The RCS Sports Association and the Maverick RCS Coaches Appear to Be Mooning the RCS Central School District Superintendent, Business Manager, and the Board of Education and Ignoring Policies and Procedures, Not to Mention the Law.
Is the RCS Sports Association Raffle Illegal?
Several weeks ago the RCS Sports Association was told in no uncertain terms by the Board of Education and residents of the RCS school district that they’d better cough up the registrations, tax information, insurance policies, etc. and comply with district polices and proceedures to operate on school property and to conduct any business on public property. The RCS Sports Association is not an official school organization and appears to be inappropriately abusing the concept of implied endorsement by using the “RCS” in its name. So far, nothing’s happened; the RCS Sports Association hasn’t produced a single sheet of meaningful paper…if they have, the RCS Central School District Superintendent and Business Manager have kept the community and the Board of Education in complete darkness. Our bet is that they’re telling the Superintendent to kiss their ass (and she’s complying), and they’re doing what they please.
No Way José!
We now have information that the RCS athletics coaches are allegedly passing out raffle tickets to students with instructions to sell them on behalf of the RCS Sports Association for a raffle allegedly to take place in October. The purpose and nature of the raffle has not been disclosed.
We just received a copy of a message sent to the RCS CSD Superintendent of Schools, Elizabeth R. Smith, and to the RCS CSD business manager, Diane Malecki, that contains the following text (the sender has requested anonymity):
Dear Ms Smith, Ms Malecki:
Can you please a.s.a.p.:
- Inform me of the current policy regarding students selling raffle tickets on behalf of organizations not affiliated with the RCS CSD
- Inform me whether or not the RCS Sports Association has filed with the District their articles of association, their business registrations, their list of officers, their NYS and federal tax registration status and their tax identification number, proof of insurance. Please itemize each of these with a yes or a no response.
- Inform me of the role of the RCS athletics coaches and their authorization to have RCS CSD students selling raffle tickets on behalf of the RCS Sports Association
- Inform me of the type and substance of disclosure of the event for which the raffle tickets are being sold
- The date such request was made to the RCS CSD to permit the sale of said raffle tickets
- The date and vote by the RCS CSD Board of Education deliberating, discussing, voting and approving/disapproving such request by the RCS Sports Association
Unless I hear from you by 12:00 p.m. on September 6, 2012 with the answers to the above questions I shall, without prejudice, notify the appropriate tax and finance authorities of the RCS Sports Association’s illicit activities, the NYSED office of counsel and the relevant administrative authorities at the SED, and the FBI and State Law Enforcement entities charged with the enforcement of the tax codes and the investigation of public corruption.
Furthermore, unless I have answers to the above questions I intend, without prejudice, to file formal notices of claim and demands for investigation of the operation of the RCS Sports Association, its officers, members, and associates, naming also the Superintendent and the Business Manager of the RCS CSD as accessories in any illegal transactions by the RCS Sports Association.
Furthermore, unless I have answers to the above questions by the time indicated, I intend to file without prejudice, notices of claim and demands for investigation and inquiry with the relevant state and federal child welfare authorities, naming the RCS Sports Association, its officers, members, and associates, naming also the Superintendent and the Business Manager of the RCS CSD as accessories in any illegal transactions by the RCS Sports Association.
Furthermore, unless I receive your response to the above questions, said responses being immediately at hand in the normal and regular conduct of RCS CSD business, I shall file a grievance and demand for investigation with the RCS CSD board of education to fully investigate the complicity and involvement of the RCS CSD with the allegedly and facially illicit activities of the RCS Sports Association improperly operated in virtue of the implied endorsement of the RCS CSD Superintendent and Business Manager, and with their implicit cooperation and acquiescence, and furthermore, to demand that any processes, proceedings or actions in progress or to be inaugurated with regard to the Superinendent’s activities, including but not by limitation retirement, resignation, pension, retirement benefits, etc., be stayed until the completion of all inquiries, investigations, or prosecutions associated with the activities of the so-called RCS Sports Association, its officers, members, and associates, naming also the Superintendent and the Business Manager of the RCS CSD as accessories in any illegal transactions by the RCS Sports Association.
I urge you, Mme Superintendent and Business Manager, to respond to the above questions 1-6 by or before the time indicated above.
Assuring you of my sincere intentions,
[Name Redacted]
Apparently, Superintendent E.R. Smith, saw the wisdom and the prudence in responding immediately, albeit defensively, to the resident’s demand submitted earlier today. Here’s her response:
[Name Redacted], I do not appreciate your threat made against me. I will however, answer your questions with a statement. John Vadney brought to my attention within the last hour, the fact that a student sold him a raffle ticket sponsored by the RCS Sports Association. An organization not affiliated with the RCS Central School District cannot ask students to sell tickets or be involved in any form of fund raising. The Sports Association has been notified this evening of this. No permission was granted by RCS School District for the selling of a Daytona 500 Ticket.
