By Angela Marshall
The Rockville Centre School District wants to purchase this property to alleviate space problems at the high school. A district-wide public vote will be held on the purchase on April 18.
Elliott Winograd, a member of two civic organizations opposing the purchase, said the board of education failed to vote in public on the property deal at the Feb. 26 meeting even though the minutes reflect that they did. Both the school board president and superintendent of schools deny the accusations.
We're not trying to hide anything, said Dr. William Johnson, superintendent.
Johnson and members of the board announced their plans to purchase property at the beginning of the Feb. 26 meeting but said they didn't want to say where until negotiations were finalized. At the end of the meeting, the board unanimously approved a resolution, which included a maximum amount of funds available for the purchase of the Maple Avenue property and a referendum date for district residents to vote on the purchase. The board did not, however, read the resolution out loud. Administrators said the board does not read resolutions out loud if they are long. Information passed in the resolutions is immediately available if the public asks to see it, according to Johnson.
After Johnson finished negotiations with the Maple Avenue property owner the next day, he called any organization that he felt might be interested in the purchase, including the Maple Avenue Task Force and the Middle Village Civic Association. In addition, board member Keith Gaskell told the Herald of the deal.
Winograd challenges that under state law the board is required to notify the public of what they are voting on at each meeting, not the next day.
Attorney Ron Burke, a former school board member, said if the board did vote on the resolution without reading it out loud, they were acting in a "cryptic fashion... designed to conceal from the public what they're voting on."
Winograd also said the board failed to comply with education laws when it posted the legal notice only in Newsday and not the village's other official newspaper, the Rockville Centre Herald.
School District Clerk Cynthia Geones denied Winograd's charge, saying, We have met the posting requirements.
Geones ran the notice in Newsday instead of the Herald, where the district posts most of its information, because it needed to run 45 days prior to the referendum, April 18, under state law. Because the Herald publishes weekly, the next issue was not printed before the 45-day deadline.
Winograd said that even if the posting did not meet the 45-day requirement, the district is still required to place the notice in at least two papers. He feels the board and district are trying to push the referendum under the table and are not being open with the public.
We did nothing wrong, said Meg Koch, school board president.
I just hope the information speaks for itself, Johnson said. The district mailed a brochure to every home in the district explaining the proposal and scheduled an additional board meeting on Tuesday, April 16, to give the public another opportunity to learn more about the project.
Joining Winograd in the complaint are Larry Quinn, William Evans and former village trustee Bud Cosgrove. Burke represents them.
Winograd said that if the district can prove they did not violate the education laws by April 11, they will drop the petition against the purchase. We're willing to listen.
