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Here are some examples why we FOIL and what we find

•  A Board member requests a copy of the Greenburgh WestHelp Grant agreement from the Superintendent.  The board member and later all seven boardmembers are given a six page agreement.  We foil from the same document from the Town of Greenburgh, finding the document has seven pages and the missing page indemnifies the Town of Greenburgh on behalf of the school district, their employees, and their contractors and vendors. Except for our foil, even the BOE would not know that they had indemnified the Town of Greenburgh.

• Our Foils uncovered illegal stipends paid without approval of the board of education with no more documentation than a handwritten scribbled notes from the superintendent.

•  We asked the school district for years to give us a breakdown of the student population by town.  We are told that no such records are kept.  We Foil for the address list of all students and find that the list mixes town addresses, but we are able to take that list and determine that the Twon of Greenburgh accounts for 33% of student population, And North White Plains only 20%.  Matching these numbers with the tax contribution of each town, we determine that Greenburgh pays $15,000 per student and North White Plains $35,000

• Do you remember the emergency meeting that the former superintendent called and had all the parents crowd into the auditorium?  Though the school never revealed what the problem was, they hired a speaker from Maryland to talk about it.  Even when the presentation was over, no one knew what the problem was.  There wasn't even a mention of the problem in this years SWOT analysis.  So what did that dog and pony show cost?  We foiled and we found out.

• That SWOT analysis complained about Bad Press as a threat.  But Bad Press is the result of bad management.  Valhalla aspiring to reach new heights seems always to generate its own Bad Press.  for example as a result of Valhalla's fill for fields scam, the NYS Department of Education issued this letter to all school superintendents, warning them not to follow Valhalla's lead.

• Again, looking at this year's SWOT analysis were were reminded that just two years ago, about 50 parents submitted their own SWOT.  These were real life concerns missing from this years version of the vision looking forward.  Look at these issues and ask your self how they disappeared so quickly?  How many of these parents have since opted out of Valhalla's public education?  Have the problems they asked the board to address left as well?  Except for the NYS FOIL statutes, we would never have this letter.   

• We are told that the Artificial turf lease is paid for by a Vending Machine contract we foiled for the vending records and found that contract revenues are tens of thousands of dollars short of the lease payment every year and not only that but the vending machine with the least revenues are in the teachers lounge

• We are told that the Easter Seals lease is a money maker for the district.  We are told specific expenses it is covering.  We foil and find it is a $1 a year lease, netting the school district $1

• We are told that our $1 a year tenant put $500,000 of capital improvements into the Columbus Avenue School.  We foil and find that there are no records of any improvements. 

• We are told later that it was $250,000 in hard costs and $250,000 in undefined soft costs.  We foil and discover again that there are still no improvements.  In fact board members and Easter Seals employees have told us the building is in disrepair and has dangerous violations.

• In another districtwide mailing the superintendent claimed that Easter Seals out $1 a year tenant committed to installing a new playground at the Columbus Avenue School.  Our Foils found no commitment, no plans and in fact six years later not a single improvement has been made to the playground despite an annual Easter Seals Golf Tournament to raise funds for the project.

• Our foils also revealed that Valhalla’s Attorneys prepared the $1 a year lease which was offered to Easter seals four months before the BOE voted to authorize the superintendent to enter into negotiations for leasing the building.

• Without FOILs how would we know that a board member took a cruise, subsided by Westhelp Funds and his wife was paid as a chaperone on the same cruise. 

• We were told that the Westhelp grant could not be used for Athletics, a but our Foil for the Grant revealed no such restriction.

• In January 2005 the board received a letter from the engineer testing the soil in the illegal landfill that the district allowed to be created on school property a few feet from the Kensico School.  The letter said that the fields were contaminated.  The school district hides the letter, puts children on the fields in the spring and fall of 2005.  Our foil uncovers the letter and the test report, that when compared to Eastchester Valhalla’s contamination is worse. 