Elisabeth R. Smith
Superintendent Ravena-Coeymans-Selkirk Central School District
15 Mountain Road
Ravena, NY 12143
518 756-5200, x 6003
Just in, the response to Smith’s response…OUCH!
Did that hurt, Betsy?
Dear Ms Smith:
Thank you very much for your prompt response, Ms Smith.
Paranoia and defensiveness is a pitiful state indeed; there was no explicit or implict threat “against” you in the demand. The steps enumerated in the demand were reasonable and prosecutable under the circumstances.
I am still at a loss that you, the principal of the high school and his many minions had to be notified by the president of the BoE of the illicit misconduct of your high school coaches right under your noses!
- Where was principal Bailey when his coaches and staff were pandering to the RCS Sports Association?
- Will the District be notifying those who paid for the illegal tickets that their money will be refunded?
- What steps does the District intend to take against the offending coaches?
- What steps does the District intend to take against the high school prinicpal?
- What steps does the District intend to take against the RCS Sports Association?
- Will the RCS Sports Association be banned from any activity on school property for a reasonable period of time by way of disciplinary action?
- What, exactly, does the District intend to do to discourage such misconduct in future and to heal the damage done by those miscreants at the RCS Sports Association?
Please be assured that I intend to request that this correspondence be appropriately published for the community to read and evaluate.
It is my considered personal and professional opinion, Ms Smith, that you were derelict in your responsibilities, as was principal Bailey, and that you both would benefit form censure or discipline. This community should be grievously offended by your negligence, your lack of candor, and your indifference to misconduct in this school district.
My demand and the recourse set forth in that demand were explicitly “without prejudice,” and I reserve the option to file formal complaints and charges as the result of this continuing dereliction! That, Madam, is not a threat but an assurance.
Sincerely,
[Name Redacted]
Superintendent Smith’s Favorite Fix-It
Or Just Ignore It
Why is it that Mr John Vadney, the president of the RCS board of education, diligent and commited as he is, had to be the one to inform you, Ms Smith, of the RCS coaches illegal activity on behalf of the RCS Sports Association. Where was Mr Bailey when all of this was going on right under his nose?!?! And you mention solely “that a student sold him [Mr Vadney] a raffle ticket sponsored by the RCS Sports Association” and that Mr Vadney informed you of that fact. Where, Ms Smith, did the student get the ticket(s)? Who provided the student with the ticket(s)? That, Ms Smith, is the operative question here (you really need to ask that question, you know); not that the student was selling tickets nor that Mr Vadney bought a ticket and then informed you of the fact (which you or your principal should already have known) that the high school athletics coaches were distributing the tickets to students with instructions to flog them to residents! Facts, Ms Smith, facts! How is it that the RCS Sports Association can get away with such misconduct in broad daylight…what would a drug dealer get away with? Oh, the questions do arise, Ms Smith!
Can we reasonably expect that the offending coaches will face some disciplinary action for their misconduct? One would reasonably hope so!
Thank you Ms Smith, on behalf of all of us, for your prompt response, even though it is only partial. I suppose we should be grateful that you responded at all to the resident. But it seems to me that you, Ms Smith, are a bit paranoid, or at least suspiciously defensive, since there is no threat against you to be read in the alternatives to any non-response, simply that reasonable steps would be taken to ensure the best interests of the tax-paying public, something you don’t seem to have been able to ensure in the year or so you’ve been collecting your salary as superintendent.
(Has anyone bothered to ask what the RCS school district is charging Cathy Deluca and her gang for the use of the school property for the so-called RCS Bottle Blitz? That’s not an official program of the RCS school district, either. The RCS Bottle Blitz is an entirely privately organized activity that has nothing to do with the RCS Central School District. How about that, Ms Smith?)
Does this mean that the RCS CSD is going to face another investigation, audit, claim, lawsuit? Why not just enforce the policies and procedures and keep the Board of Education in the loop?!? Why do everything from behind the smoke screens? What in hell is the RCS CSD Superintendent of Schools, Elizabeth R. Smith, and the RCS CSD Business Manager, Diane Malecki, doing all day long? Planning the anticipated retirement party?
If readers have any further information on this incident, please leave a comment with further details.
Is it A Scam ?
Is it Legal?
