Nagler letter on Cross St. School misleading

The Island Now

It’s hard to know where to begin in responding to Dr. Nagler’s letter to the editor concerning me last week. But I’ll try. In my last letter, I pointed out some of his deceptions concerning the Cross Street situation. Here’s more.

He claims to have advised by e-mail on March 30 that the lease terms were being restructured so that Solomon Schechter would now be responsible for paying for some of the improvements being made for its benefit. This in an attempt to show that my letter of April 5 disclosing that taxpayers were going to pay for the capital improvements was based on outdated information.

It’s a nice story, but untrue. In fact, Dr. Nagler’s e-mail concerning the modification of lease terms is dated April 13, not March 30. He responded to an e-mail sent to him dated April 8, after my letter had appeared in the paper. In short, it appears that the modification of the lease terms was in direct response to what I had pointed out, though Dr. Nagler is now trying to make it appear otherwise.

Secondly, he complains I should know that the Cross Street work will cost less than $100,000 because he provided an estimate of work in response to my FOIL request. What he doesn’t disclose is that he provided just one, heavily redacted, preliminary estimate from an undisclosed company in the amount of $68,000, which addresses only part of the work to be done on the Cross Street gymnatorium, primarily the demolition portion of the work. The estimate also makes clear that it’s subject to revision once architectural plans are submitted.

In short, it’s an incomplete, preliminary estimate. He provided no estimates for the remainder of the work on the gymnatorium.

Further, he provided no estimates for any of the additional work to be done at Cross Street, including the expansion of the parking lot, installation of science labs, etc. In fact, I was advised he had no estimates for any of this other work.

The one estimate Dr. Nagler provided does not include the cost or installation of wall padding, basketball hoops or additional flooring if found to be needed once the stage is removed, which I’ve been told by facilities personnel is likely.

Nor does it appear to include the plumbing, electrical, HVAC, masonry, door/windows or site development/asbestos work at Cross Street, all of which the district’s architect has filed a letter of intent to perform. The filing was done with the state Education Department on Feb. 18. It’s been assigned project # 15-17.

In short, Dr. Nagler’s disclosure of one preliminary estimate for some of the gymnatorium work leaves more questions than it answers. However, from the estimate, it’s clear that the cost of the improvements being made at Cross Street for Solomon (Schechter) will far exceed $100,000, which was the point of my last letter.

I stand by that.

Dr. Nagler could readily clear up any confusion as to what work is required under the lease by providing a copy of the lease, together with the architectural filings and site plans. Yet he has refused/failed to provide these documents. In my experience when someone stonewalls requests for documents, it’s because they have something to hide, and are aware of it. I’m assuming that’s true in this case as well, until I see a reason to think otherwise, like actual documents.

It’s worth asking why Dr. Nagler negotiated the lease to begin with. He has no prior experience negotiating leases, so why did he do so in this case.

This is something normally done by a district’s business official and/or facilities director, not the superintendent. Certainly not a superintendent without experience in the area. So why did he choose to negotiate this lease. Since he’s provided no explanation, we can only speculate.

The lease is scheduled to be voted upon by the school board on April 27 at 7 p.m. at the Willis Avenue school. If you don’t like what’s been happening in this case, you should be there.

The lease should be withdrawn at that time. If not, then on May 17 the taxpayers should vote out the trustees responsible for approving it and vote down the budget.

John O’Kelly

East Williston

 

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