It was an interesting perspective that we received from the Buffalo News article in last week’s Sunday paper. And I learned a few things from it that I had not known. For example, I was surprised to learn that the School Board’s attorney, Mr. Freedman doesn’t …..“ think the library is required to send out notices”. Well if the lawyer doesn’t know, then who does?
Obviously it’s not the library, and it’s not the School Board. But WE can read the law and it’s pretty clear, the special election ballot was to be held so that it complied with annual vote regulations. The annual budget vote requires a mailing, so then, did the library vote. It’s pretty simple really. And it still means the vote was illegal. All the wiggle words in the world are not going to convince us otherwise, or change the law.
Carolyn Wagner’s basic admission that they KNEW what they were doing by not publicizing the vote, was made pretty clear in her comment stating “We just felt it would be more conducive to patrons”. We can surmise that the “IT” she was referring to was the elusive vote they conducted. It also shows that she obviously does not care about the District at large and the effect of this tax on our entire community.
Another thing the Buffalo News article points out is the district average of home value…I wonder where they got that number, because if you take the village of Middleport out of the mix, my guess is that number rises significantly….showing again, the DISTRICT is being made to pay more per family for a VILLAGE library that is mainly used by VILLAGE residents. Home values for farmers and other district members, such as those in the Town of Lockport who are also Roy-Hart School District taxpayers, are MUCH higher than the $85k amount quoted… myself included.
ALthough Ms. Wagner is now calling us a “dedicated” funding source, she has cleaned up her verbiage from her previous description of us, the taxpayers, as “sustainable funding”. We are not a community to her, we are simply a sustainable funding source for her and her hobby.
This library board has effectively stole your vote and mine, and simply for a “sustainable funding” source, instead of doing what other private corporations would do, compete and produce a better product that people want. They now get the money without even having to produce a better product. And it’s your money.
I’m insulted, aren’t you?
Our Take on the Information in Buffalo News
Stay Tuned….
You might like to pay special attention to Sunday’s Buffalo News…I hear there might be an interesting article.
As I said, we are not stopping until we have justice.
Support is Building
Our group is enthused today by the support we are receiving from Senator Maziarz and Assemblywoman Corwins’ office. They have listened to our information and understood what we have learned and conveyed.
We want the Residents of the Royalton-Hartland Central District to be assured, we have not stopped our investigation or our work. We are moving on this, and continue to do so until a satisfactory resolution has been reached. We want our vote!
Busy Times
It has been a little bit since we posted on this site…but I want to assure you, it is NOT because of any lack of happenings…but just the opposite. We have been busy working to get this vote overturned. We have submitted our information to the School District Lawyers, hoping they would do the right thing by the Residents. But alas, we were again disappointed.
But we are continuing our fight for our vote, and we WILL NOT STOP until we get it.
So please stay tuned for additional information – learn about the upcoming events.
Our Fight for Our Vote Continues
Ok Folks, the fight has seemed like a long, impossible road, and we are getting closer to our goal, but it’s not done yet. The School Board has submitted the information we provided to their lawyers and anticipates a response in time for the next Board meeting (Jan. 26th). We need to make sure the School Board understands that this is NOT going away, unless and until they do the right thing. We must not allow ourselves to be bullied into paying an illegal tax!
Given the facts as we have accurately relayed them to you, they really MUST provide a fix for this situation. A REVOTE is the ONLY answer.
Our ancestors have gone to wars and fought, and many died, to secure our Freedoms, our right to vote among them. We cannot allow this injustice to go without a fight, and so we welcome this fight, as we welcome our freedom.
Middleport Resident Has His Say
ILLEGAL/UNETHICAL/IMPROPER MIDDLEPORT LIBRARY VOTE
In due consideration of the facts stated below, I hereby request that the Middleport Free Library, through the Royalton-Hartland School District, return to the Royalton-Hartland tax-payers the sum of $103,000 – since, through design or ignorance, the June 7, 2011 Library funding vote held in the Library was illegal:
Improper Library Identification. According to its charter, the Middleport Free Library is and always has been a “ Free Association Village Library.” The Library charter designates the service area of the Library to be the village of Middleport and NOT the District served by the Royalton-Hartland School . Library Board President Carolyn Wagner, in her November 5, 2010 letter to the Royalton-Hartland School District Board falsely indicated that the Middleport Free Library is an “Association District Library,” which it is not. There can be no vote by District citizens to pay for a District Library UNTIL a District Library exists.
