We’ve been had

To the editor:

Former Sullivan West Superintendent Michael Johndrow’s claims that no one could have known that the district’s enrollment was going to decline are false.

In fact, Johndrow received the actual enrollment figures and the precipitous declining enrollment projections through 2011 from the prestigious Fiscal Advisors and Marketing consulting firm in a study dated February 10, 2001. Michael Johndrow could have walked away from the Lake Huntington construction project with a loss of only $40,000, which is what we paid for the property. He didn’t do it. What does this tell you about the man and his current claims that he knew nothing about the pending decline in student enrollment at Sullivan West?

Michael Johndrow suppressed those figures until I forced the information out of him through a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request in 2003. I immediately published the data and disclosed that Sullivan West was operating at 50 percent of capacity. When I publicly confronted Johndrow and the school board about this data, there was no response. The rapidly deteriorating Sullivan West financial situation and the fact that Sullivan West was overbuilt and under funded was totally ignored until the bubble burst in 2005.

Yet Michael Johndrow was rewarded for his abysmal job performance here by being allowed by the state to draw his pension when he left Sullivan West and then get a full-time job as an interim administrator, first in Goshen and now Highland Falls, a process which is known as double dipping.

This is a classic example of the incestuous “old boy” system by which school administrators protect their own. Unfortunately, it is perfectly legal.

If you ask me, instead of being rewarded for his role at Sullivan West, Johndrow’s certification should be revoked and he should be prevented from ever holding a position of responsibility in a New York State school.

(Editor’s note: Johndrow says he is drawing a pension and that his current position is on a per-diem basis and will last for eight or nine months.)

A case of projection

To the editor:

In your laudable policy of giving all your disparate readers a voice, you recently printed a paranoid tirade so packed with misinformation it cannot go unchallenged. The name appended to it has been seen with some frequency in local papers this summer: J.P. (John) Pasquale. He predicts absolute disaster if the Democrats prevail in the midterm elections.

Among this writer’s dire predictions, the most laughable is his very first: “Intelligent Design will be considered religion instead of science and it will be expelled from our public schools.” He evidently hasn’t a clue what science is. Science is demonstrable, provable fact—something learned from direct observation and investigation.

Pasquale has the gall to claim Democrats will appoint judges to interpret laws in their favor, “not in our country’s best interest.” A tired GOP stunt, right out of Karl Rove’s bag of tricks: deflect legitimate charges leveled at their own behavior back at their critics. It is obviously Bush & Co. who have packed the courts (all the way up to the Supreme) with reactionary judges who have ruled only in their party’s favor, with total disregard for “our country’s best interest.”

“Conservative TV and radio talk shows will be railroaded off the air,” Pasquale assures us. “Our freedom to bring grievances to our government will be stifled.” It’s Bush & Co. who’ve tried to squelch dissent. If Democrats won, public commentators would be held to a higher standard of truth. The inane garbage spouted by Rush Limbaugh and Matt Drudge would be challenged, and they would have to produce evidence to back up the lies they shove at their gullible fans.

But Pasquale’s most outrageous prediction is “Our military will be pulled out of Iraq, leaving it in a shambles.” Bush & Co. have already reduced Iraq to a shambles; there’s no lower it can sink. Pasquale seems perfectly comfortable with the useless, senseless deaths while he fritters and frets over inconsequential matters like banning evolution from schools and denying gay couples rights guaranteed by our Constitution.

Deputy sheriffs deserve better treatment

To the editor:

On behalf of the members of the Sullivan County Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association (PBA) I would like to thank all the citizens who took the time to call or write in support of Sullivan County Deputy Sheriffs. As you know, the deputies are currently in contract negotiations with the county. We are trying to increase the starting pay of $27,000, which qualifies deputies with several children for food stamps. The low pay also causes us to lose deputies to other police departments each year.

In the past, during contract negotiations, the county’s negotiator constantly reminded us that if we didn’t take the county’s offer, the sheriff’s road patrol could be abolished by “a stroke of the pen.” Residents of Sullivan County who have learned of these threats and who are concerned about police protection have suggested that the sheriff’s patrol be listed in the upcoming revision of the county charter so that public safety would not be at the mercy of some bureaucrat or politician. Several months ago, we sent letters to each of the nine county legislators asking if they would support the sheriff’s patrol being listed in the county charter.

To date, the only legislators who have written to support the charter revision have been Rodney Gaebel, Jodi Goodman and Leni Binder. Even legislative candidate Patrick Casey wrote us a letter stating that he would support us being listed in the charter if he is elected. It is important that the public be made aware of where their elected officials stand on this important issue. The question you will probably hear is, do other counties list their deputy sheriffs in the county charter? A better question is, do other counties treat their deputies like Sullivan County does?

Phil Etkin, Vice President Sullivan County PBA

Broken promises

To the editor:

In March of 2003, ousting Saddam Hussein, thereby creating a “regime change,” was given as one of the reasons for invading Iraq. Two months later, President George W. Bush, our commander in chief, stood on the deck of an aircraft carrier and declared, “Mission Accomplished.”

Three and a half years have gone by with a current death toll of 2,974 American servicemen and women, 21,077 wounded (a disproportionate number of them amputees), untold numbers of psychiatric cases (requiring care from an already overburdened Veteran’s Administration) and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.

Because the campaign promise that “oil revenues from an occupied Iraq will cover the cost” never materialized, the monetary cost is staggering. As of this writing, $337 billion, a number that rises in the millions per hour, has been appropriated by our current Congress.

Is it really necessary to continue to send young Americans to die in the quagmire the Iraq war has become while economically bankrupting our society for generations to come? There’s got to be a better way.

A better option than White Sulphur

To the editor:

Recently, the Sullivan West Board of Education prevented BOCES from spending over $5 million to build another facility. BOCES then announced it would lease and renovate the old White Sulphur Springs School.

BOCES could easily house a thousand students in the recently closed Narrowsburg and Delaware Valley (DV) campuses, which are vacated but recently renovated. If BOCES would use these buildings, it would be a win-win solution. The rentals would help Sullivan West and BOCES would have cheaper classroom space than if they leased and renovated the old White Sulphur School.

I suggest that BOCES consider sending several of its Vo-Tech programs, which involve older students, to Narrowsburg and Delaware Valley. DV would be ideal for the auto body, the auto repair, the carpentry and heavy equipment programs as there are about 40 acres where students could train in excavation on site. They could even build athletic fields on that site.

If BOCES would utilize these schools it would open up many possibilities. For example, why not keep special-needs students who live in the western part of the county in one of these facilities?

If students can be transported from the hinterlands of the DV and Narrowsburg areas to Liberty, then it would seem that students could also be transported in the opposite direction. Any time a merger occurs in a rural area, distance travel is not an option. It is a reality.

It is my opinion that it is irresponsible to build another school or consider leasing and renovating the old White Sulphur School at taxpayers’ expense when we already have, in our BOCES district, facilities that are not being used. I realize that to do this would require a great deal of administrative work. However, I believe we have a number of competent administrators in the district that would, if assigned the task, do an excellent job.