Candidate for
Member, Board of Education; Ardsley Union Free School District

The greatest single issue facing our district or any district is the changing economy and its impact on education. As we watch market factors continually erode what we actually spend on education. Our school district has gone into a bunker mentality. This year for instance, the school district has dealt with a smaller tax base and increasing costs by looking for ways to cut back. Although this type of knee jerk reaction may seem reasonable, it both shortchanges our children and ultimately will lower our academic rankings which of course translates into lower home values. I am a strong advocate for lowering our taxes, but I think that this is not the way to do it. As I see it, the job of the School Board is one of policy. We need to become proactive rather than reactive. What needs to be done is to recognize the problem instead of dealing with symptoms.

Our problem in Ardsley is that we are getting clobbered by a perfect storm of tax certioraris, escalating costs, and lack of innovation. For the past nine years I have been elected as a leader of the Citizens Budget Committee where we analyze every line item on the school district's budget, so I can claim a fair awareness of the money trail. Each year we are hit with large tax certioraris. This is a court judgment that we MUST pay one way or another. This year we were hit with about a million two hundred thousand dollars in certioraris and last year we were hit with over two million dollars. Now stop and think for just a second. Right now this year one percent of your school taxes are equal to four hundred thousand dollars. That means that this year, three percent of that tax rate increase you are looking at is being thrown away on certioraris. Money lost to the district. Not a penny of it will go to education. Last year it was even more since the cert was so much larger and a percent of the budget was smaller (only three hundred seventy five thousand dollars). This is insane and it must end.

As leader of the Citizens Budget Committee I have complained to the Board of Education about the way they have just accepted this. Their response a few years ago was to hire an attorney to "negotiate" with the parties to get us a good deal. They insist this has saved us money. Of course, there is no way to validate this. Its just anecdotal. And in the end we still have to pay. The only debate is over how much we might have saved in interest and penalties. This is a waste of time and a questionable use of our tax dollars spent on this attorney. All we are doing is treating a disease's symptoms instead of curing the disease itself. Because next year we will still be faced with another round of certioraris.

I believe there is a better solution. Fix the certiori mess so we no longer get hit by them. How do you do that? To simplify the situation, just remember how much residential housing has increased in value over the past decade. However, commercial real estate has not risen at the same dramatic pace. Yet, commercial properties are hit with property taxes that group them in the same gene pool as residential properties. So its like watching an adult sit on one side of a see saw and a child on the other. Its way out of balance. The way to return to balance in this case is to have all commercial properties taxes based only on other commercial properties. Its a fair system. No one gets hurt. Going forward all commercial properties are fairly taxed and have no legitimate call to be able to successfully challenge their taxes. It would not be retroactive. But it would end the hemorrhaging of certiorris once and for all. Last year I met with Edie McCarthy the Tax Assessor of our town, Paul Feiner the Town Supervisor, Andrea Stewart-Cousins our State Senator, Jay Leon the Mayor of Ardsley, and spoke with State Assemblyman Adam Bradley's office to see what could be done. What I found is that there is a bill in both the State Senate and Assembly that would establish a CAR (Commercial Assessment Ratio).

There is a bill that passed the State Assembly but failed in the State Senate that addresses this. It is co-sponsored by Assemblyman Bradley and Senator Oppenheimer. It is Assembly Bill A 6099 or Senate Bill S 3298. Here is a link to it: http://assembly.state.ny.us/leg/?bn=A06099&sh=t

What we need to do is to organize every school district, village, and town to lobby for this bill in Albany. This certiorari affects us all. It is money we all lose. Not a penny of it goes to education. Not a penny of it goes to the village or town. Its just lost. Any business that challenges its commercial property taxes automatically wins. Period. To allow this to continue is madness when there is a way to fix it. All that is needed on our part is the political will to be the squeaky wheel that gets the attention. We could easily partner up with the districts and counties in Long Island and become a formidable cross party lobby in Albany and finally fix this once and for all. this is an election year with a new Governor who seems open to new ideas. Its a win win situation. And yes, it is that simple. This must be fixed once and for all. The Board of Education has the standing to spearhead this issue. If elected to the Board I will organize the fight to get this done.

This year the Board spent an enormous amount of money on a consultant to find a new Superintendent for the district after Dick Mauer left mid year. The Board decided to use the same consultants who highly recommended Dick Mauer to us in the first place. I see this as both bad policy and a large waste of tax payer dollars. Our district could follow the lead of other districts who groom their staff to move up into the role of Superintendent when a vacancy occurs. We have a pool of principles and assistant superintendents we could choose from. These people have years of experience working with our school system and understand our goals, interests, and culture. They are a known asset. Letting them know there is opportunities for advancement gives them incentive to perform at their peak. Letting them know they are in a dead end job does the opposite. They know that if they want advancement they need to look to leave the district. This is both counterproductive and expensive for the district. The only times when we advance people is when an unexpected opening occurs and the Board reacts. That is not policy. Both the Board and the consultant insist that a Superintendent will only stay on average for five years. So every five years we will be throwing another hundred thousand dollars away to a consultant and spend months of the Board's time focussed on this search. This time could be better used.

