By voting "NO" on March 6th you will be reducing your school taxes by at least 50% in 2016... according to the Bond Schedule proudly displayed on the school administration website! Imagine, putting your own $4000-7000 cash per year back to work for you and your family instead of buying the school district "Cultural Fluff" such as the Ossining High School "Famous Staircase to Nowhere" for $1,016,000....the proponents of the staircase claim that it is unsafe..... but fail to think about the 80 years of kids who have navigated it over the years ...just fine! For the opposing view of taxing yourself until the Summer of 2036 at the _same rate_ you are now paying......taxing your children and our Senior Citizens, please visit www.FreeOssiningTaxpayers.com. The boilers have been functioning at peak performance, according to interviews with the technicians who service the Ossining school district heating systems and through our review of the the last four years of maintenance and repair records furnished under the Freedom of Information Act by The Committee to Free Ossining Taxpayers.com. As Vice President Al Gore famously said about five years ago: "They are Playing on Your Fears." The school administration and school board are obviously "exercised" about defending their position from www.FreeOssiningTaxpayers.com and they _should_ be quite nervous as they are proposing a lot of "Cultural Fluff" that the citizens and parents recognize will not raise students' Scholastic Aptitude Test scores one point! The more "nervous blogging" we observe the more satisfied we are to have staked out the higher ground on this issue and we look forward to cutting your taxes significantly starting in 2016 when the gigantic drop in school taxes is scheduled to occur. Sincerely, The Committee to Free Ossining Taxpayers.com View Comment

Lets look for a minute at the two physical plant alternations proposed as a function of raising the Scholastic Aptitude Scores of the students of Ossining: Reapportioning space at Ann M. Dorner Middle School ..knocking down walls and restructuring the floor plan... spending for cafeteria expansion, air conditioning certain areas, new music rooms ($1,431,000), revised library space ($1,836,900), the consolidation of new locker rooms for classroom space ($2,478,000)...and new principal's office, reception and nurses office ($1,125,996). No direct benefit to SAT scores here. No summer school classes needing a/c. No teachers on the budget to fill the rooms. "Cultural fluff". Grand Total $19,237,900. • Rehab, rebuild and update non-essential areas of OHS that will not contribute a single point to SAT scores such as new physical ed rooms ($1,993,348), replacement of kitchen components ($1,332,000), rebuilding the auditorium ($2,554,000), installing the famous "Basement Stairway to Nowhere" ($1,016,000), annex window replacement, main administrative offices and nursing office ($1,028,959). More "Cultural fluff". Grand Total $19,072,000. Exactly where does anyone see a SAT score increase...and don't bother to be a "nervous blogger" who jumps in right about now to proclaim that SAT scores are not important or in some way, shape or form somehow 'over-emphasized. No SAT increase forseen in the $42,000,000 proposed bond. "VOTE NO" of course. View Comment

By voting "NO" on March 6th you will be reducing your school taxes by at least 50% in 2016... according to the Bond Schedule proudly displayed on the school administration website! Imagine, putting your own $4000-7000 cash per year back to work for you and your family instead of buying the school district "Cultural Fluff" such as the Ossining High School "Famous Staircase to Nowhere" for $1,016,000....the proponents of the staircase claim that it is unsafe..... but fail to think about the 80 years of kids who have navigated it over the years ...just fine! For the opposing view of taxing yourself until the Summer of 2036 at the _same rate_ you are now paying......taxing your children and our Senior Citizens, please visit www.FreeOssiningTaxpayers.com. The boilers have been functioning at peak performance, according to interviews with the technicians who service the Ossining school district heating systems and through our review of the the last four years of maintenance and repair records furnished under the Freedom of Information Act by The Committee to Free Ossining Taxpayers.com. As Vice President Al Gore famously said about five years ago: "They are Playing on Your Fears." The school administration and school board are obviously "exercised" about defending their position from www.FreeOssiningTaxpayers.com and they _should_ be quite nervous as they are proposing a lot of "Cultural Fluff" that the citizens and parents recognize will not raise students' Scholastic Aptitude Test scores one point! The more "nervous blogging" we observe the more satisfied we are to have staked out the higher ground on this issue and we look forward to cutting your taxes significantly starting in 2016 when the gigantic drop in school taxes is scheduled to occur. Sincerely, The Committee to Free Ossining Taxpayers.com View Comment

