WHITE PLAINS CITIZENETREPORTER 3,374,995 VISITS IN ONE YEAR—65,000 VISITS A WEEK BY 985,281 VISITORS

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WPCNR THE DAILY BAILEY. By John F. Bailey. July 28, 2008: The school district has engaged a consultant, Hazard, Young & Attea Associates,  at a cost of $70,000 to begin a search for a new Superintendent of Schools for the City of White Plains. This will begin with a series of community input meetings in September to find out what kind of person and leadership skills the community feels the district needs in a new Superintendent. WPCNR feels, from a perspective of eight years of covering the school district, this is a totally unneccessary expenditure (like the scoreboard purchase approved last week), symptomatic of the Board of Education blithe blatant spending policies and failure to to look to where White Plains education is going.

With School taxes poised for a record one-time increase next April (justified by the economic inflation forces at work this summer), the school board should know what they need.

I have taken it upon myself to write the first advertisement for the school district personnel consultant for a “Savior of Schools,”  for not what the school district would like in a Superintendent, but what the district needs — something unique for school district management. Here it goes:

WANTED

Savior of Schools

For White Plains City School District

Experience: Proven credentials as  a leader or Assistant Superintendent of a school district of  up to 10,000 students of diverse population.

He or she should bring to the district a demonstrated record of academic improvement in upgrading academic performances of a diverse student body in a 3-year or less time interval with a significant  ESOL student population in a district respected by the collegiate community, demonstrated by the number of students continuing to collegiate education.

They should be capable and familiar with the challenges of and demonstrated ability to manage a school budget of $200 Million for maximum educational achievement with prudent financial cost conservation in the face of dwindling taxpayer support and significantly increased costs.

He or she should be able to interact productively with parents, taxpayers, faculty and administrations and city management to contain costs in a manner that will not overburden taxpayers and compromise quality of education.

Proven Administrator Motivator

Able to reorganize district management, academic administration, and information reporting to demonstrate timely feedback on the effectiveness of skills, practices, and managers.

Innovative Amiable but Firm Negotiator 

Able to work with teaching faculty to attract high quality new recruits with pay-benefits ratios acceptable by employee  to deliver bottomline effectiveness, arresting out of control salary escalation now affecting district – with pragmatic department-trimming skills to lower overall budget.

Endowment Specialist/Fundraiser –

Able to interact with the community, city and government  to build a district endowment fund to transition the district from a totally taxpayer supported operation into an endowment/taxpayer combination to finance major new construction and limited borrowing.

Innovator – problem-solver

Capable of undertaking a major cost-cutting management initiatives to lower the costs of operations without sacrificing educational effectiveness.

Salary: $300,000K and Up Plus generous incentive package based on performance in bringing school budget growth under control.

Equal Opportunity Employer

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WPCNR CAMPAIGN 2008. By John F. Bailey. July 28, 2008: The new voting machines the county has had delivered (only 10% have arrived to date), which feature optical scanning will only be available for the disabled in the primary and general elections coming up this fall. The rest of voters will vote the old-fashioned way – pulling a lever.

Weschester County Commissioner of the Board of Elections Reginald Lafayette confirmed this to WPCNR today, and said the new machines when phased in across the county in 2009, would have voters using paper ballots. The new machines have headphone aids, magnifying glass for reading the paper ballot, and the paper ballot is fed into the machine and scanned. 

Lafayette confirmed to WPCNR the county new machines require all voters to mark a paper ballot. understand to the machines that will be used in Florida for the national election. Sequoia, the company that manufactured the Westchester County machines did not return WPCNR calls for explanations of how voters would use the new county machines and which machine the county actually ordered.  Mr. Lafayettee told WPCNR, the Westchester machines were being tested two weeks ago when WPCNR asked for a demonstration.

However, according to the Poughkeepsie Journal, the machines are paper ballot-driven with scanners counting the votes. They will be in use in the 2009 White Plains mayoral election, according to Mr. Lafayette. The Poughkeepsie Journal also reported today that Sequoia is having problems delivering all the machines it owes to New York State, citing lags in deliveries in Nassau County, For the Poughkeepsie Journal report  detailing the machine shortage around New York, go to www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080720/NEWS01/807

Reality in Palm Beach County

 The Sequoia voting machines use a paper ballot that is fed into the machine and recorded were tried out in Palm Beach County, Florida, last month to less than stellar reviews. Though the Palm Beach County Election Commissioner pronounced them a success, reporters in Palm Beach County noted long lines and confusing ballots as two of the drawbacks.

