May 16, 2008 Some things you take for granted. If there’s an election, when it’s over, they count the votes. And before that, candidates campaign--showing up at grocery stores, looking out from the inside pages of the newspaper, and taking hold of your sleeve wherever the opportunity presents itself. But then there’s this round of the School Board Elections in East Ramapo. Two candidates have been out and around, talking and giving interviews, but two just suddenly quit without any explanation, with only one week to go before election day. And then there are the final two, who are more like shadows with nothing more known about one of them than just his name, and little more about the other. What the heck is going on?
 

If you want to know what Nathan Rothschild or Steven White see as the three top challenges facing the school district, you can read their answers to The Journal News’ questions on the LoHud website. You can also read their bios on the same pages. (www.lohud.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?category=ELECTIONS01&template=schoolboard&district=East%20Ramapo&county=Rockland). Rothschild, the incumbent President of the Board, is running unopposed, but his photo and full information are on the site. Steven White is running for a seat on the board, and his complete information is also posted there. These two have been the conventional candidates and both have the Journal’s endorsement.

Two other incumbent board members, Dr. David Resnick and Steven Rosenstock, dropped out of the race Tuesday, with one week to go. Curiously, they both said they were withdrawing for "personal reasons." So, without any explanation, Rosenstock handed the seat he was contesting over to a first-time candidate (Moshe Hopstein), and Resnick narrowed the field in a contest remaining between Spring Valley activist Steven White and Monsey developer Aron Wieder.

But who are Moshe Hopstein and Aron Wieder? In order to make an intelligent choice this Tuesday in the only contest left in the race, shouldn’t the public have some idea who the candidates are? A position on the East Ramapo School Board is not inconsequential. Not only does the District’s budget dwarf those of most local municipalities at almost $200 million, decisions made by this board will affect the education of individuals in all the District’s schools, and that impacts the future of the entire community.

On the editorial page of today’s Journal News there’s a shaded box with the subhead "The Educated Voter…" It has information links to LoHud’s School Elections 2008 pages, the video "Decision Day," the letters, the blogs, and the forums—all with information about who is running in all the districts and what the editors and voters are saying about the candidates.

Go to those pages and you will learn nothing about Moshe Hopstein, and as late as this afternoon (Friday, May 16—five days before the vote), nothing about Aron Wieder. No photos, no editorials, no blog discussions. In a call to the Journal, earlier today, we were told that numerous attempts were made to get the information, and that an additional attempt to reach Mr. Wieder would come later in the day.

Aron Wieder is still in a contest, running against Steven White, but unlike White, Wieder refused to attend a Journal News interview, and he also did not show up at the Meet the Candidates Night. If you are asking for the public’s trust to manage hundreds of millions of dollars and the futures of their children, don’t you owe them at least an introduction?

A quick check of the East Ramapo Central School District website (www.eram.k12.ny.us) turned up nothing on Hopstein or Wieder. Although there is a Voter and Election information page, there’s nothing on any of those running.

On Friday before the election, we called the East Ramapo District Clerk’s Office assuming this might be a place to get some information since Wieder and Hopstein had to file their petitions for running in the election at that office. We were told by a person at the office they could not give us any information because they "cannot be involved politically." The person did, however, transfer us to the Superintendent’s office.

The Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Ira Oustatcher, wasn’t able to help either. He told us, "I don’t know that I can offer you much. I’ve never met one of those two candidates." He remembers seeing one at a board meeting yet concluded, "But I can’t tell you more than that."

So the situation stood through the afternoon, four days from the election—candidate Moshe Hopstein remained faceless, silent, unknown, and Aron Wieder had successfully avoided public appearances that most feel are a necessary part of the process of running for office. The only fragment of information about Wieder on LoHud’s Election 2008 was the answer to the single question—Why are you running and what qualifies you to be a school board trustee?

Further, the voters in East Ramapo had learned that one of the shadow candidates had already won, as Steven Rosenstock conceded the seat he was contesting--Rosenstock, exited the race for reasons unknown. Short of submitting a Freedom of Information Act Request (FOIL), it now looks as though there’s no way to find out who Hopstein is until he attends his first board meeting. Hopstein was even unavailable for comment when the paper called to get his reaction to Rosenstock’s exit. The extent of the information we have been able to gather about the presumed winner is his local address: Moshe Hopstein, 5 Buchanan Lane, New Square.

With this complete absence of public information, there are serious questions that cannot be answered. Here are just a few of them.

What is Mr. Hopstein’s educational background, and does he have any record of civic participation? What does he do for a living? Is he a vendor, or working for a vendor that could substantially benefit from contracts with the school district? How long has he lived in the community?

Are there any business or personal connections between either Hopstein or Wieder and either of the two incumbents who suddenly left the race? Curiously, Wieder himself ran in the last school board election and decided to step aside in that race before the election.

The refusal to provide basic information about your qualifications and beliefs not only subverts a system that absolutely depends on an informed electorate, but it also speaks of an arrogance that is unacceptable.

The fact is, we started this process with two unknowns as candidates for BOE seats, and today, the more anonymous of these individuals is a new board member without a single vote being cast. The speculation among the politically cynical (an increasing demographic in Ramapo) is that perhaps one or both of these gentlemen were stealth candidates from the beginning and the plan has, so far, half succeeded.

Early this evening (Friday, May 16) we learned that Mr. Wieder had earlier requested that the Journal put up his information from the election two years ago (the one from which he withdrew), and that information has now been posted on the paper’s website. It’s still incomplete; he did not answer three of the four questions posed to all the candidates, including:

What do you see as the top three challenges facing your school district?

With respect to school finances, are there any specific initiatives you would pursue to save money or reduce costs?

What changes would you make on the academic front?

But it does have some of the basic information such as address, education, occupation, and so on. Kind of begs the question though, didn’t he realize that his bio was missing, and there was, until this evening only one paragraph there? Or was that consistent with his reclusive behavior relative to the missed public appointments?

He did however answer one question, so having skipped the interview and meet-and-greet night, it is the only public utterance that offers any insight into what Mr. Wieder thinks about the position.

I have cut and pasted the text that was up on the Journal News website earlier today. It’s presented here exactly as it has appeared over the last few weeks on the Journal pages. The copy that is up tonight has been proofed and changed. Here’s the original, assumedly from two years ago.

Q: Why are you running and what qualifies you to be a school board trustee?

Aron Wieder’s reply:

"I am running for a seat on the board and I'm not in contention against anyone. However I am running to be on teh board. My concerns are A) education and B, bringing the community together. We hae got to unite. We live i the same district. It's in everybody's interests to have a viable communitn and to h ave good pblic and private school education and to keep it affordable to be able to live in the county. I will keep everybody in mind and be a very strong and participating public school board member and my utmost concern will be education and to bring the community togther."

Besides the problems with expression, the entry begins with a substantive misstatement. The first line of the answer might have been true two years ago, but this Tuesday, Mr Wieder is "in contention against" someone. He is running against the candidate endorsed by The Journal News, Steven White, a well-known community activist from Spring Valley who has run an open and very public campaign.

Michael Castelluccio

[Editor’s Note: In the future, we think the East Ramapo Board of Education should adopt a rule that anyone running for a board position must fill out a basic information sheet like that used by the Journal, and that the information should be posted on the East Ramapo website and given as well to the editors at The Journal News.]