Visit www.FreeOssiningTaxpayers.com for the other side of this taxation story. Vote "NO" on March 6th. Your school taxes will decrease ~50% in 2016 by voting "NO" 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 and now one wonders why the Ann Dorner School appears, as they declare, to require 20 million dollars of space adjustments? What was the true intent of the Ossining school administration when it chose athletic fields over AMD classroom space adjusting? They want you to pay $1,904,000 for a set of AMD locker rooms and new classroom with glass windows for better visibility of outside walls? Get a dose of financial reality. These are hard times for the working people of Ossining. And this is the entire story of the proposed work at AMD. Knocking down walls and re-sizing classrooms. A nice idea perhaps but at a tax bill of $20,000,000 (which will force you to pay the same taxes through the year 2036 that you just got done struggling to pay last week) this is the absolute wrong time to ask 40%+ of Ossining's Taxpayers, who live under the Federally-defined Poverty Guidelines to pay what they cannot afford. And nothing here will increase SAT scores one point. And exactly who is going to be asked to pay for added teachers @ $95,000/teacher for salary and benefits to staff those new classrooms? YOU View Comment

For the opposing view of taxing yourself until the Summer of 2036 at the _same rate_ you are now paying......taxing your children and our Senior Citizens, please visit www.FreeOssiningTaxpayers.com. The boilers have been functioning at peak performance, according to interviews with the technicians who service the Ossining school district heating systems and through our review of the the last four years of maintenance and repair records furnished under the Freedom of Information Act by The Committee to Free Ossining Taxpayers.com. As Vice President Al Gore famously said about five years ago: "They are Playing on Your Fears." The school administration and school board are obviously "exercised" about defending their position from www.FreeOssiningTaxpayers.com and they _should_ be quite nervous as they are proposing a lot of "cultural fluff" that the citizens and parents recognize will not raise students' Scholastic Aptitude Test scores one point! The more nervous blogging we observe the more satisfied we are to have staked out the higher ground on this issue and we look forward to cutting your taxes significantly starting in 2016 when the gigantic drop in school taxes is scheduled to occur. Sincerely, The Committee to Free Ossining Taxpayers.com View Comment

I personally heard a school administrator and a general contractor representative tell me face to face several months ago that there had been no financial study of the cost vs. payback period on the cost of these proposed capital expenditures and that no such study was contemplated. They were hell-bent on buying 'new stuff' and in the process throwing away perfectly well-functioning boiler systems and excellent emergenccy generators sensing a weakness by the voters to understand this particular issue. With a $105,000,000 annual school budget proposed for the 2012-2013 school year, necessary upgrades can be afforded as they arise and in the process waste squeezed out of the operating budget. This is the "New Normal" and the school board had better learn to cope with new financial realities that this decade demands. They will be forced to one way or another. For the complete dollar by dollar detail of these proposed long-term expenditures, please visit www.FreeOssiningTaxpayers.com . View Comment

If a school building is currently using No. 6 oil, the administration can make a relatively inexpensive switch to No. 4 oil. The switch involves using up the No. 6 oil in the tank, cleaning the tank if necessary, adjusting burner settings, making some minor modifications to the oil pump and oil lines, and starting to use No. 4 oil. The Department of Environmental Protection estimates the conversion will cost approximately $10,000 per school buillding. The No. 4 oil can be used until 2030... all according to Rand Engineering, a NYC Consultant. Adjustments and repairs, as I said, shall be taken as required from the $103,000,000 school administration operating budget capital expenses line. No boiler needs to be replaced and none will be required for some time. An Ossining Taxpayer submitted the following to our website www.FreeOssiningTaxpayers.com : "On other Ossining Taxpayer site a gentleman commented about wanting to go to a school with modern facilities. Sounds great, but it is a sad scenario when you suggest that going to a nicer school is a motivation for kids to do well. It's not only the building, it's fellow students, teachers and curriculum that create a good learning environment. In addition, it's important that they have support at home. Can one also assume that if the fields were nicer, the auditorium and the science lab updated, we would have more motivated athletes, scientists and actors? People have to learn to work with what they have available to them at any given time. Sure it would be nice to offer all these improvements, but in this economy we have to chose to improve those that affect safety first. If we are looking to cut, don't start with the teachers, start with the administrators who are making well over $200,000 each with benefits." Another poster added: "Can you believe that 20 Administrators of the Ossining UFSD together make $4,300,000...and you wonder why Ossining citizens will vote against the $42,000,000 Ossining proposed bond initiative?" I conclude by observing that the INTEL science kids did astoundingly well over the past few years with an excellent teaching staff and the same facilities that others have used year after year after year! View Comment

Voters: Get this quote from the above article: “What’s being proposed is a better space to allow for kids to be served quicker and allow them to eat comfortably during the time they have.” Yes, it said what you thought you read: “What’s being proposed is a better space to allow for kids to be served quicker and allow them to eat comfortably during the time they have.” Vote "NO" on March 6th. View Comment