Misleading notice. The Library published a misleading notice (4/22, 5/2, 16, 27 2011) concerning the Library tax vote directed only to “Middleport Free Library” interested-parties. The notice SHOULD have been titled: “Legal Notice; Notice of Special Meeting; Royalton-Hartland School District ” and directed to School District residents in that manner. There was no reason for Royalton-Hartland residents outside of Middleport to read a notice entitled only “Middleport Free Library.” Moreover, since the Royalton-Hartland School District had already approved (in the May 17, 2011 School budget) funding for the Middleport Library, there was no reason for the tax-payers to suspect a funding vote for the same Library affected them.
Incomplete/Illegal Notice. The notice of the tax vote published by the Library omitted the mandated notification of the “District’s identification of voters” requirements. Missing in the Library’s published notices were the following required sentences: “The District will require all persons offering to vote to provide their signature, printed name and address. The District may require all persons offering to vote to provide one form of proof of residency pursuant to Education Law 2018-c. Such form may include a driver’s license, a non-driver identification card, a utility bill or a voter registration card.”
Website Notification Failure. The Library failed to post any information on its website concerning its intent to hold a tax levy vote and transition to a District Library until after the June 7, 2011 vote took place.
Incorrect Vote Administration Authority. On December 9, 2010 , the Royalton-Hartland School District Board approved the Library’s petition and thereby agreed, as required by law, to administer the Library tax vote themselves and determine the actual date of the vote. However, Library Board President Wagner in a letter dated January 7, 2011 usurps the School Board’s authority to administer the vote (and ignores her own October 28, 2010 request submitted to the School Board). In the October 28 letter, Ms. Wagner declared the Library tax vote would be administered by the Library and held at the Library. In the January 7 letter, Ms. Wagner told the School Board the date the vote would be held.
Missing School Board Notification. Although the Royalton-Hartland School District Board passed a resolution on December 9, 2010 indicating that it would administer the Library tax vote, the District never gave due notice to Royalton-Hartland District residents. There was no notice from the School District by mail, newspaper, or on-line. In her November 5, 2010 letter to the School Board, Ms. Wagner indicated that the Library would “follow all mandates required for notifying the public of this vote.” Yet it was the School Board alone who had the responsibility to do this. The School District Board did nothing to verify whether or not proper citizen notification was given by the Library.
Petition Initiation Wrong. New York State Education Law 259 a + b requires that qualified voters equal in number to at least 10% (375) of the total number of votes cast (3757) at the last gubernatorial election are required to petition the question to establish or increase the amount of funding of a Free Association Library. No such petition of voters existed prior to the June 7, 2011 vote. In other words, a petition to establish funding for a Library MUST be initiated by at least 375 voters of the Royalton-Hartland School District and be presented by the voters to the Library. Instead of following the law, the Library itself filed the petition.
“Friends” Conspiracy. Library Board President, Carolyn Wagner, sought to give citizen voters the false impression that the so-call “Friends of The Library” is a separate and distinct organization from the Library itself. This was accomplished as the result of Ms. Wagner’s email dated May 13, 2010 in which she “encouraged” the “Friends” to obtain its own non-profit, tax-exempt status so that the “Friends” organization could “independently” fund the Library’s tax vote campaign. Further, during the Library campaign conducted by the “Friends,” Library Board Members were to temporarily resign their status on the Library Board if they were also active in “Friends” in order to give the false impression to the public that “Friends” were independent of the Library. In this same email and in all other past considerations, all people concerned with Library issues were lumped by Ms. Wagner into the “staff/board/Friends” category.
Campaign Budget Limitations. The Library Board and the “Friends” organization determined that it was vital for a successful Library funding vote that Royalton Hartland District voters outside of the Village of Middleport be wooed. Suggestions for accomplishing this included naming the “new” Library after Gasport. As far as funding the campaign was concerned, the Library and Friends (according to the May 13, 2010 letter from President Wagner) decided to cut tax vote campaign costs as much as possible, thereby preventing the hiring of experts in accomplishing what the Library was trying to do, but also eliminating those pesky and costly “focus groups, branding campaign, glossy posters, and frequent mailings” – things which a tax-payer might, in fact, expect from an entity which claims to work FOR the people.
Michael Miano
Middleport
Recent School Board Meeting
During the School Board meeting on December 22, 2011 I stood before the Board and explained to them, that THEY are our representation. Without them, we would be taxed without representation, which is a violation of our civil rights. As elected officials, the community entrusted THEM to assure that our laws and rules are followed, and they failed us in this. Even through the insistence of the Board President, Ms. Patricia Riegle that they did everything legally, I explained to the Board what they did, and how the Library Tax is indeed illegal. First, on December 9, 2010 the School board passed a resolution that clearly stated that THEY (the Board) would run the special election for the library Tax….but they didn’t. The same resolution also stated that it would be run the same as the Annual budget vote…..but it wasn’t.
It is important to note that a School Board Resolution, once passed, becomes local law. As such, our own School Board who passed this resolution, creating this new law, forthwith went on to break it.