We are surrounded by high technology companies. Are you aware that General Motors has its hydrogen fuel cell car facility in our school district? Technology is our nation's and our children's future. We need to move forward and fully embrace it. There needs to be a stronger outreach program where we take better advantage of our technology neighbors and partner with them. Everyone wins. There would be both financial and educational benefits from programs like this. We could put Ardsley on the map as a focus for what a 21st Century school district could achieve. All we need to do is to go knocking on their doors. I am involved in internship programs in the city. We need to be in close cooperation with our neighboring technology companies and create partnerships.

The attitude here has been somewhat lethargic and antithetical to embracing progress. We make it difficult for students who ae not on the fast track to get into AP classes in the High School. These classes challenge our students to grow. They get a feel for what college level courses will be like. AP credits often are accepted as college credits thereby lessening the substantial burden parents face when their children attend college. When we increased our AP classes there was no change in performance. So, why not learn from experience and open them further? Rightly or wrongly schools are ranked based on the availability of AP classes. Increasing the number of AP classes improves those rankings and accordingly our home values.

In the earliest years of a child's life language skills are easier to master. We need to bring in language instruction to Concord Road. And we need to recognize the changing nature of the world around us. This is not the 18th century. The three Rs no longer make our children competitive with nations like China and India. We need to embrace new ideas as well as incorporate new opportunities for language studies like making Mandarin an option. How many careers will our children have that will require French or Italian in the future? We need to get away from the concept of teaching to the test, its bad for everyone.

I am a very strong proponent of the arts and extracurricular activites. I have been a coach of Little League. I have volunteered for the Girl Scouts and am in their book on badges and ceremonies. Both my children have been in the school concerts from the time they were in Concord Road. My grandfather was a professional musician and music was always of fundamental importance in our family. As a young man I worked as a recording engineer at Record Plant Recording Studios in Manhattan where I had the honor to work with John Lennon, Ray Charles, Dizzy Gillespie, Tammy Wynette, and Eugene Ormandy. It was an overwhelming opportunity that I cherish to this day. I see the arts as of prime importance in our lives. As a holographic artist, I have been commissioned to shoot the portraits of people such as Bill Clinton, Andy Warhol, Pierre Cardin, and many others. (see my website:http://www.holographer.com/JasonSapan.htm ) Sports are essential to the lives of our children. They teach the value of working together as a team, of challenging yourself to go beyond your limits, and to stay toned and healthy. We need to prevent an unhealthy generation of couch potatoes. I was on the track team in High School and strongly support our involvement in Athletics.

I believe that having almost a decade as a leader of the Citizens Budget Committee through three Superintendents has allowed me to understand the needs of our district. Unlike the other candidates for the Board I also have experience as a teacher. I taught for four years at the School of Visual Arts. I've been a guest lecturer at the Art Institute of Chicago, Ohio State University, University of Vermont, and NYU to name a few. I still teach privately from my studio. My career in the science of holography, a laser nanotechnology, has given me a clear understanding of the importance of technology in our children's lives and how quickly it is changing. I have run an Electrical Engineering company and fully understand both electronics and computer science. I still build my own computers. At my job and at home I have a full wood and metal shops. When I was younger I had a ten year stint as a superintendent of two brownstones in Manhattan where I learned all about plumbing, heating, and building maintenance. All skills that I will be able to bring to the district. Rather than having to rely on the advice of so called experts who often look to enrich themselves at the cost of a naive consumer, I will bring a working hands on experience to procurements in these areas to help control costs. I have sat on the Board of Trustees of WCT and have a great deal of experience of working within a Board setting to find consensus on difficult issues.

Having spent decades as a sailboater I have learned a great deal from the sea. When the weather gets rough and there is nothing there but the devil and the deep blue sea, you find that in life you must keep a stout arm on the tiller and steer a straight course regardless of the conditions around you. We live in rapidly changing times. Ten thousand years ago mankind shifted as more people made their existence in farming than in the prior nomadic lifestyle. This was the Agrarian Revolution. In the mid 1800s more people worked in factories than on the farms. This was the Industrial Revolution. In the 1960s more people worked in communications than in factories. This was the Communications Revolution. Today more people are about to be working over the internet than in office jobs. This will be the Web Revolution. It is the revolution our children will be a part of. Just as the Industrial Revolution brought changes as populations migrated from farms to cities, the Communications Revolution created the woman's movement and the civil rights movement. This new Web Revolution has occurred sooner than anyone could have imagined and will have a profound impact on society. Our schools need to step up to the plate and prepare our children to be able to compete in this exciting and new frontier. It is my hope to help integrate our district from its traditional view of the world as it was to the new vistas of the world as it will soon be. As George Santiana once said, "those who fail to learn the lessons of history are condemned to repeat them."