Newly elected school board candidate, Sunday Coward, dashed from the airport to the June 7th planning session arriving at 7:33 p.m., only three minutes after the meeting began.  By the time she arrived, the Nassau County Fire Marshall had already finished his report to the Board, a minute and a half earlier. Unaware of this, after the meeting, Ms. Coward asked a resident what she had missed. When she was informed that the Fire Marshall had given his report and left, Ms. Coward remarked, "I was three minutes late. I came here right from the airport. How could the Fire Marshall give his report in under three minutes?"

The clock on the board room wall read exactly 7:31:30 p.m. when your reporter arrived at the June 7th board meeting. All School Board meetings are scheduled to begin at 7:30 p.m. Denise Elmore, the district’s shadow clerk, appeared to be standing in for the absent District Clerk and was putting out the evenings agenda and some other copies for the public. As she was doing this, the meeting was well underway.

According to the just circulated agenda, the gentleman concluding his report to the Board was the [Nassau County] Fire Commissioner, Inspector Lerner. Inspector Lerner had rocketed through his report in only a minute and a half. As your reporter entered the room the Fire Marshall was saying, "... definitely the doors, the exit windows above the doors and nothing hanging from end to end that could also fall and trip the student, or God forbid, catch fire." Board President Grover said, "In all fairness to the district, since Dan [Romano] is not in that position any longer, could you review specifically what you have found in each one of the schools and this way we can be doubly sure that we have corrected all of our problems... so that we get nothing but rave reviews on the second inspection."

The Fire Marshall explained that all the schools have their own book of violations, prompting Board President Grover to inexplicably ask, "Do the building principals have that?" Spiro Colaitis, the new Director of Facilities and Operations volunteered, "We have it downstairs." As Fire Marshall Lerner was getting up to leave, he said, "We don’t want to find out what went wrong after the fact."

In a brief conversation with the Fire Marshall, FNYN asked if there was a written report produced of their inspection. Inspector Lerner advised FNYN, "There was a written report prepared for the state and they [the Board] have a copy of it." The Board did not make the Fire Inspection Report available to the public. FNYN has requested a copy of this report from the District and will make it available as soon as it is produced by the district, which according to the law, should be within the next five business days.

The Board then reviewed the agenda for their next Board action meeting. There was only one brief question about the agenda. In clear violation of the Open Meetings Laws of New York, it was mumbled so that nobody from the public could understand what the Board was saying. The Board did not volunteer the agenda to newly elected Board member, Sunday Coward.

In other business before the Board, the Board accepted a transportation contract. Your reporter asked if this was the lowest bid. Assistant Superintendent of Business, Kishore Kuncham responded, "In this case it was not. It was not a bid, it was an RFP (Request for Proposal)."

FNYN asked, "Can you tell me the difference in the totals of the bids?" Board VP Renken responded, "Ninety thousand dollars."

Kuncham then explained, "If I look at apples to apples, the lowest bidder comes in at $1,250,000 and the other at $1,364,000, so they’re over by about ninety thousand dollars. (the actual difference is one hundred and fourteen thousand dollars - ed.)

School Board member Ronald Ellerbe tried to keep the amount of the bids from being divulged, suggesting that they might be confidential and that the Board had a responsibility not to divulge them.

Grover volunteered that we had trouble in the past with WE Transportation. Kuncham stated that, "We Transportation was not responsible." Your reporter said, "I would suggest you think about this. Sometimes companies improve, like school scores. If we can save the district tens of thousands of dollars, maybe we could spend that on teachers, programs and supplies."

The Board, without any discussion, voted unanimously to approve the higher bid.

The next item the Board voted on was authorization to borrow $35,600,000 as a result of the recently passed bond resolution. Go to Bond

FNYN has interviewed many residents regarding this bond resolution since the election. Almost all of them don’t believe that the bond passed. This surprise passage has been echoed throughout the community, with many of the bond’s supporters also not believing the results. The pre election irregularities, known to and ignored by Newsday, were capped off by the election night lock down of the room in which the votes were counted. Board President Grover stood guard over the room, not allowing anybody in except the Lisi and bond supporters. Cristoval Lopez of the Freeport Neighborhood Association and the ALF told Grover that he thought this was wrong, that the room shouldn’t be locked and available only to the bond supporters and the Board’s candidate. Grover just grinned. In frustration, Lopez looked at Grover and asked him if he thought this was Cuba. Grover said nothing, just grinning some more. One official of the PTA, who asked not to be identified said, "How does anybody know what happened? They had the room all locked up. I think they could have given the election to Coward and then had the bond pass, figuring that if Coward won, nobody would protest the bond vote. All they seemed to really care about was the bond."

When the shadow clerk, Elmore, put out the wording for the resolution supporting the bond at the outset of the meeting, she did not include the Bond Resolution itself. When your reporter asked why the resolution was not attached as stated, the Board sat mute. When I asked for a copy of the resolution, incredibly, not one member of the School Board or the Administration, save Mr. Kuncham, had a copy. Mr. Kuncham graciously gave his copy to your reporter, who is also a resident.

The Bond still could have been rejected by the lame duck Board. Indeed, if the Board had waited until Ms. Coward had been sworn in, a majority vote of three school members would not have been enough to pass the bond, as a supermajority of four is required to pass it. Ms. Coward had done a excellent job on the Better Plan, the alternative proposal that would have appropriated the necessary funding for full day kindergarten among other things and would have saved the district millions. Clearly, it was unfortunate for the residents, that the Board would not wait to vote, as all Ms. Coward would have needed was to convince one Board member that there was a better plan.

During the Board’s promotion of the bond, the administration maintained that boilers, windows and general maintenance were aidable at the 72 % rate. In a desperate move, the Board made up foam board placards and distributed literature again, falsely claiming that the cost of the bond was entirely 72% reimbursable by the state. It was only after many complaints, culminating in a complaint by the Co-president of the High School PTA, Stephanie Cieslik, that the Board changed the wording and saying that the bond was aidable "up to" 72%. Even after this change, the administration and the Board acted as though the district was getting aided for everything at the maximum level of 72%.

With this in mind, FNYN asked Board President Grover, "Do you folks have any idea how much of this is reimbursable by the state? What percentage is reimbursable by the state?"

Grover responded, "I don’t think we will have a final number until the architects have completed their drawings and they can do the calculations on classroom space. That is something that is going to be decided by NYS."

FNYN asked, "Would it be safe to say that the total reimbursement will not be 72%? Does the district have any idea over the course of the bond how much percentage of reimbursement we will get from the state?"

Grover responded, "I don’t have any approximation."

FNYN followed up, "So you are about to float a 36 million dollar bond and you don't have any idea how much is reimbursable?"

Grover answered, "No."

The Board without any discussion, voted unanimously to approve the bond resolution.

The Board convened into executive session at 8 p.m. for one matter of personnel, inviting newly elected Board member, Sunday Coward to attend the session.