January 8, 2010 But the question remains, will this produce a legitimate search or like the first time around, a sham? In November, the votes of Aron Wieder. Eliyahu Solomon, Richard Stone, and Moshe Hopstein created a hiring process that was anything but fair, open, or intelligent. "It’s in the bag," Wieder was overheard reassuring their candidate, Albert D’Agostino, when he stormed out of a public meeting. And it was in the bag, until Steve White filed an objection with the State, and taxpayers and parents, who would be paying the attorney’s fees, rose up against the decision.

One reason for skepticism over this latest apparent reversal is the fact that the board has not offered a single specific reason for getting rid of Stephen Fromson the current attorney. Board member Mimi Calhoun told The Journal News "she was troubled by the decision to dismiss Fromson because he had served the district ‘wisely’ and ‘with continuity’ over the last 33 years. ‘I've always perceived him as an anchor for us,’ she said." The often cited mantra for the private school faction on the board (We must cut costs) certainly doesn’t work here. D’Agostino would be far more expensive to hire, coming in at an inflated rate of $500/hour, including travel. Fromson charges the district $120/hour and has never charged for travel.

Unless, or until the Wieder/Stone/Solomon/Hopstein faction presents some reasonable explanations, speculation on the LoHud blogs will continue to hang in the air, inviting investigation. An example--"They have given no reason what so ever. Check on the NYS Board of Ed website and see how many cases did he [Fromson] lose representing the school district. NONE! That’s why the bloc wants to get rid of him; he stands in their way of their money laundering schemes. Filter all the resources of the district away from legit companies."

Nathan Rothschild
School Board President, Nathan Rothschild, has been MIA through much of this controversy. He was out of town for the infamous midnight vote rammed through by the private school faction. He has had nothing to say about the firestorm it has since created, and on Wednesday night, when the board returned from the executive session in which they decided to open up the search, he was not among them—apparently having slipped out a side door on the way back in.

Rothschild did, however, offer a comment to The Journal News about the reopening of the search. "There’s no better way than to do that with a request for proposal (RFP), which will enable a multitude of law firms to tell us what they feel legal representation for a district should be." Further, Rothschild said "that a request for proposal takes into account monetary considerations and other factors such as previous experience working with schools."

That all sounds very good until you match it against the facts. Rothschild insists we have to listen to other offers, we have to look at the firms’ experience, and we have to consider the cost.

Well, consider what happened in the first round. The law firm Kuntz, Spagnuolo, and Murphy of Bedford Village submitted an RFP for the East Ramapo legal position. They represent school districts in Westchester, Rockland, Dutchess and Ulster Counties. They, in fact, specialize in education law and several districts have retained them for more than 30 years. (They have represented Nanuet Union Free School District for 33 years.) While Mr. D’Agostino is currently being investigated by New York State for his alleged role in improperly accepting $600,000 in state pensions, Kuntz, Spagnuolo, and Murphy have won several education cases before the United States Supreme Court (see www.schoolattorney.com) and they have a group with a variety of expertise in education law. How expensive would this group of specialists be for the district? We don’t know. We have been told that Wieder/Stone/Solomon/Hopstein did not see any reason to interview them.

I have the text of the two letters submitted by the Bedford attorneys and by the Lawrence NY attorney D’Agostino (see end of article). Read both letters, and then put yourself in the position of the person hiring the next attorney. Not much of a stretch, because it’s you who will be paying the legal bills. As you read the letters, keep Rothschild’s benchmarks in mind: experience working with schools, expertise in the area of specialization, and the costs.

As for the other intangibles that you measure in a face-to-face interview, there is the video still online of Mr. D’Agostino blowing up at the only public meeting he attended, threatening to sue a parent, and then stalking out of the gym to exchange some Anglo-Saxon epithets with other staff and parents in the hallway. Somehow, I'm not sure Justice John G. Roberts would welcome that kind of discourse in his courtroom.

Letter from Kuntz, Spagnuolo, and Murphy to Dr. Oustatcher, Re: School District Legal Counsel.

Letter from Minerva & D’Agostino to Nathan Rothschild and School Board.