Week of July 1

-- Anonymous, July 01, 2001

Answers

I am gathering info and names of aggrieved applicants willing to contest the unilateral selection of Rose to the board. We are planning to meet on this Thursday night to discuss strategies. There will probably be about 10 people attending if all goes well and we are looking for a place to gather in the Shokan area as it is centrally located. Any suggestions are welcome and if anyone has an interest in attending please let me know. Thanks.

-- Anonymous, July 03, 2001

Tobe-I feel your letter is way too strong! I know we always have this disagreement over the tone of letters but I feel that you may have given away our strategy to our opponenets. It may be best to let other more aggrieved parties do the letter writing and board bashing. Just my 2 cents.

-- Anonymous, July 03, 2001

Re-running Tobe's last posting on Saturday, as he makes a good point:

"Another rant of sorts: The more I thnk about it, the way these guys stole the seat is cause for another law suit (I think.) Seems clear that they violated the open meetings law by unilaterally (or in a conspiracy of collusion) throwing out the two dozen applications without any involvement of the board or any public discussion of this process...Who gave Millman and Doan the authority to summarily dismiss these district citizens' applications? A violation of the open meetings law??? I think so..worth litigating??? Dunno! Even if the last piece they did was "legal" and done in public, everything up to thne was behind Millman's closed doors, with Doan and he making decisions properly left for the whole board. Thoughts please?"

Legal minds want to know. Tobe

-- Anonymous, July 01, 2001

Here's what I wrote...hope it'll wake people up. Tobe How ugly can it get at Onteora? The board majority has used blatant deceit to steal the vacant Board of Education seat. Board President Millman usurped the board's legal responsibility to make this decision as a public body. Without authorization, he improperly directed the district clerk to spend taxpayer money on ads calling for applications and promising candidate interviews.

Millman recorded a phone conversation with me in which he revealed that many of the applications for the vacancy were being arbitrarily tossed out. Millman told me he called applicants and he decided that "They don't know the Board of Education from their elbow." No member of the Board of Education has power to act without board authorization or outside of a public BOE meeting. Who gave Millman the power to decide which applications were to be thrown out? Who authorized him to contact applicants? Which candidates did he call? -- If he actually made any calls. Having spoken to several well-qualified candidates myself, I can report that Millman called none that I spoke to.

Since the board had never publicly discussed any of the 25 applicants, Millman acted in defiance of the Open Meetings Laws when he cut the field of candidates to ONE! If, as appears to be the case, he and Joe Doan made the back-room choices together, they are guilty of conspiracy. These decisions belong to the entire Board of Education meeting in public not to one or two members conspiring in secret to subvert the political process.

No interviews were ever held and the public was denied proper scrutiny of the candidates. Now, we have a discredited, deceitful board President and what appears to be a shocking conspiracy by board trustees. Millman and Doan must resign or be immediately removed from office.

Tobe Carey, Glenford

-- Anonymous, July 02, 2001

The meeting for any parties feeling aggrieved regarding the appoinment of Rose onto the BOE is to be held this Thursday at Jane Van De Bogarts home at 7pm. If you would like to attend please call me at 657-2099 and I will give directions.

-- Anonymous, July 03, 2001

It occurred to me today that Marty's comments regarding Rose's placement because of a "womanly" influence could be construed both as discriminatory by the male applicants and sexist (some kind of harrassment?) by the other females. Any legal recourse down that avenue?

-- Anonymous, July 05, 2001

I see my request for the tape Millman made of my conversation with him was disappeared. No surprises there...Seems like it's under the category of "my dog ate my homework." What a slug...now he's using his son to cover for him. Wonder how his son got the tape away from Joe Doan's machine in order to dub over it...Just speculating here. :-)

Wonder if Joe's tape of the lawyer will meet the famous "Nixon" deletion fate as well.

Tobe

-- Anonymous, July 06, 2001