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February 3, 2010 Back on December 3, school board member Aron Wieder chased after Albert D’Agostino after the attorney got in the face of a parent, threatened him, and then stormed out of the meeting. Wieder was overheard reassuring the Lawrence, N.Y., attorney that "It was in the bag." D’Agostino never returned to the meeting, but at tonight’s board meeting, in a vote that divided the board 5-4, the $400 an hour attorney, who was recently investigated by the State’s Comptroller for possible pension fraud, was chosen the attorney of record for the East Ramapo School District until July 2010. The vote was Aron Wieder, Eliyahu Solomon, Morris Kohn, Richard Stone, Moshe Hopstein for – Mimi Calhoun, Stephen Price, Suzanne Young-Mercer and Nathan Rothschild against. None of the other five candidates who were interviewed for the position were given the opportunity of a vote. Rothschild’s vote was interesting in that it was preceded by a five-minute polemic with the board president insisting that concerning the school district’s lawyer, "Change is needed," and "After a while the status quo works against you," and "There has to be change." He knew the Orthodox vote was already aligned, so he could placate the anti-Agostino forces by voting against him (he did, but his hand was only half raised in the "show of hands vote") while still supporting the call for a new lawyer for the district. Board member Mimi Calhoun voted against the new attorney explaining, In the six years I have been on the board, I have been impressed with the work of the current attorneys and have not heard complaints about their work. She also reminded everyone of D’Agostino’s outrageous behavior at the December meeting and said she would not want that kind of unprofessional demeanor representing the school district. She said that there were several other firms with extensive education experience and that we seem to be choosing a firm on the basis of its special-ed decisions in Lawrence. The choice of Minerva and D’Agostino would be a grave disservice to our community, she concluded. Stephen Price was opposed on pragmatic grounds. "I don’t know how we are going to pay for it," he said. "There’s no money in the budget for this." D’Agostino would charge $200 an hour with an additional $100 per hour for travel. Coming from Long Island, two hours per session would be on a really good traffic day. There was, incidentally, one firm that did underbid all the others at $175 an hour. Current legal costs are far below the one-hour $400 charge of the Minerva and D’Agostino firm. At the end of the evening, the ten law firms had been narrowed down to five that were interviewed, but only one was voted on. Like the man said—it was in the bag. Now the questions remaining are about what else has been already decided? Michael Castelluccio
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