Politicians Fight over East Ramapo School Control

Rockland County Legislator Aaron Weider and Rockland County Executive Ed Day exchanged angry salvos Friday about bigotry in the ongoing fight over the East Ramapo school district.

East Ramapo, which includes parts of the communities of New City, Pearl River, Nanuet, Spring Valley, Suffern, New Hempstead, Chestnut Ridge, Monsey and Wesley Hills, has 9,000 students in its schools. However, another 24,000 school-age children live there, and go to private schools—mostly Ultra-Orthodox Jewish yeshivas.

Public school parents there have sued the state for not intervening in the troubled district, citing state and federal investigations and reports documenting a continuing pattern of fiscal mismanagement and neglect by the Board of Education over the last decade. The reports include two in the last year by state-appointed monitors -- each of whom has concluded with a call for state intervention.

Those calls have been blocked by state legislators with strong ties to the Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn and the Hudson Valley. That leadership includes Senate Speaker John Flanagan and Brooklyn Assemblyman Dov Hivkind. Hivkind traveled to Rocklnd County from Brooklyn in December for a press conference with Weider (a former member of the East Ramapo school board) saying that the latest state report calling for a monitor with veto power over the school board was an attack on Orthodox Jewish children, and then in February called for the state attorney general to investigate anti-Semitism in Rockland.

The lobbying has intensified. Rockland politicians of all parties have called for a monitor with veto power, and public school parents are seeking and gaining supportive statements from public school boards in Flanagan's district. But the head of the state Senate Education Committee, Carl Marcellino of Long Island, announced his opposition to a veto-wielding monitor.

Day celebrated on Facebook when the Three Villages Central School Board on Long Island passed a resolution in favor of a East Ramapo monitor with veto power. And he cited his recent letter to Flanagan in his column in the Rockland County Times.

That drew a press release Friday from Weider.

Rockland County Legislator Aron B. Wieder is condemning the use of anti-Semitic language in a letter written by the County Executive to two influential State Senators regarding the East Ramapo school district.

Much of the information in the letter was then repeated in the County Executive’s local newspaper column.

The County Executive references the democratically-elected school board members not as members of the private school community, but as the “majority Orthodox Jewish school board.”

In response, Wieder has written his own letter, dated March 22, to State Senator John Flanagan, the Temporary President and Majority Leader of the Senate, and Senator Carl Marcellino, the Chairman of the Senate Education Committee.

“It is unconscionable for a person in his elected position to refer to other elected officials solely by the religious sect and ethnic group they belong to, especially in the context of criticizing them," Wieder wrote.

“(The County Executive’s) implication is clear – that their religious affiliation is driving their public actions – and by pointing that out, he is inciting anger against the Orthodox and Hasidic Jewish communities en masse for their shared religious observance,” Wieder wrote.

He further pointed out that the County Executive has allowed his Facebook page and other pages that advocate his agenda to “become a breeding ground of rabid, overt anti-Semitism, with comments and content that leave no hint of subtlety or doubt about their targets,” Wieder wrote.

Flanagan and Marcellino have publicly stated they do not support a monitor with veto power over the democratically-elected East Ramapo school board, a position also held by Wieder.

But in his March 16 letter to the Senators, the County Executive also states that “several local Republicans are taking blame for decisions made in Albany. The failure to pass legislation to install a monitor is an embarrassment to the County GOP – and, particularly disturbing given 100 percent Republican support.”

Wieder blasted the self-serving statement.

“The County Executive’s statement shows he is more concerned about politics than the children in East Ramapo,” Wieder said.

The County Executive invited both State Senators to visit East Ramapo and join him for a personal tour for “a first-hand look at the crumbling buildings.”

Wieder urged the Senators to visit the school district, but to turn down a tour with the County Executive, “a polarizing figure in the community.”

He suggested that if they want to visit, it would be more appropriate to visit with the School District Superintendent and state and local school officials “and without the accompaniment of such a controversial politician.”

Wieder concluded his letter by stating, “I believe that as the leaders of the State Senate, you ought to know the full truth of what is happening every day to all the people of Rockland County and East Ramapo.”

Weider's press release prompted a reply from the County Executive:

"It’s appalling that Legislator Wieder selected one of the holiest days on the Christian calendar to distribute a press release that unjustly accuses County Executive Day of anti-Semitism. To be clear: content used in letters to State Senators John Flanagan and David Carlucci included language that was clearly attributed to Hank Greenberg, the East Ramapo School District's state-appointed fiscal monitor. Additionally, the County Executive's description of the East Ramapo school board as “majority Orthodox Jewish” is a mathematical fact, with five of the nine members belonging to the community. What’s also a fact is that Mr. Wieder continues to beat the drum of anti-Semitism, while ironically embracing Brooklyn’s Dov “Blackface” Hikind to help push his hatred and divisiveness in Rockland County. Legislator Wieder has hit an all-time low and the good people of our towns and villages have had enough of his toxicity."

Editor's Note: "Blackface" is a reference to Hivkind's Purim costume in 2013, which was posted on social media and caused a furor.

RELATED:

• Carlucci: $1 Million for Emergency Repairs for Ramapo High School Roof
• East Ramapo Parents Sue to Compel State to Act

PHOTO: Cover page of 2014 report to the State Education Department