Wieder Resigns Majority Leader Position in Rockland Legislature

Rockland County Legislator Aron B. Wieder yesterday brought in two prominent Orthodox Jewish leaders to criticize a state-appointed monitor and his team for recommending an overseer with veto power over decisions made by the East Ramapo school district.

Wieder (D-Spring Valley), Rabbi Yosef C. Golding, the CEO of Agudath Israel of America, and state Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D-Brooklyn) criticized the recommendation and said it undermined both the authority of a duly-elected school board and the integrity of the democratic process.

On Tuesday Wieder, who is a past president of the East Ramapo Board of Education, had criticized the monitors’ report for recommendations about streamlining the transportation program developed since the Ultra-Orthodox community took control of the board, which might mean an end to gender-separate busing to yeshivas for the district’s 24,000 private school students.

SEE: Weider Says East Ramapo Monitors Are Attacking Monsey’s Children

Wieder, Golding and Hikind also alleged the report submitted to the state Board of Regents Monday, which includes 19 total recommendations, has added fuel to a fire of hate burning ever hotter in Rockland.

Wieder, a Democrat, resigned his position as the Legislature’s Majority Leader, saying it was in response to the toxic climate that has been created. He will continue to represent his Spring Valley district.

“The reason I took the drastic step to resign was because some have turned my position as Majority Leader, as strong advocate to protect the constitutional rights and civil liberties of the Orthodox Jewish community here in Rockland County, into a distraction away from the work of the County Legislature and Democratic Caucus,” Wieder said. “Therefore I have stepped aside and put those concerns ahead of my own.”

Wieder said the rhetoric, hate and animosity toward Orthodox Jews has been terrible and extends beyond the troubling issues plaguing East Ramapo.

“We have been accused of being looters, tax dodgers, leeches, a drain of the general society and even cancerous,” Wieder said.

Hikind said he had told people to trust the monitors sent in by the state Education Commissioner and that things appeared to be improving since Dennis Wolcott and his team began reviewing the district’s operations – a new superintendent was hired and other changes were being put in place.

“People were sitting and having conversations and unfortunately, and it pains me to say this, Dennis Wolcott stabbed this community in the back,” the Brooklyn lawmaker said. “Dennis Wolcott stabbed the entire community because not only are we back to where we were, it is worse than where we were before.”

“The effort to undermine the authority of the board and dilute the voting power of the citizens of East Ramapo is unjust,” Golding said. “Worse, it is potentially dangerous as it feeds into the types of ugly stereotypes whose destructive potential we all know too well.”

In the name of Agudath Israel of America, Golding called upon people of goodwill to reject the path of confrontation embodied in the recommendations and to move forward constructively and cooperatively in dealing with the challenges facing all of the children of East Ramapo.

The monitor would require approval by the state Legislature and Wieder, Hikind and Golding vowed to fight any such effort. They also said they hoped to work with the overall community to find better solutions for improving the school district. A previous attempt to install a monitor barely got enough support from Assembly Democrats and stalled in the state Senate, where Republicans refused to back it.

Their rhetoric was slightly different from the Board of Education, which did say that some of the monitors’ recommendations were constructive, before singling out the proposals to override the authority of the elected board and alter its composition as “likely to reprise the divisions and strife we saw in the district last year.”