So, should every town position be an elected one? Where do we draw the line? View Comment

Or perhaps the Superintendent of Highways will find out how we feel about this frivolous post-election lawsuit in the next election. Absolutely within his rights, but necessary? Thanks so much for spending our resources and court time on this, now that he got the results he wanted - basically no competition for his job. The fact that the Town Board put forth an option is what we should all be appreciative of. It's that - an option, that the voters decided. My choice next election will be for someone who doesn't want to waste our money on politicking after the election is won. View Comment

Robert Little conveniently "forgets" the past while pursuing a personal vendetta against the school administration at the cost of all taxpayers. Just one example; he says: "You, the Ossining Taxpayer, are still paying for the $10,000,000 worth of athetic fields that the bloated and grossly-over paid school administration chose to purchase with a permissive bond referendum some years ago" What Mr. Little won't admit is that the Administration can't approve a budget not approved by the BOE and voters. The administration had previously proposed some of the current bond items to a different BOE several years ago, and it was voted down by the BOE. Never got to a taxpayer vote. At that time, it seemed the one thing the Administration, BOE and voters COULD agree on was the new athletic fields. If there is any buyer's remorse on the fields now, it is all of our collective responsibility. If you read Mr. Little's Facebook rants on Ossining Taxpayers, you'll see a perspective that has changed over time - once endorsing most of the current bond items in the context of last year's bond, and now changing his mind so he can paint the administration as a group of folks inexplicably on a mission to raise all of our taxes, without offering a sane motive as to why. This irrational, flip-flopping and often deliberately selective use of facts out of context puts all of us at risk if we choose to believe it. The items in the bond will need to be paid for sooner than later. It's up to us to fund them in the most responsible, lowest-impact way. The current bond represents such a responsible path, and I encourage voters to not assume someone else will vote yes, and do so on Tuesday. View Comment

Unfortunately again, Mr. Little selectively provides pieces of the truth such that it dramatizes the situation in a way that would not be if he provided ALL of the facts. Let’s just take one of his points: “Would you pay $20,000 per year to maintain the boilers or would you spend $12,000,000 to buy new ones?” Mr. Little suggests there was no cost analysis done, which is inaccurate; the information is posted on the school district’s website. We should instead ask if we should spend $250,000 per year (the real number, based on the amount we’d have saved last year had we been using a flex-fuel option the new systems would provide, the cost to pre-heat the soon-to-be-phased-out #6 fuel oil before it can even be used to fuel some of the older heating units, and the repair and maintenance costs for 30+ year-old systems operating at efficiency levels of decades ago), or if we should replace those units and begin saving $250,000 per year in lower operating and repair costs, while replacing systems already at or beyond the end of their anticipated service life. We should also consider that if any of these aging units were to fail, we would be paying emergency rates for the contractor work to replace it, have to fund the additional cost of temporary units brought in on trailers, have much less negotiability in securing a good rate for the work, and may not have the State building aid available to help subsidize the cost. Waiting until things fail and then paying top dollar to replace them is not a good use of our collective tax dollars. Also setting the record straight, previous school boards and the administration proposed several times over the past 10 years to either repair, replace or set aside capital funds for some of these projects. Apparently, the new athletic fields were the only capital projects upon which the previous board and a majority of the voters could agree, so it’s not accurate to suggest this was mismanagement on the part of the district. Mr. Little will suggest that we should keep stuffing students down a “stairway to nowhere” (if it’s a stairway to nowhere, then why is it used routinely by students?) even though according to today’s building codes, it’s not particularly safe. Just because nobody’s gotten hurt thus far, should we wait until someone gets hurt as proof enough that the stairs should be restructured? I could go line by line through Mr. Little’s comments and either refute each one with facts, or illustrate the degree to which he will highlight partial truths to dramatize issues that are much less dramatic when one considers the whole picture. But hopefully the examples above will shed some light on the difference between highlighting some of the facts and reviewing the whole story. There is no manipulative plot to fatten the bond proposal with unnecessary items just so the district can stick it to the taxpayers. There is not a single supporter of the bond who wants to spend more on taxes or wants to rubber-stamp wasteful spending because they have a magical money-growing tree in their Ossining backyards. Everyone voting YES has researched all the facts and understands that spreading the cost of this project while locking in historic-low interest rates and contracting costs, and taking advantage of $22 million in State Aid that may not be around if we wait to do the work later, is the most responsible approach to doing work that we will have to fund one way or another over the next few years. View Comment

