On April 30, the State Education Department denied a stay order in one of two cases brought to stop work on the district’s capital bond construction projects, preliminarily allowing for work on the projects to proceed. However, the request for a similar stay of the work in the second case against the district has not yet been decided.
As reported in the Port Washington News on April 15, shortly after the bond vote to improve the schools passed on March 10, two Port Washington residents filed petitions seeking to void the vote and stop the projects. The appeals coordinator for the State Education Department issued the April 30 order denying the request to stop the work in the petition filed by Diane Nahas. The remainder of the Nahas petition will now be resolved by the education department.
The second petition, filed by Jim Ansel, requested that the school district cease to proceed with the services of the present architect and the contracting out of the work provided for in the bond until the school district properly issues a new valid Request for Proposal, according to Ansel. This would then allow the awarding of architectural services to be made from the competing proposals including other architects rather than simply awarding a service contract of nearly $5 million dollars to BBS without competition, he said. Ansel’s petition is still under review by the education department.
It is unclear when the two petitions will be finally decided. However, according to Mary Callahan, assistant superintendent for business, “design meetings are moving forward.” No projects have yet been submitted to the state for approval. “Architectural drawings will be developed following the design meetings and will take several months to prepare before being submitted to the state education department,” Callahan said. As for the cost to the district of defending against the two bond petitions, Callahan said, “litigation services are billed by the hour and are not part of the district’s [legal] retainer.”
