Chiefs demand transparency from Board of Ed

Frustrated with the way West Hempstead school board members handled a vote on a permit requesting use of the district’s facilities, a local organization is demanding a new facilities-use policy and more transparency in the permit application process.

At the board’s Jan. 18 meeting, West Hempstead Chiefs Soccer Club President Brendan Smith slammed the district’s policy on facilities use and asked that residents be given the chance to review permit applications and comment on them before board members vote to approve to reject them.

Smith’s commentary came after a dispute at the board’s Dec. 21 meeting over approval of one specific permit application. With a 5-2 vote, the board had approved a permit submitted by a former Chief’s coach who had pulled his son out of the organization and relocated to a Franklin Square-based group. The former coach’s new team, although part of a Franklin Square organization, was made up mostly of children from West Hempstead.

Two weeks prior to that meeting, the board had changed language in its policy on use of facilities to say that teams eligible to apply for a field-use permit must be 80 percent West Hempstead residents. The previous policy had required 80 percent of the organization to be West Hempstead based.

The vote had Smith and fellow Chiefs executive board members crying foul. They claimed it was a conflict of interest for board member Tony Brita, the former Chiefs coach who had applied for the permit, to vote on the item, and that the modified policy opens the door for out-of-town teams to use West Hempstead fields.

“I strongly suggest that the board adjust the language in the current policy to reflect one that protects our facilities to be only used by organizations that represent West Hempstead,” Smith read in a prepared statement at the meeting. “Going forward, any item that is subject to be voted upon for use of facilities should be clearly detailed on the agenda for the meeting to allow for community to debate and give the board members the opportunity to table voting on specific use of permits.”

Although it had been determined by the board’s legal counsel at the Dec. 21 meeting that Brita’s vote on the matter had not been a conflict of interest, Smith also called for reform in the board’s voting policy.

“[A]ny school board official who has any interest in the outcome of a permit being passed should abstain from voting on and debating the permit, [thus] ensuring that prejudice and self-interest would not disqualify the intention of the application.”

When asked whether the board would reconsider its policy changes and a more transparent permit application process, President Pam Lotito would only say that the board would be discussing the facilities-use policy at its Feb. 8 meeting.

“The community will have the opportunity to ask questions and comment on the board’s discussion,” she said.

Smith and his supporters are hoping for a positive outcome at the Feb. 8 meeting.

The Chiefs “would like to see the board change the wording in this policy so that this is never an issue again,” Chiefs executive board member Loraine Magaraci had told the Herald earlier this month. “We would like to see the West Hempstead fields used by West Hempstead-based teams and organizations only.”

Brita had offered another point of view when speaking with the Herald in early January.

“I think the fundamental issue here is whether or not residents who pay property taxes for the West Hempstead school districts should be allowed to use the facilities in that school district,” he had said. “And I think most reasonable people would answer that question ‘yes.’”

Stay tuned for updates on this matter.