Election shenanigans are nothing new to the Freeport School district. In the 1997 school board election there was a clear and convincing showing of fraud and improper conduct regarding the nominating petitions of Dorothy Fox, by the then candidate/school board member Fox and by present school board member John Muscara. The fraudulent conduct of Fox and Muscara was covered up by the District Clerk and the Board, which included present board members Ellerbe and Renken, who is also a candidate again this year. 

During last year’s school board election, retired police officer and present Board President Ellerbe was caught tampering with campaign materials the day before the election.

This Year’s Election Starting Off On The Same Foot.

At the March 28th School Board meeting, your reporter asked the Board if the District Clerk, Mary Bediako, had signed a letter explaining the procedures for becoming a school board candidate. Ellerbe explained that the letter "was prepared by the district." Your reporter said, "The letter is clearly signed by the District Clerk, Mary Bediako. Is that her signature?"

Ellerbe replied, "You have my answer. What difference does it make, anyway?"

Your reporter answered, "It makes a big difference. The clerk states in her letter, that ‘each petition must be notarized.' Education Law says nothing about notarizing petitions and the courts have found that nominating petitions for the school board do not have to be notarized. Keeping that in mind, can you tell me why it says the petitions must be notarized, when they don’t have to be?"

Ellerbe and the Board remained mute.

Your reporter continued, "Did you contact your attorneys before you did this?"

Bediako answered, "We had contacted the attorneys with this for their approval."

Your reporter asked, "So the attorneys approved the fact that the petitions had to be notarized?"

Bediako responded, "Yes."

Your reporter replied, "The attorneys approved this even though it is not required by the law. If that’s the case, maybe the school board should look for another attorney. You might recall that last year, the petitions to get a proposition on the ballot were rejected by the Board. Mr. Grover claimed the attorneys said that the addresses had to be on that petition, something that was clearly wrong. After first defending Larry Reich, the district’s attorney, the superintendent later admitted that he was wrong. Now you are telling us that the same attorneys are telling you that the petitions for the candidate for school board have to be notarized, when clearly they do not. Can you explain this and what are you going to do to correct it?"

Ellerbe said, "We will refer this to our counsel."

The District Did Nothing

FNYN asked Eloy Yndigoyen, a candidate for the school board, if he was going to get his petitions notarized. Yndigoyen said, "I know you don’t have to, but what am I going to do? If I don’t get them notarized, they will probably throw them out. I can’t afford to take them to court."

For three weeks the Board did nothing to advise the public of the District Clerk’s misinformation and Reich’s faulty counsel. A source later advised FNYN that the Board had decided to change the clerk’s letter and modify the sample petitions to reflect the requirements of the law for next year’s election. In the usual Star Chamber modus operandi of this Board, the matter was neither discussed nor decided in pubic.

Secrecy Continues To Be The Rule

By five o’clock on April 18th, it had appeared that six candidates had submitted nominating petitions to the District Clerk. Whether or not all six candidates had actually submitted their petitions by 5:00 p.m. is not clear, as the District Clerk, Mary Bediako refused to make the petitions available to the candidates.

On Thursday, April 19th at 10:00 a.m., the clerk supervised the drawing for the ballot positions. Four of the candidates were present. The positions were drawn as follows: 1A - Joyce Lisi; 1B - Albert Renken (incumbent); 1C - Carmen Piñeyro; 1D - Joseph Cattano; 1E - Eloy Yndigoyen; 1F - Michael Raab.

After the drawings, Piñeyro and Yndigoyen asked to see the other candidate’s petitions and also asked for copies. The practice of the school district has been to make the petitions along with copies available to all the candidates at the time of the drawing. Bediako refused to make the other candidates petitions available for inspection. When Yndigoyen asked for copies, Bediako said, "I don’t know if the copy machine is working." Piñeyro told the clerk she would come back at three that afternoon for the copies. Yndigoyen told FNYN, "I think there is something wrong. It gives the appearance of impropriety."

On Friday evening, FNYN asked Piñeyro if she had received the copies. Piñeyro explained, "I went back on Thursday afternoon at three o’clock like I said I would. Somebody told me the clerk was gone and that I should come back tomorrow. I went back today and the clerk told me that I should come back on Monday." FNYN asked if the clerk offered to show Piñeyro the other candidate’s petitions. Piñeyro answered, "No, she still didn’t offer to show me their petitions. For all I know, they could still be out there getting signatures."

A Renegade Board President &
The School District Report Card

Retired police officer and Board President Ellerbe, who had tampered with campaign materials during the past school board election, continued to violate both NYS Open Meetings Law and the district’s policy. During the March 28th Board meeting, Ellerbe had conversations with other board members, which couldn’t be heard by the audience. When it was pointed out to him that his remarks were supposed to be audible, he contemptuously said, "That’s a matter of opinion."

The opinions of the courts and the Director of the NYS Committee on Open Government, Robert Freeman, are clear. Freeman said this about school board members being able to be heard. "The Board must in my view situate itself and conduct its meetings in a manner in which those in attendance can observe and hear the proceedings. To do otherwise would in my opinion be unreasonable and fail to comply with a basic requirement of the Open Meetings Law."

Board Keeps Parents In The Dark

On many occasions the Board has bemoaned the lack of participation by the district’s parents, yet, while the district’s report card was on the evening’s agenda, the announcement of its presentation mysteriously disappeared off the District’s web site on the day of the board meeting. When the Board was asked what they had done to advise the parents that the school report card was being presented that evening, Ellerbe said it was announced at the High School PTA meeting. A parent told FNYN that there were only about thirty people in attendance at the PTA meeting. Freeport High School is jam packed with over two-thousand students.

The district’s superintendent and some in his administration, as well as the Board have repeatedly claimed that the report card is unfair to Freeport. The latest school report card shows Freeport’s students performing in the very bottom of Nassau County.

Your reporter asked Ellerbe if letters were sent home to the parents advising them of the evening’s presentation of the school report card. Ellerbe replied, "No they were not."