Visit www.FreeOssiningTaxpayers.com for the other side of this taxation story. Vote "NO" on March 6th. 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 and now one wonders why the Ann Dorner School appears, as they declare, to require 20 million dollars of space adjustments? What was the true intent of the Ossining school administration when it chose athletic fields over AMD classroom space adjusting? It wants you to pay $1,904,000 for a set of AMD locker rooms and new classroom with glass windows for better visibility of outside walls? Get a dose of financial reality. These are hard times for the working people of Ossining. And this is the entire story of the proposed work at AMD. Knocking down walls and re-sizing classrooms. A nice idea perhaps but at a tax bill of $20,000,000 (which will force you to pay the same taxes through the year 2036 that you just got done struggling to pay last week) this is the absolute wrong time to ask 40%+ of Ossining's Taxpayers, who live under the Federally-defined Poverty Guidelines to pay what they cannot afford. And nothing here will increase SAT scores one point. And exactly who is going to be asked to pay for added teachers @ ~ $95,000/teacher for salary and benefits to staff those new classrooms? You, the Ossining Taxpayer. And who will be asked to pay for their legacy retirement costs, including perpetual health care? There is no time like the present to reduce the effect of the proposed $42,000,000 bond that taxpayers will be asked to pay through the year 2036....for "soft" cultural fluff, in part, such as the modernization of the OHS Auditorium ($2,554,000), the OHS physical education rooms ($1,993,348), the AMD locker rooms and a new class room ($1,904,000), the new OHS "Main Offices" and Nursing room ($1,9028,959), a new AMD Principals' office and Reception area ($1,125,996), Generalized "infrastructure" cost ($9,732,688) and OHS "Basement Staircase to Nowhere" ($1,015,939). We could go on. Air condition the AMD cafeteria? For one month per year? If you could barely afford to scrape together your taxes a few days ago at the filing deadline ...just imagine how difficult or impossible it will be to pay your taxes for this proposed bond in the 2020's and 2030's. That is precisedly why Ossining residents cannot sell their homes to escape the oppressive school taxes...everyone who is a potential buyer soon learns to look elsewhere because of the ultra high school taxes here in Ossining. Now is your chance to reduce your taxes significantly in 2016 by voting down the "cultural fluff" and unnecesssary projects that do not contribute to higher SAT scores. Your school taxes will do down significantly on your 2016 tax bill by voting "NO" on March 6th. Visit: www.FreeOssiningTaxpayers.com for more.... Does anyone honestly believe that Ossining Taxpayers, ~40% (or more) whom are suffering below the poverty level...should be asked to sustain such a tax burden now or ever? And in a crushing Recession? $320,000 Superintendant of Schools Phyllis Glassman: Come right out in public and tell us how much today's students are suffering this year because of inferior facilities and why, after $42,000,000 of expenditures the same students will be able to be such better graduates for the expenditures? Achieve correspondingly higher SAT scores? Feel so much better with an air conditioned cafeteria when the school year ends before Summer starts? "Cultural fluff." How is the ventilation in the OHS auditorium since 1926 suddenly so bad as to cause us to have to modernize the air? Do students pile up at the bottom of the OHS basement staircase now? And if it is such a difficult thing to navigate, how did tens of thousands of students over the decades manage to do it without the proposed OHS "Basement Stairway to Nowhere" expenditure of $1,015,939?" "Cultural fluff." The school administration purposely stacked "soft" items into the proposed bond issue hoping these soft items would comfortably ride along under the radar screen with hot button boiler issues and remain hidden from public view. You will be paying for this "cultural fluff" until the summer of 2036. You, your children and our senior citizens. Until 2036 at the same rate as today...IF they do not ask for another budget-busting bomb. I took the AMD tour with the seven parents who attended along with me (once again extremely poor public turn-out)and I made the assessment that education can continue along just fine the way the school is designed. Many of you attended AMD and turned out just fine as well-educated citizens....because it was not the beauty of the school that promoted excellence...it was the teaching staff, the management of the curriculum and the support of your parents at home....and your own hard work. Not a two million dollar locker room rehabilitation. If the administration really felt that an extra classroom was necessary, it could have suggested lease-unit classrooms as used across the United States for "bubble" situations when one fears over-crowding. American taxpayers are still paying for school structures that were proudly erected by anxious parents that are now vacant or seriously underutilized. 'The administration is playing on your Fears'... as Al Gore famously said five years ago. Our Ossining school adminstration even refused to submit a "Made in America" and 100% unionized worker stipulation in any contracts they would associate with the proposed bond. Let your feelings about being a Proud American be your guide when voting on this over-designed proposal. Thirdly, the proposed bond issue construction Budget Summary (available in it's entirely at www.FreeOssiningTaxpayers.​com) calls for the purchase of new oil tanks and new natural gas tanks....Construction Manager Mr. Paul Tozzi interjected that '...if an analysis is ever performed on this question of the cost/benefit of oil v. natural gas...the taxpayers would be credited for the removal of the tanks IF they are not used...'. If the study was ever consumated, that is. To date nobody even thought of doing one. There is no study of costs but there IS a proposed bond to pay for tanks and boilers. Using the Freedom of Information Act recently, I obtained the records of the actual true costs of maintaining all of the school boilers and will post these extremely small annual costs on www.FreeOssiningTaxpayers.com. Would you pay $20,000 per year to maintain the boilers or would you spend $12,000,000 to buy new ones? The administration and school board are playing on your Fears. How is that for making a $12 Million dollar "General Infrastructure" decision? You would get fired from your job at IBM or Google for making such an unsupported expenditure. But then again, you would not be able to afford the proposed Bond issue, would you? View Comment

