This is a corrected version of this blog: 2-7-14 at 8:26 a.m.
Here we go again.
Even when you try to maintain a sense of hope for the city school district, it’s easily dashed. The latest example comes from a story reported yesterday by the Democrat and Chronicle’s David Andreatta.
This is what we know so far: Andreatta received an envelope containing documents that show Rochester school board President Van White’s financial and legal problems. An anonymous note accompanied the documents that read: “He can’t manage himself. How can he manage a school district (?)”
The information was pulled from the Monroe County Clerk’s website, and according to the D&C, the log-in name used to pull the records was Patrick Malgieri, an attorney and spouse of Patricia Malgieri, Superintendent Bolgen Vargas’s chief of staff.
In an interview earlier today, Patricia Malgieri said she didn’t send the documents to Andreatta. She said she asked her husband if he had anything to do with sending the package, and he said no. And Vargas, who was present, called the whole thing a “distraction.”
But it’s much worse than that, and it raises a number of questions. For starters, if neither Patrick nor Patricia Malgieri did this, who did?
Whoever sent the information to the D&C wanted to inflict personal, political, and professional damage to White, an elected official. But they left a trail that leads back to the district and the Malgieris. Doesn’t the couple want to know who that person is?
White’s management of his personal finances is not out of bounds, and some people will draw connections between his personal and professional lives. But it’s a bit naive to think that other prominent business and community leaders in Rochester are completely free of financial and-or legal problems.
The documents sent to the D&C might be relevant if White was suspected of wrongdoing. But that’s not the case.
The damage intended to White’s credibility has boomeranged, and it’s added more controversy to a district that seems to be incapable of avoiding it.
City students, parents, and teachers deserve so much better.
This article appears in Feb 5-11, 2014.
As a reporter you need to ask a few questions: How do they know the login of the requestor for these docs? It doesn’t seem that this should be easily acquired by the media. Who in the county has access to login records (IT administrators can typically login under other user’s credentials)?
I don’t usually comment, but the lack of probing questions in this article is alarming. I have to imagine that if Patty Malgierie was on the Mayor’s administration, reporters would be asking a whole lot more questions like:
-What does the County Clerk say about Mr. Malgieri’s claim that his user account was hacked? It was her county system after all. He’s a pillar of the community saying that there was a security breach of gov’t-run website that a lot of people use to do legitimate work. Are they at risk too? Doesn’t Donolfo have a duty to investigate Malgierie’s claim?
-Will Vargas discipline Malgierie if it turns out the hacking was b.s.? If she worked for the mayor, everyone would be up in arms if she wasn’t reprimanded or fired. Attempting to damage a duly elected official (and essentially your boss) is a big deal. Or at least it should be. And doing political work in a public sector job is illegal.
-Is Malgierie’s impunity (apparent anyway) a function of the sweet contract her husband negotiated for her and that this paper reported about last year? Does she think she is untouchable? Because this isn’t how public servants who are accountable behave. And isn’t it a tad ironic that she was granted an iron clad contract, but is going after tenure protections for educators? Seems like a big helping hypocrisy to me.
-What are the emails that Van White has been sending to the district that he mentions int he DC article? I’d like to see if there is any veracity to his claim that he’s pushing for accountability. Like what, where? He’s been around for a long time, what’s new? Details please.
George O’Connor
Tim, I think I found an error in this report. The note was NOT handwritten. The address on the envelope WAS. Readers can go to http://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/local/2014/02/05/anonymous-envelope-suggests-discord-at-rcsd/5229595/ for this story and if you click “the envelope” you can view images of the actual letter and contents. When you do this you will see that the note was not handwritten.
Also, you will see from the article and images that the login of “patmalgieri ” does show up. Patrick admitted it was his. Could have been Patricia. Same first 3 letters. The question is? Who knew the password? I’ll let the readers take it from here.
Hey Michael,
You’re right; I meant to correct that in my first draft and it slipped past me. Thanks so much for catching it.
Tim
I am a bit surprised that nobody, particularly the reporter, has commented about the last person that claimed to have had his account hacked. It was a rather infamous congressman named Anthony Weiner. He was not interested in pursuing the matter with the police because he was going to investigate personally. Don’t get me wrong; there are hackers out there more than willing to do bad things, but the curious thing is the reaction of the hackee. I would be more than a little miffed if someone hacked my account and misused it.
I have to admit that I am surprised by the lack of comments to this story. If the mayor had done something similar, the comments would have been rabid and relentless. Racism when commenting on mayor? Come on folks. The lack of comments here is beginning to prove it.
This is astonishing, I’m also surprised by the lack of comments. Hard to believe Mr. Maglieri’s claim that he didn’t do this. Hard to believe his wife not knowing about it. And is it too much of a reach to think Vargas might’ve known too? Dirty politics. This makes me question Vargas/Maglieri more than it does Van White. Shameful!
Despite Van White’s financial issues (he joins Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren in the tax warrant department), the guy deserves credit for being the only sitting board member to oppose Bolgen Vargas’ installation as superintendent. Vargas was not even remotely qualified for the job based on his experience as a guidance counselor, and the continued failure of the RCSD is at least partly because of his failed “leadership.”
Perhaps the biggest surprise of this amusing incident is how it lays bare the inner workings of the Democrat party in Monroe County. Patrick M. Malgieri is not only a partner at Harris Beach, but was one of three lawyers that had direct control over the legal opinion rendered by this law firm in the employment of T. Andrew Brown as Corporation Council for the city of Rochester. The lawyer that actually wrote the 12 page legal opinion that supposedly cleared Brown from “conflict of interest” accusations given his law firm’s penchant for suing the city of Rochester was H. Todd Bullard, onetime Monroe County Legislature Assistant Minority Leader. Mind you, this was an opinion which was floated as independent “third party” thinking. Independent of what?
The fact that two bigwigs in the Democrat party wrote and signed off on the legal opinion to clear Mr. Brown’s promotion to Corporation Council looks ethically questionable to say the least and it is likely that if the Monroe County Republican party tried this nonsense there would be hell to pay. But at least that’s consistent with the cronyfest that the Lovely Warren’s administration has become in just one month at the helm as mayor.
It seems that some comments have been deleted. ????
“White’s management of his personal finances is not out of bounds, and some people will draw connections between his personal and professional lives. But it’s a bit naive to think that other prominent business and community leaders in Rochester are completely free of financial and-or legal problems”
I’m gathering that you don’t have a problem with this? Anyone with personal money problems shouldn’t be involved with government in any form. Did you know that most businesses won’t hire someone with a financial issue. Why are we hiring these people?