Tuckahoe Residents Decry School Spending Plan

If the atmosphere during a information session on its upcoming referendum is any barometer of the feeling in the community, school board members can expect a resounding 'No' at the polls next Tuesday.

At issue on Monday night was the referendum planned for Dec. 21 to ask residents to approve spending $95,000 from the school's reserves to renovate a house on district property. The district bought the house, located at 46 Sebonac Rd next to the school grounds,  for $515,000 last year after voters signed off on the purchase during a March 2009 referendum. Once renovated, the plan is to rent the house to Tuckahoe School Superintendent Chris Dyer as his personal residence.

Emotions during the meeting ran high among the approximately 40 residents who attended. Though the session hardly started out well for the school board, with some attendees demanding to know why the house in question was not just torn down, it became steadily worse toward the end. Residents pleaded with the school board to postpone the vote until more information became available, or cancel it altogether.

Though at the end of the two-hour long hearing board members said they would discuss the attendees' comments in executive session after the meeting, they gave no indication that the vote would, in fact, be postponed or canceled.

It was clear passions ran high Monday when the questions started even before architect Paul Rogers of Chaleff & Rogers, Architects in Water Mill began his presentation on the project.

"Haven't you considered the possibility of tearing it down?" resident Ernest Unger asked of School Board Chairperson Robert Grisnik. "Why keep that relic?"

"Because it's usable," Grisnik answered simply.

But the questions hardly stopped there.

Many residents later in the meeting expressed outrage that the money was not being used for something that would directly help students.

"Any surplus dollars should go directly to our kids," resident David D'Agostino said, reading from a prepared statement, going on to state that the funds could be used in any number of ways — even buying a new iPad for every student in the school.

"Having the superintendent living on the property would not be beneficial," D'Agostino continued. "It would be better for him to live in the community. This is not about Mr. Dyer, it's about reining in unnecessary expenditures." Applause broke out after his comments, and it was not the first time that evening that the audience applauded a speaker asking that the money be spent on students instead.

About 90 minutes into the hearing, one resident, Rick Sobrevinas asked the audience for a show of hands of those in favor of the referendum — despite protestations from Grisnik that he address the board, not the audience — and not one person did.

"I think that we have to be very careful of where we spend the money," Sobrevinas said after the informal poll. "If we're going to spend money, let's spend it on the kids."

Of particular ire to him, he said — and to most of those present — was that the money for the proposed project is coming from the school's capital reserve fund, which, to date, has a balance of $980,571. In addition, according to school business official Ed Joseph, the district also has an undesignated, unappropriated fund balance of $659,352. Sobrevinas said he felt that with that sort of money in savings accounts for the district, maybe taxpayers were overpaying.

"You have $980,000 for projects that haven't even been conceived of," he said. "It's not right to have such a huge capital reserve fund when you have no idea what you're going to spend it on."

Throughout the hearing, which ended only when the board went into executive session at 10 p.m. and attendees were asked to leave, Grisnik remained adamant in his support of the project. Board members Sharon Grindle and Dan Crough were not as enthusiastic when specifically questioned by members of the audience, but did not say they were reconsidering the referendum.

At one point, Crough agreed to take the floor and went on to outline how the board was acting responsibly and that "no one was stealing money," to which several audience members replied that they had never thought they were, nor should that have to be outlined. Later in the meeting, Grindle took the floor and went into a history of the project, though she did not specify whether she was reconsidering the referendum.

Among the more emotionally charged comments of the evening came from one woman who insisted that the board was holding the vote on Dec. 21 specifically so  senior residents — many of whom are living elsewhere this time of year, she said — would be unaware of it. Board members emphatically denied that this is true.

At a , residents gave the referendum a similar reception. "I can't believe that they would even suggest doing this," committee member Lorraine Duryea remarked at that meeting.

Voting will take place Dec. 21 in the  gymnasium at 468 Magee Street. The polls will open at 11 a.m. and close at 8 p.m.

To apply for an absentee ballot, voters can visit the district clerk's office at the school between 9 a.m. and noon or 1 and 3 p.m. Monday through Friday, except holidays. Absentee ballot applications must be turned in at least seven days before the vote if applicants want the ballots mailed. If the ballot will be personally delivered to the voter, the application is due Dec. 20, the day before the election.

Absentee ballots must be received by the district clerk, Linda Springer, by 5 p.m. on Dec. 21.