Correction necessary on my last statement. At my request Vanessa Celio, the Clerk of the Ossining schools reported on the defeat of the bond last April: The official tally was "NO" = 2,055 and the "YES" = 1,535. Additionally, I have been led to understand that the OHS locker room is not being rehabed but that the proposed $1,993,348 would be spent on the "General Physical Education Venue." Visit www.FreeOssiningTaxpayers.com for the exact description of the labor operations and the exact cost of the materials that would be used in the rehab if the proposed bond was approved by voters. View Comment

"There is no time like the present to reduce the effect of the proposed $42,000,000 Bond that taxpayers will be asked to pay until the year 2037....for "soft" cultural fluff, in part, such as the modernization of the OHS Auditorium ($2,554,000), the OHS physical education locker rooms ($1,993,348), the AMD locker room and a new class room ($1,904,000), the new OHS "Main Offices" and Nursing room ($1,9028,959), new AMD Principals' office and Reception area ($1,125,996), Generalized "infrastructure" cost ($9,732,688) and OHS "Basement Staircase to Nowhere" ($1,015,939). We could go on. And the issue for thousands of Ossining taxpayers...estimiated at 40%... who are at or below the Federally-defined "Poverty Level".... is that the next very proposed bond taxation vote on March 6th at Ossining High School from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m....if passed... will appear on your tax bills until the Summer of 2036. If you could barely afford to scrape together your taxes a few days ago at the filing deadline ...just imagine how difficult or impossible it will be to pay your taxes for this proposed bond in the 2020s and 2030s. That is precisedly why Ossining residents cannot sell their homes to escape the oppressive school taxes...everyone who is a potential buyer soon learns to look elsewhere because of the ultra high school taxes in Ossining. Now is your chance to reduce your taxes significantly in 2016 by voting down the "cultural fluff" and unnecesssary projects that do not contribute to higher SAT scores. Your school taxes will do down on your 2016 tax bill by voting "NO" on March 6th. Visit: www.FreeOssiningTaxpayers.com for more.... Does anyone honestly believe that Ossining Taxpayers, ~40% (or more) whom are suffering below the poverty level...should be asked to sustain such a tax burden now or ever? And in a crushing Recession? $320,000 Superintendant of Schools Phyllis Glassman: Come right out in public and tell us how much today's students are suffering this year because of inferior facilities and why, after $42,000,000 of expenditures the same students will be able to be such better graduates for the expenditures? Achieve correspondingly higher SAT scores? Feel so much better with an air conditioned cafeteria when the school year ends before Summer starts? "Cultural fluff." How is the ventilation in the auditorium since 1926 suddenly so bad as to cause us to have to modernize the air? Do students pile up at the bottom of the OHS basement staircase now? And if it is such a difficult thing to navigate, how did tens of thousands of students over the decades manage to do it without the proposed "Basement Stairway to Nowhere" expenditure of $1,015,939?" "Cultural fluff." The school administration purposely stacked "soft" items into the proposed bond issue hoping these soft items would comfortably ride along under the radar screen with hot button boiler issues and remain hidden from public view. You will be paying for this "cultural fluff" until the summer of 2036. Who would have thought the taxpayers of Ossining would support a AMD Principals office, Nurses area and reception area for a cool $1,015,030? And $1,993,348 for OHS physical education locker rooms. Or new million dollar locker rooms at Ann Dorner Middle School for $1,904,000 and at Ossining High School new auditorium for $2,500,000...or a "Basement Staircase to Nowhere" at the High School for a whopping $1,016,000. If they really needed an extra classroom so much the Administration could have suggested lease-unit classrooms as used across the United States for "bubble" situations you fear are on the horizon. American taxpayers are still paying for school structures that were proudly erected by anxious parents that are now vacant or seriously underutilized. The administration is playing on your fears as Al Gore famously said five years ago. Assistant Administrator for Business Ms. Alita Zuber said that she learned the school district saved $183,000 dollars last year in energy costs. She had no cost/benefit analysis on how long the taxpayers would have to pay for the new boilers before the breakeven point was reached. (Maybe 20-25 years?). No supporting facts at all. And no intention to conduct a survey. None. They also refused to submit a "Made in America" and 100% unionized worker stipulation in any contracts they would associate with the proposed bond. Let your feelings about America be your guide. Thirdly, it was said that the proposed bond issue construction Budget Summary (available in it's entirely at www.FreeOssiningTaxpayers.​com) called for the purchase of new oil tanks and new natural gas tanks....and at that point the Construction Manager Mr. Paul Tozzi interjected to say that '...if an analysis is ever performed on this question of the cost/benefit of oil v. natural gas...the taxpayers would be credited for the removal of the tanks IF they are not used...'. If the study was ever consumated, that is. To date nobody even thought of doing one. How is that for making a $10 Million dollar "General Infrastructure" decision? You would get fired from your job at IBM or Google for making such an unsupported expenditure. But then again, you would not be able to afford the proposed Bond issue, would you View Comment

