Corruption And Greed Are Killing Mount Vernon School System

Corruption And Greed Are Killing Mount Vernon School System by Helena Mattis

As I wrote yesterday in my earlier article, last night, April 14th, the Mount Vernon Board Campaign Action Committee, Inc held their little charade at the Mount Vernon Heights Congressional Church, where they selected candidates for the group to endorse. There was absolutely no surprise; everything went just as expected with the same three candidates whom the group previously selected winning their nomination.  The group which is a highly political group masking as an impartial facilitator had previously endorsed Omar McDowell, Darcy Miller and Charmaine Fearon. However, some of their associates, namely the United Black Clergy and the Mount Vernon Democratic Party do not like the endorsement of Darcy Miller and Charmaine Fearon. Therefore, the group decided to stage a charade by having community members come out to vote for the candidates the group should endorse. The stage was already set for this master puppet show. Any individual with a half of brain could see what was going to happen.  They told their members, supporters and associates who they wanted them to vote for namely Omar McDowell, Darcy Miller and Charmaine Fearon and those were the three that were selected in the charade.  The members of this group are all political players in Mount Vernon.  Some of them hold offices within the Mount Vernon Democratic Party, The United Black Clergy and some are former School Board Trustees or candidates.  These are the people who have been involved in the process forever, yet Mount Vernon keeps sinking deeper and deeper into the toilet. The United Black Clergy and the Mount Vernon Democratic Party are still unhappy with Darcy Miller and Charmaine Fearon.  Therefore, members of the Mount Vernon Democratic Party and the United Black Clergy are running their own slate of candidates:  Omar McDowell, Kathy Brewington and Marc Stuckey. Marc Stuckey and Kathy Brewington are former School Board Trustees.  They have served, but they never made any difference in turning the failing school system around or curtailing the wasteful spending that is rendering Mount Vernon homeowners homeless. But, they are great candidates for Mount Vernon Democratic Party and The United Black Clergy, the two political forces in Mount Vernon that are solely responsible for the demise of the socio-economic and cultural structures in Mount Vernon. These two bosom buddies are not interested in the progress and restoration of Mount Vernon.  They are only interesting in sustaining power and control so that they can continue to ravage Mount Vernon with their greed.  The Democratic Party and the United Black Clergy joined forces in making unscrupulous deals with politicians in other areas throughout Westchester to send all of the families in crisis to Mount Vernon.  They continue to build senior citizens buildings and low income housing to import all of the “undesirables” from other communities into Mount Vernon in return for personal payoffs. These families require more and more social services assistance and this creates an extreme burden for the already overtaxed Mount Vernon homeowners.  It also places a strain on the already limited resources within the school system. Many of the supporters of the Democratic Party and the United Black Clergy are the individuals that are most adversely affected. Their children are in the Mount Vernon Public Schools that are performing poorly due to the overwhelming population of children with “special needs.”

The Mount Vernon Democratic Party and the United Black Clergy fool these poor people into thinking that they are helping them by inviting them to come to reside in Mount Vernon.  But, they are actually harming them and the other children from poor families that are already within the school system. The end result is that these children are dropping out of school is mass numbers and they ultimately ending up in the prison system. The United Black Clergy and the Democratic Party fought with the Italian Civic Association (ICA) in the mid 1990s for control of the Mount Vernon School System and they gain control because the majority of the people in Mount Vernon are of African descent.  These two bosom buddies convinced the majority black population that the ICA was racist and was not educating our children.  However, since the United Black Clergy and the Democratic Party got hold of the School System performance levels have significantly dropped while at the same time the cost of educating students have skyrocketed.  In Mount Vernon, the cost of educating a child is $30,000.  In New Rochelle and Yonkers, the cost is about $22,000 and the cost of educating a child at Good Counsel Academy in White Plains is $8,000. Student performance at Good Counsel Academy, New Rochelle and Yonkers are superior to the performance of the students in Mount Vernon.

Straight Talk in Mount Vernon has learned that only 17 percent third graders within the Mount Vernon system read at the third grade level.  It is obvious that lack of money is not the problem as we can see that Yonkers, New Rochelle and Good Counsel Academy all do a better job at educating their students with less.  The School Board keeps coming to the overtaxed Mount Vernon homeowners for more money.  “More money” has become their motto. Yet, taxpayers are at a lost as to where the money that is invested within the school system disappears to. A few years ago, it was discovered that about 20 percent (in excess of 2000 students) of the students in Mount Vernon school district did not live in Mount Vernon.  People who lived in the Bronx were smuggling their children into the Mount Vernon Schools.  These children were removed from the Mount Vernon School system, but amazingly, the budget cost never experienced the same 20 percent reduction.  The budget cost actually increased.  Thus, taxpayers in Mount Vernon are of the opinion that the Mount Vernon School District is a bottomless bucket where money goes in and out without any sort of reckoning. There is no accountability and no proper oversight.  The Mount Vernon School System is in desperate need of an audit. However, the Mount Vernon Democratic Party and the United Black Clergy which currently control the school system do not want to have an audit. Therefore, they will never support candidates like me and Samuel Rivers who have made it clear that we will work on having the school system audited. It is important for all people who have a vested interest in Mount Vernon to understand that Mount Vernon is at a very critical crossroad and you are the ones to make a difference.  My candidacy is not about race. It is not about politics. It solely about educating all the children of Mount Vernon, the 17 percent Hispanic, the 75 percent black and all others. My candidacy is also about ensuring that that the taxpayers of Mount Vernon are not taxed out of their homes due to wasteful spending and corruption within the school system.  I am a straight talker with a disability for telling the truth. Those people who have something to hide are not going to like me, but I want to believe that there are more good people who love truth than bad people who hate truth living in Mount Vernon.  Thus, I am in this race to become elected and go to the school board and make a real difference in returning accountability, respect, transparency and excellence in academics to the city that was once known as “money earning Mount Vernon.”