The Editor
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Albany NY a.k.a. Smalbany 
Simon
September 7, 2012 at 6:33 am
I agree with Cookie… these raffles are usually violations of the anti-lottery laws. The organizations that the letter writer is talking about complaining to aren’t relevant though; if a complaint is made it should be to the Albany County DA (or even the Greene County DA if tickets were sold in Greene County), or the NYS Attorney General.
And the original note did threaten Ms. Smith with a notice of claim naming her.
The question though about if the Bottle Blitz was charged for the space is a valid question, seeing how a more level hand is being used to assess fees for room/field usage.
I don’t expect Betsy (or any Super) to know EVERYTHING that’s going on in the schools. However, there was a chain of command that was stifled here; Mr. Racey likely didn’t inform the principal of his activities (he probably felt it didn’t relate to his school position when it obviously did) and thus the topic didn’t make it up to the district office. I think the main beef here shouldn’t necessarily be with Betsy but with some out of control people in the athletic department. Remember that issue where confidential information got out of that department last year. Same people.
S
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Fides qua Creditur
September 7, 2012 at 8:08 am
Your basic points are reasonable and probably correct. But the recourse to the Albany County DA is intended as humor, right? Is that the same primitive who is depicted in the Ravena News Herald doing the “silly dance?” Looked like something taken directly out of the orignal 1933 King Kong movie. Idiot! He’s a useless cog in the local political machine and once the race ticket is taken away, he’s just another tainted wannabe. Moreover, the district is really too small for any government agency to take seriously until they overstep big time and someone in one of the local government offices wants to pep up his or her career and résumé…for now, it’s up to the locals to clean up their decades of soiled underwear and get the putrid skeletons out of the closets…and it won’t be by following Dirty-Hands Jerry’s mantra of “We don’t care…” Some of us do care, genuinely!
You people throw the word “threat” around too easily and seem to forget that a threat is a subjective perception that your sense of comfort is at risk. If that’s what you and our brilliant superintendent call a threat, I would have to agree that Yes! here sense of complacency and security was threatened by legal and administrative recourse for her failings as a superintendent. I prefer the term “noticed,” “advised” to your and Smith’s subjective and defensive use of the word “threat.” Get it?
Yes, the district must be egalitarian in the application of accepted good practices and apply policy and procedure evenhandedly. If outside organizations or programs must pay to use district facilities then all outside organizations must pay. If a basketball group has to pay $20/hr for example then the Bottle Blitz must pay, as well. To ignore overheads and just claim the gross as your accomplishment misleadingly inflates the outcome and is deceptive. The bottle blitz may raise $500 dollars but when it costs the school $300 to host the activity, to pay the utilities, to ensure clean-up, to provide building security, to insure the goings on, the bottom line is it cost the district, the community $300 to make $200. Figured that way, how many residents would be so outspoken to praise Deluca and Misuraca for their loss activities?
Look, Elizabeth “Betsy” Smith wears the crown and carries the sword. She’s paid handsomely to do that. To make excuses for being ignorant of what’s going on in the schools is itself ignorant. Any private sector or public sector executive must bear the responsibility for what his or her underlings are doing. Whether the President of the country or the Superintendent of the schools. If those idiot coaches were unaware of the illegality or the impropriety of what they were doing, they really need some training. But that, too, is making unreasonable excuses for them. They are very well aware of the sensitivity of the issues surrounding the RCS Sports Association and I find it almost impossible to believe that they were unaware that they were complicit in a gross breach of policies and procedures but I do believe they thought that they would get away with it, as did the RCS Sports Association. Now what does that teach the students? Or are we going to gloss over the fact that what the coaches do and what the RCS Sports Association does in broad daylight, involving students, doesn’t affect those students? There’s an abuse issue here and I hope everyone realizes it. Which brings me to the cost per student controversy…is that the education we’re providing that is costing the taxpayer more than $21,000 per student?
And yes, James Latter never resigned after being pommeled with his egregious abuse of student and parent confidentiality last year…it wasn’t the non-teacher board members who demanded he resign, it was the parents and residents! He thumbed his nose to them…kiss this, electorate!
The Editor
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cookie
September 6, 2012 at 2:42 pm
These sort of raffle’s are common, yet commonly illegal. Check with the NYS Attorney General’s Charities Bureau for the details. I have bought and sold raffle tickets for various organizations. I have never used kids for such a purpose. That “everybody” does it is one thing, to involve minors in games of chance is more troublesome, in my eyes.
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Fides qua Creditur
September 6, 2012 at 2:52 pm
The so-called RCS Sports Association think they can have it their way all the time. They’re not an agency of the district and have to comply with RCS CSD policy and procedure just like everyone else. The principal, the superintendent and the coaches are all delinquent and should be disciplined, censured, for having been asleep on watch. What else do they not notice? Be afraid, parents, be very afraid!
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