Story Correction: "Voters defeated last year's bond proposal in April by about 500 votes." The vote last April soundly rejecting the proposed bond was ~2500 voters Against vs. ~ 1500 voters For...the net tally indicates that the bond lost by ~1000 votes. Not 500 votes. The author of this story has refused correct this inaccuracy. View Comment

Story Correction: "Voters defeated last year's bond proposal in April by about 500 votes." The vote last April soundly rejecting the proposed bond was ~2500 voters Against vs. ~ 1500 voters For...the net tally indicates that the bond lost by ~1000 votes. Not 500 votes. The author of this story has refused correct this inaccuracy. View Comment

The citizens representing www.FreeOssiningTaxpayers.com strongly recommends that the people of Ossining vote "NO" on the $41,548,900 bond proposal which will tax you for twenty years (until the summer of 2036) and provide for "soft" cultural arts projects whose importance is highly questionable in view of the recession our Ossining area is experiencing....'cultural fluff' such as: •OHS auditorium- seats, sound, air ($2,554,000) •OHS physical education locker rooms ($1,993,348) •New AMD locker rooms and a classroom ($1,904,000) •New OHS "Main Office" ($546,040) •OHS "Basement Stairway to Nowhere" ...to the auditorium basement ($1,015,939) •Air conditioning for the AMD cafeteria ($375,000) •AMD Principals Office, Reception and Nurse's Office ($1,125,996) •AMD Music Rooms ($1,431,022) •OHS Second Floor hallway ($500,025) •AMD Cafeteria ($2,391,999) •AMD Library ($1,836,903) •OHS Main Office, other offices and Nursing/Wellness room ($1,028,959) •AMD Servery ($554,001) (the sinks, stoves and back area of the kids' cafeteria kitchen) .... along with a host of other proposals which will not contribute to a student's ability to get into college and ultimately find a good job. None of these proposed expenditures will raise the SAT scores of any student. We insist that the school board learn to live within its means and fund repairs and infrastructure improvements out of the continuing taxpayer revenue budget, slated to exceed $105,000,000 for the school year 2012-2013. Bear in mind that our $320,000 per year Superintendant of our Ossining School District Phyllis Glassman has stated repeatedly that the above-referenced updates are "....urgent, urgent, urgent, urgent!" She repeated it once again on January 11th. So have the 20 school administrators of the Ossining school district who earn a collective $4,300,000 in salaries and benefits. You be the judge. Please review her entire budget proposal on the www.FreeOssiningTaxpayers.com website that can only be found on that website due to the school board and administration refusing to voluntarily offer this detailed financial data to the voting public. We obtained the data by utilizing the New York State Freedom of Information Act and through other lawful sources. Not a single page of these materials were transparently offered to the public. Without the efforts and the expenditure of time and money to 'mine' these materials by our members, no one would realize the entire scope of this proposed bond initiative. Ask 10 of your friends and neighbors to take a look at this website...we guarantee they will be amazed and dismayed at the wrong-headed direction our school adminstration has chosen to take in this recession against a Ossining resident body 40%+ of whom reside below the poverty level....with the middle class completely willing and eager to see their heavy tax burden actually recede starting in 2016. Not more taxes through to the year 2036. Members of our FreeOssiningTaxpayers.com committee asked whether the proposed bond could or would include the stipulation to require 100% of the working men and women be 100% unionized labor and that 100% of the materials used be "Made in America". The school district refused both requests. "No. It is not possible." This in spite of the fact that the Federal Government, the State of New York and thousands of corporations make that contract stipulation each year in their construction projects. There is no case law in New York State to preclude requiring the use of 100% unionized workers and 100% "Made in America" materials. Guide your votes accordingly as Proud Americans. If you vote "Yes" on this bond initiative of Tuesday March 6th you are consigning yourself and your neighbors, your senior citizens and your young people to the same crushing taxation levels as you are experiencing today.... through the year 2036. These costs are shocking. And remember: It Is Your Money. The school district should learn to live within OUR means... not THEIR ability to raise sky-high expenditure levels secure in the knowledge that an uninformed electorate marching blindly to the school budget drumbeat will perpetually approve their expansive annual budgets and bond proposals year after year "....because it is for the children....". This is the time of the 'new normal' and the expansiveness of the past will no longer be tolerated... .....not last April...and certainly not this March 6th. Vote "NO" on Tuesday March 6th from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. View Comment