For a reporter’s analysis of the Palm Beach County optical scanner voting machines, go to http://www.palmbeachpost.com/search/content/opinion/epaper/2008/06/27/a14a_cramercol_0627.html

Next year, White Plains will use the machines in a citywide election for the first time. Some questions come to mind.

Will each person have a numbered ballot – enabling election officials to see how they voted? (Eliminating the secrecy of the ballot)

Will paper ballots be checked against scanners – to verify the count? This raises the possibility of the ballots being examined to see if John Bailey’s vote was really counted correctly by the scanner? How will counts be verified?

How will the paper ballot be designed? (The Florida ballots use a series of arrows on their paper ballots which voters found very confusing.)

The voting in Palm Beach County took longer than expected because citizens had to take more time marking their ballots. Will this make voting in Westchester slower, and slow results?

Will the paper ballots be marked in secret, as the traditional voting machine allows?

Will the ballots be available for political analysis – or voter identification be kept anonymous?

Asked if the Board of Elections would hold a news conference to demonstrate how you vote with the new machines and procedures, Commissioner Lafayette told WPCNR this might be a good idea.

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WPCNR SCHOOL DAYS. By John F. Bailey. July 27, 2008 UPDATED WITH MORE PIX, 11:05 EDT: Last week, the Board of Education ordered a new scoreboard for Loucks Field from Daktronics of South Dakota, whose scoreboards are seen throughout major league baseball (including Chase Field in Phoenix, home of the Diamondbacks). White Plains football fans will be able, (should the high school choose to use all the scoreboard bells and whistles) to see instant replays, slides of their favorite players, live close-ups of field events, and pre-programmed CD programs on the scoreboards jumbotron. (Perhaps even closeups of the band marching live.)

A Scoreboad similar to this Daktronics installation at East St. Louis High School in Illinois will be coming to Loucks (with larger matrix message board), according to the Daktronics salesperson on the account. No prototype design to replace the scoreboard at Loucks (shown below) was apparently shown to the school board, according to Fred Seiler, the Assistant Superintendent for Business. The scoreboard consists of one giant matrix, that can be programmed for different sports, shift to messages, slides, or video.

The software package presents unique custom scoreboard formats  football, soccer, field hockey,track and lacrosse as well as other sports. The cost of this state-of-the-art scoreboard is an additional $104,000. The purchase order was cut this past week according to the Business Office.

The versatility of the scoreboard is amazing. According to Daktronics salesperson it will provide instant reply, ability to put up slides of individual players with their records, and play CD programs  on its matrix screen. It is controlled from a wireless control panel from the press box.  The salesperson said it will take 6 to 8 weeks to deliver to Loucks Field. (It might be in place by mid-September, but no date was given.)

New Scoreboard, will at flick of a programming button switch from football to a track format like this. (This is not the design — just a typical track format from Daktronics.)

Connors did not have an idea of how many rental events the stadium would attract. None have been signed yet and there is no fee schedule, according  to Assistant Superintendent for Business, Fred Seiler, told WPCNR that a rental fee schedule for the stadium had not been established. For starters, he said, the idea was to charge $50 an hour for the use of the lights.

 Connors said a timetable for working out the charges with the city of White Plains had not been set yet.  He told WPCNR that advertising space and commercials would not be sold to be stadiumcast on the scoreboard. Seiler said the school district would be meeting with the city in August on the matter of setting rates.

Connors said there have been a lot of requests to come in and use the new Loucks Field, including non-sports events for which the district would charge a fee. There are no events scheduled at this point.

Asked if the district had plans to renovate or replace the field house (above) to accommodate two full athletic squads in a modern facility, Connors said, not at this time.

Assistant Superintendent for Business Fred Seiler said that the Matrix Daktronics scoreboard was similar to this board installed in Liverpool, New York (near Syracuse), though higher, wider and larger, according to the Daktronics order, according to the salesperson on the account.

The Daktronics scoreboard  product is the Galaxy  Pro is similar to the scoreboard installed at Dutchess Stadium where the Hudson Valley Renegades play baseball. It consists of a 128 x 172 inch matrix, (10 x 17 feet), the entire surface measures 8 feet by 10 inches high by 18 feet, 3 inches wide, considerably larger than the old Loucks scoreboard, which WPCNR figures as 12 feet wide. A location for it has not been determined, but the assumption is it would be at the end of the end zone where the defunct Loucks score tower is now.