• Superintendent TK, says at an open meeting that sprinkler heads on the fields are being vandalized, broken and it is not the students doing it.  The implication being it is not the parents or the staff either.  Must be those dishonest critics.  We foiled the local police and found no incident reported for vandalism at the school.  The foil proving the superintendent was lying

•  We were told that the 2002-2003 contingency budget was only $200,000 less than the defeated budget.  We foiled and found that the district had padded the contingency budget by over one million dollars, by including a $940,000 in an illegal and undocumented item they called “expenses attributable to FAPE and by altering formula’s in the contingent budget spreadsheet to further overstate the budget.  The foil proved the districts budget was illegally padded.

• We Foil again and find that not only was there an illegal expenses padding the contingent budget, that illegal expense was reduced to keep some difference between a revised budget and contingent budget on the revote.

• We copied pictures from the School districts website which showed a well run almost bucolic setting, children running on a brand new track, children beside a pond or lake, in a band and more.  We pointed out that these pictures were not of Valhalla.  That they were misleading and false advertising.  The superintendent claimed to our web host that these pictures were copyrighted along with everything on the district’s website.  We were forced to remove the pictures.  We foiled for the copyright, which did not exist.  We proved once again the superintendent was lying.

• We are told that Pepsi donated the artificial turf field.  We Foil and found, we the taxpayer are paying a seven year lease for the turf, there was no competitive bid sought and the project illegally avoided a public vote.

• We were told that they district leased the field under the advise of legal counsel.  Our Foils revealed no legal opinion from the district’s counsel, but a year of legal opinion shopping until the district’s bond counsel delivered an opinion that the State Comptroller found to be in error. 

• We are told we are getting a new track, bleachers and more and Foil to find a childlike wish list drafted by and signed by the superintendent.  Not one contract for the illegal dump ever existed and that is why we can’t recover costs and why the taxpayer will eventually pay the bill for all of the illegal activities of the board of education.

• We saw a curious payment on a district check run that that led us to foil for supporting invoice documentation and found that the district had been illegally paying an employee as a private contractor to evade the state pension system. 

• Our foil of district contracts shows two retirement annuities for the business manager, car payments for both the Superintendent and the Business manager, night differentials for the building pricipals to attend evening functions in their own schools, bonuses paid to principals without definition of standards achieved.  One principal is being paid over $50,000 for a second full time job on the same payroll to administer a program that the state Comptroller has found to be illegal.  8% increases for the head custodian, while the facilities are in terrible shape.   Longevity bonuses for teachers, payments for teacher mentoring and mentoring coordinators,  payments to make the morning announcements and not even making the announcements, typing them in a computer to be read on a zipper!   46 Coaching positions in a school of less than 500 students.  Club coordinators for board games, jewelry, drums 54 clubs in all.  With up to 80% of the students in interscholastic sports, where do they find time for 54 clubs or intramural sports as we pay teachers for that too.  But then there are the teachers who tutor their own students.  Home tutors at $44 and hour.  Don’t have a student to tutor?  We pay you to attend baseball, basketball, softball, any school games have at least one paid employee in the crowd, ready for action. 

• Our Foil for district contracts also revealed how the business managers contract went from a simple one page three year deal to a complex arrangement paying for health club memberships, cars, double retirement annuities and increases twice the rate of inflation.  All while the district engages in one illegal and unethical deal after another resulting in a doubling of taxes, two state audits a padded budget, an illegal turf lease, a net $1 a year lease on an entire school property. 

• We are told of the wonderful achievements of the Advanced Placement programs.  We Foiled and found out that very few kids are passing, whole classes fail.  The results are abysmal.    

About our site 

We wish to welcome the many first time visitors to this site.  The site has been operational for a over two years.  The former superintendent spent many hours trying to have it shut down, but free speech is constitutionally protected, even in Valhalla.  The purpose of this site is not to attack any individual.  Though we do want those respsonsible to be held accountable.  It does not advance an adgenda that benefits anyone associated with its production.  Over the past seven years we have uncovered a litany of illegal activites, unethical behavior, conflicted interests, unsafe conditions, questionable and irresponsible fiscal actions on the part of the Valhalla Board of Education and administrative employees of the district.  We are responsible for the Comptroller's department audit.  We included the Journal News Articles in our packet requesting that audit.  We uncovered the report confirming that the fill was contaminated and sent it to the Journal News.  Your children no longer are made to play on that contamination through our efforts.  We uncovered the original  fill for fields deal the board rejected in 1997.  We pressed for the airing of Board meetings for seven years.  We looked behind the district claims of Advance Placement success measured by  increased test taking and found that those tests reveal chronically poor test scores.  We are able not only to write about these issues but we provide documentation by way of presenting pdf files that you can download, print and email by simply click any picture or hot link on these pages. 