The citizens representing www.FreeOssiningTaxpayers.com strongly recommends that the people of Ossining vote "NO" on the $41,548,900 bond proposal which will tax you for twenty years (until the summer of 2036) and provide for "soft" cultural arts projects whose importance is highly questionable in view of the recession our Ossining area is experiencing....'cultural fluff' such as: •OHS auditorium- seats, sound, air ($2,554,000) •OHS physical education locker rooms ($1,993,348) •New AMD locker rooms and a classroom ($1,904,000) •New OHS "Main Office" ($546,040) •OHS "Basement Stairway to Nowhere" ...to the auditorium basement ($1,015,939) •Air conditioning for the AMD cafeteria ($375,000) •AMD Principals Office, Reception and Nurse's Office ($1,125,996) •AMD Music Rooms ($1,431,022) •OHS Second Floor hallway ($500,025) •AMD Cafeteria ($2,391,999) •AMD Library ($1,836,903) •OHS Main Office, other offices and Nursing/Wellness room ($1,028,959) •AMD Servery ($554,001) (the sinks, stoves and back area of the kids' cafeteria kitchen) .... along with a host of other proposals which will not contribute to a student's ability to get into college and ultimately find a good job. None of these proposed expenditures will raise the SAT scores of any student. We insist that the school board learn to live within its means and fund repairs and infrastructure improvements out of the continuing taxpayer revenue budget, slated to exceed $105,000,000 for the school year 2012-2013. Bear in mind that our $320,000 per year Superintendant of our Ossining School District Phyllis Glassman has stated repeatedly that the above-referenced updates are "....urgent, urgent, urgent, urgent!" She repeated it once again on January 11th. So have the 20 school administrators of the Ossining school district who earn a collective $4,300,000 in salaries and benefits. You be the judge. Please review her entire budget proposal on the www.FreeOssiningTaxpayers.com website that can only be found on that website due to the school board and administration refusing to voluntarily offer this detailed financial data to the voting public. We obtained the data by utilizing the New York State Freedom of Information Act and through other lawful sources. Not a single page of these materials were transparently offered to the public. Without the efforts and the expenditure of time and money to 'mine' these materials by our members, no one would realize the entire scope of this proposed bond initiative. Ask 10 of your friends and neighbors to take a look at this website...we guarantee they will be amazed and dismayed at the wrong-headed direction our school adminstration has chosen to take in this recession against a Ossining resident body 40%+ of whom reside below the poverty level....with the middle class completely willing and eager to see their heavy tax burden actually recede starting in 2016. Not more taxes through to the year 2036. Members of our FreeOssiningTaxpayers.com committee asked whether the proposed bond could or would include the stipulation to require 100% of the working men and women be 100% unionized labor and that 100% of the materials used be "Made in America". The school district refused both requests. "No. It is not possible." This in spite of the fact that the Federal Government, the State of New York and thousands of corporations make that contract stipulation each year in their construction projects. There is no case law in New York State to preclude requiring the use of 100% unionized workers and 100% "Made in America" materials. Guide your votes accordingly as Proud Americans. If you vote "Yes" on this bond initiative of Tuesday March 6th you are consigning yourself and your neighbors, your senior citizens and your young people to the same crushing taxation levels as you are experiencing today.... through the year 2036. These costs are shocking. And remember: It Is Your Money. The school district should learn to live within OUR means... not THEIR ability to raise sky-high expenditure levels secure in the knowledge that an uninformed electorate marching blindly to the school budget drumbeat will perpetually approve their expansive annual budgets and bond proposals year after year "....because it is for the children....". This is the time of the 'new normal' and the expansiveness of the past will no longer be tolerated... .....not last April...and certainly not this March 6th. Vote "NO" on Tuesday March 6th from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. View Comment

