THE DAILY RAMBLE: The War between the Yonkers Board of Education and the Yonkers City Council Escalates
What is going on with the Yonkers BOE? Their behavior is indefensible. The City Council gives them roughly HALF A BILLION DOLLARS a year for educating our children, but when the Council wants to exercise its rights to have the BOE books audited, they are shut out. Look, the money comes from the pockets of the citizens of Yonkers, so it seems reasonable to me that the representatives of the citizens should be allowed to perform due diligence and audit the books.
What is the Yonkers Board of Education hiding?
Councilman John Murtagh has taken the position that the BOE will not receive approximately $25 million in capital funds until they comply with the Councils’ reasonable demand. The BOE’s response is to play bully and have their attorney, hired at the expense of the Children of Yonkers, to try and threaten Murtagh by claiming that his demand that they allow a Council audit is coercive and criminal.
Ridiculous.
It never crosses their mind that an elected official is doing his job? Protecting the Citizens and their money?
I think it is time for the BOE as it currently is operated needs to go. Too much money and time are being wasted on lawyers and grandstanding, when the money, OUR money, should be spent on the CHILDREN.
Links to documents can be found here:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: John Murtagh
November 24, 2009 (914) 391-3740
MURTAGH TO SCHOOL BOARD: IF PROTECTING THE TAXPAYERS IS A CRIME SEND ME TO JAIL…I’M A REPEAT OFFENDER!
Responding to a letter from the Yonkers School Board’s attorneys today accusing him of committing a crime and threatening to refer him to the District Attorney City Councilman John Murtagh (R-%) said: “ If protecting the taxpayers is a crime I plead guilty. In fact lock me up without parole because if I’m released I’ll only do it again!”
In a letter dated November 24, 2009 (copy attached) the Board’s attorney David Lewis, whose clients have included convicted murderer Carolyn Warmus and Panamanian Dictator Manuel Noriega, accused Murtagh of attempting to “blackmail” the School Board by his statements that he would not support the Board’s request for $25 million in additional borrowing as long as the Board continued to deny the right of the Yonkers Inspector General to review how the Board spend taxpayer money. The Board hired Lewis at the end of the summer to sue the Inspector General to prevent him from reviewing how it spends the money the City gives it in the budget.
Lewis’ letter also accuses Murtagh of committing the crime of “Coercion” in violation of NYS Penal Code Section 135.60 and threatens to go to the District Attorney to have Murtagh charged with a crime.
Murtagh said that Lewis’ letter was only the latest example of the complete disregard and disrespect that the Board of Education has shown to the taxpayers and their elected representatives. “From hiding the books to ignoring subpoenas to denying the City’s right to know how the taxpayers’ money is being spent, the Board has time and time again demonstrated a breathtaking arrogance” Murtaghsaid, “Now they threaten an elected official simply for doing his job on behalf of the people he represents. This is the sort of thuggery we expect in third world countries and dictatorships but not in our own City. Silencing critics may have worked for Mr. Lewis’ other clients like General Noriega. It won’t work for the Board of Education”.