For our efforts we have been harrassed, the targets of hate mail, and stalking, my family has suffered threats of legal prosecution.  Friends have been warned not to associate with us. Government agencies have investigated baseless accusations made against us.  

If you are shocked by what you read here, you have been out of the loop.  Some of it has been reported in the newspapers and on television.   Though it is admittedly presented in a fashion designed to provoke not only a reaction, but to provoke thought.  If I committed libel on these pages I could be sued.  That is why I back my articles with documents obtained under freedom of information laws.

The situation has changed very little interms of the honesty and integrity of the administration and board.  They are all still keenly focused on private agenda's.  There is a measure of civility, but little else.   But not a single concession to the taxpayer, freedom of information requests take a much as a year and counting.  When criminal behavior and unethical practices are uncovered, they are not reported to the legal authorities and they are covered up.  This is not progress.   

If you would like to comment send an email to editor@valhallavoice.com.  If you find anything on these pages to be untrue, let us know.  We have our documentation, show us yours and we will make corrections.   Remember we have been at this for almost three years.  Some of the articles are dated, most however will remain until someone is held accountable.

We wish to thank Board and Superintendent for listening and now using all the days allotted to Valhalla to broadcast the Board of Ed Meetings.  This action is a welcomed result of our 7 year struggle to get these meetings aired.  The entire district can now see the workings of their government.  The production quality is very good, the discourse spirited and contentious at times, but that is what government in a free society is all about.  There are still problems, though.  The Quarry gets no broadcast and this is the district's fault.  North White Plains gets its feed weeks late and never uses the full time alloted by the town of North Castle.  These areas pay $35,000 per student for Valhalla School and deserve better. Mt. Pleasant still has hours and hours of dead air.  There has been improvement but more work needs to be done and now the district is illegally balking at making DVD's of the meetings available to the public

The schedule of airings is posted on the school district's website and also on this website. and on this site as well.

It appears that this website is having more and more of an effect on the workings of the school district.  Information appearing only in the Valhalla Voice is now being discussed at public board meetings.  Board meetings are being taped and televised.  Documents that we foil from the school district and make available are being printed and brought to board meetings in controversion of lies and obfuscations of board members statements.  Board members are now calling former superintendents to help jog their memories.  Why just last month the board president and business manager had no recollection of a 1997 fill for fields proposal.  Now apparently they are sure it was not the same exact deal as the illegal scam they approved in 2002 that brought a smorgasboard of contaminants to the children's school.

No one said it was the same deal.  Are they now saying it was a better deal in 2002?  Just what are they saying?  They don't recall, they do recall, they recall it wasn't the same and finally they look into the camera and say, I never had contaminated fill... with that broker..  Mr. Dirtman.... 

It is heartwarming to see this political tradition continued.

They entered into an illegal deal that dumped contaminated soil on school property.  They had been advised against allowing carters to dump on school property in 1997.  This has been confirmed with a former board member and former Superintendent Frank Ehrhart.  How about releasing the 1997 records?   We foiled for them over two months ago and still are waiting. Once again they are stretching us out beyond the legal limit, searching for documents that were handed to Gannett Fleming in November.  Surely they know where they are.      

Finally the DEC has confirmed to us in writing that the school district may not put your children on those contaminated fields again until the situation is rectified.  It certainly sounds like the DEC is in control.

We have been waiting for the district to produce the documents evidencing the 1997 deals, documents that were referenced in the November fill for fields report done by an engineer hired by the district.  Since November, that engineer has be fired and no documents have been released as required by law.