First thing we do, revive all the lawyers

One of the very few things I like about any of Amherst's fifty some odd boards, committees, commissions or the occasional task force is that they often have on their agenda an open "public comment" period, where the general public can extemporaneously address committee members, ask questions, praise, chastise and generally get things off their chest.

Take for instance the Regional School Committee meeting this evening (a joint Meeting of the Amherst, Pelham and Amherst-Pelham Regional School Committees no less), where a concerned citizen wondered why the Schools would rehire a recently terminated lawyer at $220/hour to handle a complicated case--meaning lots of billable hours--when the current lawyer could handle the extra case for no additional cost?

Good question.
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Good Evening,

I am Michael Aronson, Amherst taxpayer.

I was forwarded an email written by Mr. Hood on Monday August 8 expressing his opinion that it was - “less expensive” to hire an outside attorney to litigate a Special Education matter even though the School District has a pre paid contract with an “In House” attorney.

I don’t know where you learned math, Mr. Hood, but I can assure you that the $3000 dollars you pay your in-house lawyer per month is less than that $3000 dollars PLUS the fees for an outside attorney hired to do the same thing.

EVERY MEMBER OF THIS COMMITTEE should be up in arms about the administrative decision to waste precious education dollars in this way.

Mr. Hood, as Chairman of this committee, you should be making very public inquiries into why the decision to hire an outside attorney was made.

Tell us, WHO is responsible for this violation of the public trust and why you consider it acceptable?

Your negligence, and that of the administrator who made this decision is hurting our children and our community.

This is shameful, malfeasance, and terrible policy.

Parents who come to Amherst for their children’s education, and pay handsomely in taxes for the privilege, are appalled at the tremendous waste this kind of decision represents.

Let us be clear, you have failed them.

Thank you for your time.
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I of course asked Mr. Aronson (since I was not there) how committee members received his forthright statement. Apparently not very well:

To the School Committee:

Knowing full well that the School committee is fully committed to denying any possibility of error in its judgments, I send to you and all contacts on this list my response to Mr. Rhodes and Ms. Luschen's full throated defense of administrative malfeasance.

Mr. Rhodes and Ms. Luschen argued that Amherst administrators need retain the duplicative legal services of Regina Tate due to her familiarity with existing legal cases. This argument is spurious on a number of grounds.

1) Ms. Tate was removed from her position litigating Special Education in Amherst because a majority of the School Committee found her services deficient. If you want to know the “cause” of her dismissal, ask those who voted to remove her - including Mr. Rhodes.

2) There is evidence that the historic case to which they referred at tonight's meeting was filed on 1 December 2010 - the same day Dupere was hired under a fixed contract. In other words, Tate did not have time to become too familiar with this case. It was filed on the same day she lost the contract to Dupere.

3) Litigants often change attorneys. There is ample precedent for one attorney taking over a case from another in situations far more complicated than those of Special Education. Special Education cases are limited in legal complexity, and are even outside of the normal judicial process. If Amherst wanted their new attorney to be informed about existing cases, they should have hired Tate to brief Dupere on those cases. That type of legal expense would have been unimpeachable. That in which the District now engages is profligate.

The Regional School Committee is entering perilous territory. Any outside observer would characterize such wasteful use of educational resources for unnecessary litigation that you explicitly condone (and defend) as a failure of fiduciary responsibility. Just ask the 9th grader who needs extra help in math, or kids who can't take AP Physics for a lack of a qualified teacher.

We all should ask, is the committee incapable of seeing the truth, are you at all interested in working to improve this district ?

At this time the answer is a resounding "No!" As a body you are rejecting of the facts on the ground.

And our community suffers.

Michael Aronson