The Proof that the School Board DID NOT “administer” the special election and the Annual Budget rules were NOT followed are:
- On June 20, 2011 the LIBRARY sent a letter to the School Board, informing them of the vote tally. This letter SHOULD have been coming FROM the BOE not to them.
- In addition, the School Board did not post notifications regarding any public meetings, or pending vote. The notification should have been exactly as it is for the Annual Budget meeting – a mailing to residents with the proposed budget, per NY law. The mailing would have alerted the residents about the vote, instead, the majority of residents had their votes disenfranchised from them, never even learning of the tax or the vote, until September – when they received their tax bill and called the School District.
I gave the Board members a copy of Education Law Section 2007 which tells them that they MAY call a special meeting and do NOT need petition signatures to do so. Yet, I showed them that we had with us 70 signatures asking for a revote, and informed them of the additional signatures on complaints to the Attorney Generals’ office.
There are more things that were done WRONG with this vote, than were done right. These are just two examples of why the revote needs to occur.
I am encouraged by the nodding heads I saw among the Board members and have hope that they WILL do what is right. They now know that the Library Tax is indeed illegal, and they now know what they need to do to fix it, and restore the communities’ confidence in them.
It is up to us, you and me, to hold them accountable. The next school Board meeting is scheduled for January 12th, 7pm in the High School Auditorium, hope to see you there.
Letter to the Royalton Hartland School Board
The following letter was conveyed to the School Board at their meeting last night.
To All Board of Education Members:
Given that the Library Tax vote of June 7th, 2011 was neither legal, nor ethical, the residents of the District request that the Board exercise their legal right per Section 2007 of the NY State Education Law, and duty to the District, and take up the REPEAL of the tax at the next annual budget, or sooner. According to the facts as we have determined:
1. The Board passed a Resolution on Dec. 9, 2010 to hold a special election for the Library. By law, the District, as the taxing authority, was to give the public notice and run the election. Yet, you did not give notice or run the election. This is effectively a dereliction of your duties.
2. By Law, the School District is required to mail the annual budget information to residents. The Special Vote was to be held the same as the annual budget…yet residents received no mail notifications.
3. You, School Board members, knew that “no one knew” about the vote. Yet you did nothing to notify us. Our constitutional right to vote was violated by your actions! This is extremely unethical in principal, and a violation of your own Ethics rules.
4. There is proof that the law was broken when you allowed the Library to run a District election. This resulted in an illegal tax to the District residents.
It is your duty to the District residents to act on behalf of the taxpayers, as our representative, to assure that we are not “taxed without representation”. You are our representatives in this situation.
It was clear that the Library had motive for keeping the vote quiet. They knew the support of Gasport would be crucial for their vote, but because of their failure to gain Gasport’s support in the past for a playground in Middleport, they chose to leave Gasport out of the election by not giving proper notice and not conducting an educational campaign. A notice to “Middleport Free Library” is not a notice to Royalton Hartland School District Residents! In fact, the Library’s highly unethical behavior has effectively created an atmosphere where the community no longer views them in a positive light.
In fact, per Section 2010 of the Education law, these deceitful actions alone make this an illegal tax..
§ 2010. Effect of want of due notice of district meetings. The proceedings of no district meeting, annual or special, shall be held illegal for want of a due notice to all the persons qualified to vote thereat, unless it shall appear that the omission to give such notice was wilful and fraudulent.
Residents of the District have been disappointed in the events leading up to the Library Tax vote, and even more disappointed afterward by the failure of the BOE to act on this injustice in our community.
We encourage you to regain the trust of your community and do what is right, and legal. A repeal of the Library Tax on the next ballot is the only way to give voters in the district a true chance to have their voices heard. It is your right and your duty.
Sincerely,
Mary Cedeño
How could it be unlawful…..
NY Education Law § 2010. Effect of want of due notice of district meetings. The proceedings of no district meeting, annual or special, shall be held illegal for want of a due notice to all the persons qualified to vote thereat, unless it shall appear that the omission to give such notice was wilful and fraudulent.
The Fight Continues
To keep everyone up to date, we wanted to assure you that we have not forgotten about the unfair library vote. We are still working on getting a just solution to this situation for the taxpayers and voters.
We have done many many hours of research and have compiled the data. It will be released shortly. And rest assured, our proof is there, the vote was not done properly.
Please contact your school board and tell them, per NY Ed Law Section 2007, THEY CAN rectify this situation.
§ 2007. Special meeting in union free school district. 1. The board of education in a union free school district shall have power to call special meetings of the inhabitants of the district whenever they shall deem it necessary and proper, in the manner prescribed in section two thousand four of this chapter. The notice of each special meeting shall state the purposes for which it is called, and no business shall be transacted at such special meeting, except that which is specified in the notice.
