Buffalo developer and activist Carl Paladino has announced a run for the Buffalo School Board, on the heels of being tossed out of a board meeting Wednesday night. Paladino, the former Republican gubernatorial candidate, told WBBZ-TV's "Political Buzz" program Wednesday he will run for the Park District seat being vacated by the retiring Louis Petrucci. The election is May 7.
Paladino, speaking on a taping of WBBZ's Political Buzz show, said the influence of the board has a wide-ranging impact on the community.
"This board of education and its effectiveness bear upon generations of people that have moved out of the city because they could not afford to send their kids to private school and were not about to send them to a totally dysfunctional school system," Paladino said.
Paladino said the large numbers of dropouts in the system often leads kids to lives of crime on city streets. The Political Buzz program will air Thursday at 7:30 p.m. on WBBZ-TV.
City school board members were shocked Wednesday night to hear of serious problems in the newly and expensively renovated former Seneca High School on East Delavan. It's now the Math Science Technology Preparatory School.
A teacher reported to the board there are problems. The school district admits troubles with the sewer system and possibly with the ventilation system. Administrators have discussed the temporarily moving students to another building.
Teacher Christen LaBruna says there are problems which are making people sick.
"We really, honestly feel that it's related to some kind of air quality issue in our building. We often smell sewer gas and many of the students in our building also had symptoms, headaches...nausea...chest pains and they have been sent to the nurse's office," said LaBruna.
District Chief Operating Officer Joseph Giusiana says there are problems with the sewer system, but the round-the-clock efforts to find out about the air haven't turned up anything yet.
Seconds later, when Paladino rose to use his scheduled three minutes, he turned to Giusiana and said he deserved to be fired for not immediately finding the problem source.
Board President Mary Ruth Kapsiak says that violates board policy and called security in to escort the former gubernatorial candidate out of the room.
Paladino tells WBFO News the school board members didn't want to hear him.
"That was a little bit of truth to power and obviously they didn't like it. These people have their own way of doing things and they've been getting away with it for so long that they think that they are going to restrict me into being politically correct when I know that such restrictions hide truth," said Paladino.
Kapsiak says the board can limit what is said by those appearing for the public comment period.
