no Director of Guidance; the hiring of a special ed consultant who performed her duties while in Greece.   This lists reads like a modern edition of Ripley’s “Believe it or Not”.

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Can one new BOE member make a difference? Who knows? The answer is that a message needs to be sent to this Board that their performance has been abysmal. Our only option is to elect Jeffrey Weinberg and hope that he brings something to the table that is not currently there, business acumen. 

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Kudos to “Pearls of Wisdom”:  

On August 25, 2012, I published a blog on Judge Shira A. Sheindlin’s decision regarding  “stop and frisk tactics”, deriding her lack of insight and obvious bias in reprimanding the NYPD.   

 On Thursday, October 31, 2013, a federal appeals court threw out Judge Scheindlin’s decision, and verbally berated her tactics, stating that she “ran afoul of the judiciary code of conduct by compromising the appearance of impartiality surrounding the litigation”.    (The judges obviously read the blog).  www.nytimes.com 11-01-2013.

 

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