Week of June 3

-- Anonymous, June 05, 2001

Answers

Freeman: Onteora wants new appointee now, not later

-- Anonymous, June 05, 2001

Many thanks to Carol for posting the new week on the SOS BBS for me.

The board meeting last night was the usual monkey business with the majority voting to go forth with the June 15 deadline for applicants to fill the vacancy on the board due to Joe Vanacore's resignation. The board disregarded pleas from the public, Marino, and a motion by Meg, to postpone the appointment until July 1 when Tom Rosato is on the board in order to fill the position with a more moderate candidate. Rumor has it that CARE is pushing for Rose Ostrander to fill the seat (Can you imagine?).

There are several plans in the works.

First, it is being looked into whether the actions of the board on this matter were legally appropriate due to the fact that no public motion was voted on to actually replace Vanacore's seat with an appointment. According to NYSED law, the board has the options of replacing the seat with an appointment, have an open election, or wait and leave the seat vacant until the seat is up for election again. The board never voted to do anything on this matter except not have an application deadline of July 6 which Meg proposed at last nights meeting.

The other strategy is to flood the district with applications for the vacant seat. The requirements for appliocation to the seat are to submit a letter of intent to seek the seek and attach a resume to the letter. I encourage everyone and their friends to apply to fill the seat in this process. We need to acquire at least 50 applicants to have a timely effect and thus delay an appointment until Tom is on the board. Let's get working on this right away. Write a letter of intent for your friends and relatives to sign and attach any old resume. These can be collected by us and submitted, en masse, to Wendy, the district clerk, on Friday, June 15 ay 3:00pm. THIS IS IMPORTANT!! PLEASE START COLLECTING LETTERS AND RESUMES TODAY!!!

The result of all of this should be to force the board to consider a moderate candidate who will restore an open discussion of ideas and agendas to the board. Retsore order to our meetings and get away from the power block voting which we have been subjected to in the last year.

I propose that we push for Kathy Hochman, who we interviewed during our candidate selection process, as the replacement trustee. She is moderate and interested. Plus she was gracious enough to step aside during the election for the greater cause of electing Tom and Meg. Let's try to support her in this process with our our good efforts.

Thanks.

-- Anonymous, June 05, 2001

You mean we don't believe Marty Millman when he says they have no political motivation?

1 Kathy Hochman is ok by me.

2 When will we know about the legal angle? I intend to wait to find out about it before I knock together my resume

-- Anonymous, June 05, 2001

Freeman: Condom distribution under fire at Onteora

If all else fails, why don't we appeal to the time-honored practice of nepotism? I had Joe Vanacore's grandson Joseph in my little group that I was chaperoning for the 4th grade field trip yesterday. He was a fun little guy and I'm sure I'd rather have him than Rose Ostrander.

-- Anonymous, June 06, 2001

From the CARE site:

"A word about the election. "We may have lost a battle but we have not lost the war!"

So comforting to know that they are waging war on us. Those who found nails in their tires may want to nip on over to their website and preserve this little statement for their scrapbooks.

-- Anonymous, June 07, 2001

First, in response to Curry, there is no time to wait and see if the legal angle works. We must have letters and resumes in hand at 3pm on Friday, the 15th. The legal aspect may not be decided until that Wednesday or Thursday. We need to be prepared to move quickly. I hope we could get 10 letters and resumes from each member. Please call all members and friends to try to get this together. I am busy with work and have not much time to solicit so we need to all pitch in for this to work.

I happened to see the CARE quote as well and brought it to board's attention at the second public-be-heard on Monday. For all the talk of non-partisan and reconciliation, I held up a printout of the site, quoted the war comment and blasted them for saying there wasn't any partisan politics. I appealed for a moderate candidate to be selected.

Dan Leader is pushing for an application frenzy as well. But he is strongly supporting Michael Goodman. Beware. Just send me applications by next week so I can hand them in on Friday. Please call all the members of SOS to gather these needed documents. Otherwise we will have Rose Ostrander on the board for a year. I can't stress enough the urgency of this approach.

BTW-Don't forget Tom's party on June 16th at his house. Please call him to RSVP.

-- Anonymous, June 07, 2001

I'm glad you brought up their "war" statement, it's another of those metaphors they use that have been distinctly creepy.

Ted and I won't be able to make it to Rosato's, we've got a memorial gathering down in NJ for a dear old friend that we must attend.

-- Anonymous, June 07, 2001

So, why are we not supporting Mike Goodman? I just want clarification. Teachers at Phoenicia are wanting Goodman in. I only have the interview to go by....what am I missing? I am talking up sending in applications everywhere I go. Good luck!

-- Anonymous, June 10, 2001

Don't forget the victory celebration on Saturday. Please give a call if you haven't already.

-- Anonymous, June 10, 2001