In beleaguered school district, kids, community are finally coming first
By Mike McGann, Editor, The Times
If you watched the TV news yesterday, or read some of the local media, yesterday was a terrible day for the Coatesville area community.
But I’m here to say this: I don’t agree.
When we watched Richard Como — the former superintendent of schools, disgraced in just about every way possible — turn himself in, it was a terrible and much-deserved day for him and former Coatesville Area High School Athletic Director James Donato if they are guilty of even a tiny fraction of what has been alleged.
Not. For. Coatesville.
Why? Because yesterday was a symbol of a community taking itself back from thugs like Como, from former school board members who lied relentlessly and treated the community with contempt and from paternalistic politicians who for more than a generation have claimed to be “saving” Coatesville only to either line their pockets or fuel their political ambitions, while aiding and abetting those who profit from the city’s and school district’s downfall.
This was a day, sad as it might have seemed to those watching TV elsewhere, that came from the people of the Coatesville community saying “no more” and taking a stand. All of the investigations came from people reaching out to authorities and the media and tipping us off to what appears to be a criminal enterprise being run out of the school district office. These folks said “enough” and were willing to fight for their community.
When Coatesville comes back — not if — I think a lot of people will look back to the events of 2013 and 2014 and say “this was where it became our city, our school district — our community — again.”
That’s not to say tough days aren’t ahead, they are, and they will be days that will need everyone to pull together.
If you read the 108-page grand jury report, you see how Como and his cronies corrupted the the school district, while school board members like Tonya Thames Taylor not only looked the other way, but got jobs for her family, and then proceeded to cover up Como’s misdeeds, lie to the community (and evidently, the grand jury) and even attack and slander those who questioned her. And that truth is out and that’s a good thing.
But while Como was going all Don Corleone on the district — the man even had the theme from The Godfather as his ring tone on his district phone — nobody noticed how deep a financial mess the district was getting into. Layoffs, program cuts, and the foolish decision to not pay down principle on millions of dollars of bonds have left a crippled financial state, putting the future of students and staff at risk. This is on top of external issues, such as pension costs skyrocketing, blatantly unfair and corrupt rules for charter schools and costly state mandates for special education that would be hurting Coatesville even if it had been well run over the last decade.
Thankfully, the district’s new Superintendent, Dr. Cathy Taschner, gets it and is making moves to stem the bleeding — and she acknowledges that some of the moves will hurt in the short term. But everything she said yesterday had one focus: the kids in 11 schools under her watch. It’s been a long time since kids came first in the Coatesville Area School District, but I think today that is entirely true.
From the worst of all of this, the best now seems possible, even if the next couple of years will be tough at times. If the community pulls together, the administration and board of education is open and honest, Coatesville can not only get through this rough patch, but thrive.
So, no, Monday wasn’t a bad day for Coatesville.
It was the start of a new beginning, new and better Coatesville.
* * *
In reading the grand jury report, I’m a little shocked at who didn’t face criminal charges.
Yes, it seems likely that former school district solicitor James Ellison will face some sort of charges for allegedly over billing the district — he and his firms raked in some $6.9 million in fees in 11 years. Chester County District Attorney Tom Hogan seems hell-bent to make a case here — and I suspect once he gets full access to the records he’s sought for a year, he’ll find enough to bring charges.
Honestly, though, Ellison’s conduct while more over the top, is fairly standard operating procedure for some municipal solicitors and engineers in the county who “churn” — bring up bogus issues in negotiations or land use projects — to boost their firm’s billing.
I’ve personally experienced such things and had dozens of other reports of such behavior, where “professionals” see their official appointments as a license to loot, both the taxpayer and applicants. I’d love to see an investigation into that, but as most of the firms involved are deeply politically connected and it is tough case to make, I’m not going to hold my breath.
Of course, what Ellison appears to have done is well beyond the scope of the usual “churn” based on the information provided by Hogan Monday, a case where blatant greed appears to have outstripped the usual graft.
I do wonder whether there’s more to come, specifically, federal or state RICO charges against Como, Donato and some of the members of the Board of Education, although it is possible my reading of the state’s Racketeer-Influenced and Corrupt Organizations law is fuzzy. One hopes that the persistent rumors of a couple of federal grand juries looking into criminal matters in Chester County are true and that one of them is focusing on this matter.
But the bigger question for me — and it seems a lot of others — is why obstruction of justice, perjury and conspiracy charges were not filed against Taylor and maybe some of the other board members. The grand jury report appears to lay out in great detail clear attempts to cover up, interfere and lie about the facts of the case, in a number of cases under oath. In short, the report is incredibly critical of Taylor and others, yet the grand jury did not call for charges.
As heinous as Como and Donato’s behavior was, to have an elected official such as Taylor, the then-president of the Coatesville NAACP, appear to actively work to cover up the racist texts (not to mention the texts that showed the two appeared to be stealing from the district) is a bigger breech of the public trust. And it appears that more than half of the board may have violated the state ethics act, so, again, the lack of charges at this point is a little surprising.
As there continues to be dialogue about grand juries and who they decide to charge and not charge, this is probably another matter to add to the conversation.