Loucks Scoreboard Today

The Galaxy Pro model is pretty much top of the line.  The $104,000 price tag includes all software and hardware to run the board, as well as the board itself. 

The $104,000 is roughly akin the the salary and benefits paid one full-time teacher. Year to year maintenance was not brought up at last week’s meeting.

One Giant Scoreboard

An internet search by WPCNR, reveals that  electronic football scoreboards convertible to track, lacrosse, soccer, though  may be purchased from a variety of scoreboard manufacturers for under $10,000.  4 Different Scoreboards for 4 different sports could have been purchased for a total of a very generous $35,000, based on the website of http://www.varsityscoreboards.com, (shown below) just one such vendor. The 20 foot wide by 8 foot scoreboard, second from the top in the picture below would have cost the district just $5,195. It could convert to handle track, soccer or field hockey.

Of course, it would not have the video capabilities.

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WPCNR VIEW FROM THE UPPER DECK. By Bull Allen. July 26, 2008: It’s been two weeks now since Mount  Vernon football, basketball, baseball, track and all their other teams, learned that there will be no sports this year unless the $1.2 Million to run the sports program is raised privately.

Where are the New York megafranchises when you need them?

The New York Giants and Jets are building a new stadium. The Mets and Yankees are each building new stadiums. The Yankees are even getting a train station built for them. The Nets are getting a new arena in Brooklyn. The Devils have a new arena in Newark.  

Madison Square Garden (Cablevision-owned) mints money at the Garden and has delivered underachieving (out  in the first round, or bad intramural playground basketball for 12 years).

Where are these teams that ripoff the public with “mediocrity for more” (Giants excepted, but wait until they play the varsity schedule this year) ?

The Jets signed an untried player yester for $30 Million for 5 years. Come on. The Jets throwing around that kind of money – and they and the Giants can’t write Mount Vernon a $1.2 Million between them – before it’s too late?

The Giants are selling Season Seat Licenses — a disguised price increase.

The Steinbrenners, the Wilpons (who are very generous) could step up. Considering the money thrown at those two clubs for their stadiums (part of which they are paying for) But the football teams should.

Denzel Washington did.

The fact that none of New York’s sports teams has is a disgrace.

That Madison Square Garden isn’t even renting their ice to local hockey, figure skating and synchronized skating teams over in Greenburgh is another disgrace.

Fans should think twice before renewing season’s tickets and instead send the money to the Mount Vernon Educational Foundation Inc., P.O. Box 476, Fleetwood Station, Mount Vernon, NY 10552, write “Sports” on the memo section of the check.

Why should any fan care about all these sports clubs any more? They like nothing better than championing organized causes, they portrays them as “good citizens,” but – a simple act of contributing just a little to the community without expectation of getting something back is beneath them?

For that matter the National Football League, the NBA, and Major League Baseball itself could step up with a Million-‘Five. Considering the cost of the Super Bowl Party alone – a bacchanal of sickening proportions – the NFL should dig deep and be the first to step up.

Where’s a big play when you need one?

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COUNSEL, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY, COMPLIANCE OFFICER (FRAUD)

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts Division of Insurance as an employer that offers its employees a dynamic and friendly working environment, a stellar leadership team, and terrific employee benefits, including generous flexible hours scheduling and extensive leave benefits. 

I would like to take this opportunity to introduce to you and your membership, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Division of Insurance as an employer that offers its employees a dynamic and friendly working environment, a stellar leadership team, and terrific employee benefits, including generous flexible hours scheduling and extensive leave benefits. 

The Division of Insurance is undertaking an effort to reach out to various community, educational and professional organizations with the aim of advertising our organization as one that is seriously interested in increasing recruitment results in diverse communities.  Our organization is especially interested in attracting qualified minority and women candidates for our management, legal, technical and professional positions.

Our agency is currently seeking qualified candidates for a number of positions, including a Counsel II, an Executive Secretary to the Board of Appeals and a Compliance Officer (Fraud Investigator).  These and other vacant positions are available at https://jobs.hrd.state.ma.us/recruit/public/3111/index.do.  Please provide this information to your constituencies.  If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact me.

Thank you.

Sincerely,
Mary C. Carroll
Deputy Commissioner of Administration
Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Division of Insurance
One South Station
Boston, MA 02110
Tel: 617-521-7362
Fax: 617-521-7717