Robert Little continues to selectively represent partial facts for the purpose of dramatization. For example, he cites, "AMD Principals Office, Reception and Nurse's Office ($1,125,996)" while neglecting to mention that the price tag more accurately reflects the consolidation and reduction of administrative space to accommodate new classrooms, and a reception area that provides for better security and makes it harder for strangers to easily enter the building. Robert characterizes, "AMD Music Rooms ($1,431,022)" but conveniently omits the part that the price tag covers work that is tied to the cafeteria expansion, efficiently relocating the current band and music room to the 2nd floor where the space would be reallocated to provide for two music rooms and two additional classrooms. If you look behind just about any of the points Robert and the makes, you'll likely find additional information that meaningfully changes the context and the way a person would objectively evaluate this very important decision. He suggests there is subterfuge and critical information hidden that needed to be uncovered, though one will find substantial information made available in a dedicated section of the District's website and at many of the community meetings that have been taking place on this subject since September. Yet what he's done is not to reveal the full scope of information "uncovered," - just selective facts that support a decision he's already made. Additionally, Robert offers no suggestion as to how this work, prompted largely by a growing student population, the need to maintain buildings according to evolving legislatively-mandated building codes, and the need to eventually replace things like building roofs and heating systems at or past their expected life, would be funded aside from the annual operating budget, meaning these items would be EXEMPT from the 2% tax cap and would almost certainly amount to sharp and immediate short-term tax increases when, not if, they need to be done. It would mean walking away from $22 million in State Aid that isn't guaranteed to be around next year, waiting for critical failures before acting to fix them, and setting the bar for investment in education in this community at the bare minimum to meet standardized testing goals. Robert also needs to make a decision as to what is more important - to use 100% Made in America products and unionized labor, regardless of cost, or to place a priority on contractors willing to do the work with expected quality and materials at the most aggressive price, with origin and union affiliation preferably as stated but absolutely secondary to that. I encourage voting residents to listen with open ears to both sides of the debate, to attend the BOE Sessions and ask questions, to visit OssiningCFS.com for additional information, and to vote YES for a bond that provides for responsible use of taxpayer dollars, without having the effect of increasing taxes. View Comment

I support this bond. I've visited the OssiningTaxpayers site and as someone who has made the effort to learn the facts, found an environment that seems to be deliberately misleading. Robert Little suggests he's not gotten answers to some provocative questions yet I've literally sat in some of the same meetings in which those answers were given to his questions. They'll suggest the equipment should not have been allowed to reach the current state of deterioration but fail to acknowledge previous years in which either the board or the community voted down spending the money; now we're at a point where we're running out of options. Their campaign suggests things like a "Million dollar principal's office," while purposely neglecting to mention that moving and reducing the principal's office is the smallest piece of a bigger puzzle that creates new classrooms by consolidating the administrators' offices. It's like suggesting that Nissan is outrageous for selling a $20,000 set of four tires while omitting the fact that there's a whole car attached to them. The detractors fail to mention the fact that doing this work now helps subsidize the project cost with $22 million in State Aid that may not be around in a year, effectively making this an interest-free $41 million project. None of the people who support this bond are swimming in money and wouldn't prefer to save in taxes if we felt it was a viable option. We have a growing community that needs more space in schools, aging infrastructure that in some cases literally puts our children at risk, like the structurally compromised wall at the middle school, or in cases like window and boiler replacements, continue to send taxpayer money flying out the window every year as a result of inefficiency. This bond is the right way to do what needs to be done in our schools, and has the added benefit of not raising taxes. It's a smart move. For the record, I also choose to not hide behind oblique usernames when making statements regarding the community, and respect that intention in those who do, regardless of their position on this matter. View Comment

I support this bond. I've visited the OssiningTaxpayers site and as someone who has made the effort to learn the facts, found an environment that seems to be deliberately misleading. Robert Little suggests he's not gotten answers to some provocative questions yet I've literally sat in some of the same meetings in which those answers were given to his questions. They'll suggest the equipment should not have been allowed to reach the current state of deterioration but fail to acknowledge previous years in which either the board or the community voted down spending the money; now we're at a point where we're running out of options. Their campaign suggests things like a "Million dollar principal's office," while purposely neglecting to mention that moving and reducing the principal's office is the smallest piece of a bigger puzzle that creates new classrooms by consolidating the administrators' offices. It's like suggesting that Nissan is outrageous for selling a $20,000 set of four tires while omitting the fact that there's a whole car attached to them. The detractors fail to mention the fact that doing this work now helps subsidize the project cost with $22 million in State Aid that may not be around in a year, effectively making this an interest-free $41 million project. None of the people who support this bond are swimming in money and wouldn't prefer to save in taxes if we felt it was a viable option. We have a growing community that needs more space in schools, aging infrastructure that in some cases literally puts our children at risk, like the structurally compromised wall at the middle school, or in cases like window and boiler replacements, continue to send taxpayer money flying out the window every year as a result of inefficiency. This bond is the right way to do what needs to be done in our schools, and has the added benefit of not raising taxes. It's a smart move. For the record, I also choose to not hide behind oblique usernames when making statements regarding the community, and respect that intention in those who do, regardless of their position on this matter. View Comment