Correction on story: The April 2011 bond proposal was defeated by a vote of ~2500 votes to ~1500 votes which is to say that the bond was defeated by ~1000 votes, not "500 votes". The citizens representing www.FreeOssiningTaxpayers.com strongly recommends that the people of Ossining vote "NO" on the $41,548,900 bond proposal which will tax you for twenty years (until the summer of 2036) and provide for "soft" cultural arts projects whose importance is highly questionable in view of the recession our Ossining area is experiencing....'cultural fluff' such as: •OHS auditorium- seats, sound, air ($2,554,000) •OHS physical education locker rooms ($1,993,348) •New AMD locker rooms and a classroom ($1,904,000) •New OHS "Main Office" ($546,040) •OHS "Basement Stairway to Nowhere" ...to the auditorium basement ($1,015,939) •Air conditioning for the AMD cafeteria ($375,000) •AMD Principals Office, Reception and Nurse's Office ($1,125,996) •AMD Music Rooms ($1,431,022) •OHS Second Floor hallway ($500,025) •AMD Cafeteria ($2,391,999) •AMD Library ($1,836,903) •OHS Main Office, other offices and Nursing/Wellness room ($1,028,959) •AMD Servery ($554,001) (the sinks, stoves and back area of the kids' cafeteria kitchen) .... along with a host of other proposals which will not contribute to a student's ability to get into college and ultimately find a good job. None of these proposed expenditures will raise the SAT scores of any student. We insist that the school board learn to live within its means and fund repairs and infrastructure improvements out of the continuing taxpayer revenue budget, slated to exceed $105,000,000 for the school year 2012-2013. Bear in mind that our $320,000 per year Superintendant of our Ossining School District Phyllis Glassman has stated repeatedly that the above-referenced updates are "....urgent, urgent, urgent, urgent!" She repeated it once again on January 11th. So have the 20 school administrators of the Ossining school district who earn a collective $4,300,000 in salaries and benefits. You be the judge. Please review her entire budget proposal on the www.FreeOssiningTaxpayers.com website that can only be found on that website due to the school board and administration refusing to voluntarily offer this detailed financial data to the voting public. We obtained the data by utilizing the New York State Freedom of Information Act and through other lawful sources. Not a single page of these materials were transparently offered to the public. Without the efforts and the expenditure of time and money to 'mine' these materials by our members, no one would realize the entire scope of this proposed bond initiative. Ask 10 of your friends and neighbors to take a look at this website...we guarantee they will be amazed and dismayed at the wrong-headed direction our school adminstration has chosen to take in this recession against a Ossining resident body 40%+ of whom reside below the poverty level....with the middle class completely willing and eager to see their heavy tax burden actually recede starting in 2016. Not more taxes through to the year 2036. Members of our FreeOssiningTaxpayers.com committee asked whether the proposed bond could or would include the stipulation to require 100% of the working men and women be 100% unionized labor and that 100% of the materials used be "Made in America". The school district refused both requests. "No. It is not possible." This in spite of the fact that the Federal Government, the State of New York and thousands of corporations make that contract stipulation each year in their construction projects. There is no case law in New York State to preclude requiring the use of 100% unionized workers and 100% "Made in America" materials. Guide your votes accordingly as Proud Americans. If you vote "Yes" on this bond initiative of Tuesday March 6th you are consigning yourself and your neighbors, your senior citizens and your young people to the same crushing taxation levels as you are experiencing today.... through the year 2036. These costs are shocking. And remember: It Is Your Money. The school district should learn to live within OUR means... not THEIR ability to raise sky-high expenditure levels secure in the knowledge that an uninformed electorate marching blindly to the school budget drumbeat will perpetually approve their expansive annual budgets and bond proposals year after year "....because it is for the children....". This is the time of the 'new normal' and the expansiveness of the past will no longer be tolerated... .....not last April...and certainly not this March 6th. Vote "NO" on Tuesday March 6th from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. View Comment

How would you like to pay the same amount of taxes due today until the year 2037 ?? There is no time like the present to reduce the effect of the proposed $42,000,000 Bond that taxpayers will be asked to pay until the year 2037....yes....I said it...until 2037...for "soft" cultural fluff, such as the modernization of the OHS Auditorium ($2,554,000), the OHS physical education locker rooms ($1,993,348), the AMD locker room and a new class room ($1,904,000), the new OHS "Main Offices" and Nursing room ($1,9028,959), new AMD Principals' office and Reception area ($1,125,996), Generalized "infrastructure" cost ($9,732,688) and OHS "Basement Staircase to Nowhere" ($1,015,939). We could go on. Visit www.FreeOssiningTaxpayers.com for a complete accounting for every dollar of the $42,000,000 Proposed Bond. The school administration purposely stacked "soft" items into the proposed bond issue hoping these soft items would comfortably ride along under the radar screen with hot button boiler issues and remain hidden from public view. Who would have thought the taxpayers of Ossining would support a "Basement Staircase to Nowhere" at the High School for a whopping $1,016,000. If they really needed an extra classroom so much the Administration could have suggested lease-unit classrooms as used across the United States for "bubble" situations you fear are on the horizon. American taxpayers are still paying for school structures that were proudly erected by anxious parents that are now vacant or seriously underutilized. The administration is playing on your fears as Al Gore famously said five years ago. Assistant Administrator for Business Ms. Alita Zuber said that she learned the school district saved $183,000 dollars last year in energy costs. She had no cost/benefit analysis on how long the taxpayers would have to pay for the new boilers before the breakeven point was reached. (Maybe 20-25 years?). No supporting facts at all. And no intention to conduct a survey. None. They also refused to submit a "Made in America" and 100% unionized worker stipulation in any contracts they would associate with the proposed bond. Let your feelings about America be your guide. Thirdly, it was said that the proposed bond issue construction Budget Summary (available in it's entirely at www.FreeOssiningTaxpayers.​com) called for the purchase of new oil tanks and new natural gas tanks....and at that point the Construction Manager Mr. Paul Tozzi interjected to say that '...if an analysis is ever performed on this question of the cost/benefit of oil v. natural gas...the taxpayers would be credited for the removal of the tanks IF they are not used...'. If the study was ever consumated, that is. To date nobody even thought of doing one. How is that for making a $10 Million dollar "General Infrastructure" decision? You would get fired from your job at IBM or Google for making such an unsupported expenditure. But then again, you would not be able to afford the proposed Bond issue, would you? Submitted on January 31, 2012 - 7:45am. View Comment

How would you like to pay the same amount of taxes due today until the year 2037 ?? There is no time like the present to reduce the effect of the proposed $42,000,000 Bond that taxpayers will be asked to pay until the year 2037....yes....I said it...until 2037...for "soft" cultural fluff, such as the modernization of the OHS Auditorium ($2,554,000), the OHS physical education locker rooms ($1,993,348), the AMD locker room and a new class room ($1,904,000), the new OHS "Main Offices" and Nursing room ($1,9028,959), new AMD Principals' office and Reception area ($1,125,996), Generalized "infrastructure" cost ($9,732,688) and OHS "Basement Staircase to Nowhere" ($1,015,939). We could go on. Visit www.FreeOssiningTaxpayers.com for a complete accounting for every dollar of the $42,000,000 Proposed Bond. The school administration purposely stacked "soft" items into the proposed bond issue hoping these soft items would comfortably ride along under the radar screen with hot button boiler issues and remain hidden from public view. Who would have thought the taxpayers of Ossining would support a "Basement Staircase to Nowhere" at the High School for a whopping $1,016,000. If they really needed an extra classroom so much the Administration could have suggested lease-unit classrooms as used across the United States for "bubble" situations you fear are on the horizon. American taxpayers are still paying for school structures that were proudly erected by anxious parents that are now vacant or seriously underutilized. The administration is playing on your fears as Al Gore famously said five years ago. Assistant Administrator for Business Ms. Alita Zuber said that she learned the school district saved $183,000 dollars last year in energy costs. She had no cost/benefit analysis on how long the taxpayers would have to pay for the new boilers before the breakeven point was reached. (Maybe 20-25 years?). No supporting facts at all. And no intention to conduct a survey. None. They also refused to submit a "Made in America" and 100% unionized worker stipulation in any contracts they would associate with the proposed bond. Let your feelings about America be your guide. Thirdly, it was said that the proposed bond issue construction Budget Summary (available in it's entirely at www.FreeOssiningTaxpayers.​com) called for the purchase of new oil tanks and new natural gas tanks....and at that point the Construction Manager Mr. Paul Tozzi interjected to say that '...if an analysis is ever performed on this question of the cost/benefit of oil v. natural gas...the taxpayers would be credited for the removal of the tanks IF they are not used...'. If the study was ever consumated, that is. To date nobody even thought of doing one. How is that for making a $10 Million dollar "General Infrastructure" decision? You would get fired from your job at IBM or Google for making such an unsupported expenditure. But then again, you would not be able to afford the proposed Bond issue, would you? View Comment

Mr. Morrison (Adelard): There is so much you do not understand about the assessment process in Westchester County, the challenges of equity and fairness and the ultimate effect of the assessment process on the average Ossining taxpayer....I would not even know where to start to try to explain it to you. View Comment

Remember to visit www.FreeOssiningTaxpayers.com for the actual cost figures of the $42,000,000 "proposed" series of expenditures developed from actual Construction Managers' Budget Summary documents and obtained from a Freedom of Information Act request. They do not want you to see these figures.....and never released them to the voting public. View Comment