09/12/09 Has Greenwich Roundup Has Been A Little To Hard On Worth Constuction????

We Have Done A Lot Of Editorializing

But This Is....

Greenwich Roundup's First Official Editorial

We know there is a lot of information from Town officials about Worth Construction and its owner, Joe Pontoriero.

However here at Greenwich Roundup we are starting to think the Worth Construction has been more up front with the public and the building committee has NOT been with the public.

The Building Committee Would Not Let Concerned Hamilton Avenue Parents In The "New" Hamilton Avenue School.

But Worth Construction said we have nothing to hide and allowed a concerned Hamilton Avenue Parent to legally obtained those pictures.

All along Worth Construction has said they want transparency at Hamilton Avenue School, and their truthfulness has exposed a lot of the wrong-doing on the part of Frank Mazza.

You may say, "how can Greenwich Roundup fall for that, Joe Pontoriero is only protecting himself" and while that is most probably at least partly true, but Greenwich taxpayers have to ask themselves when was the last time they thought Frank Mazza was being honest with them.

As far as we can see Mr. Pontoriero has been upfront. He has never denied a request from a public official, community leader, taxpayer or parent to see plans, correspondence etc.

Can we say that about Frank Mazza?

Mr. met with former First Selectman Jim Lash and explained the facts about the often delayed Hamilton Avenue School Building project which caused Mr. Lash to become vocal about the project (unfortunately a little too little too late).

Mr. Pontoriero has expressed his concerns about the delayed school project to First Selectman Peter Tesei.

Mr. Pontoriero has never denied concerned Hamilton Avenue School parents access to his employees. Parents and taxpayers have been able to ask them anything and got answers immediately.

But can we say this about Mike Bodson and the Greenwich Board of Education?

The true villains in this never-ending debacle are the Architect, Riisa Rottenberg of Swanke Hayden Connell, and Frank Mazza and Joe Ross.

Let's start to look at a few facts:

It was at Joe Ross's recommendation that Frank approved SHC's newest architect, a person who had only been out of college for two years and had never developed a plan on such a scale as the Hamilton Avenue School.

She had no clue what she was doing and no one ever challenged her. From the very beginning Worth has been working with sub par plans that were never cross coordinated and therefore, nothing ever matched up the way it should have.

Frank Mazza continued to allow this to happen with no repercussions on the architect.

In addition to that, from the third building committee meeting, which was held even before the building was demolished, Mr. Mazza had taken on a very adversarial attitude toward Worth Construction in general, and Mr. Pontoriero, in particular.

At that third meeting (more than 4 years ago) Mr. Mazza was already talking about going to court. How could that possibly be necessary when the building wasn't even down yet???

Mazza set the tone from the beginning and it has gotten progressively worse as time has gone on.

As to Ken Borsuk and the Greenwich Post not publishing the story about the possibility of mold, according to persons affiliated with the newspaper, might not of played out as Greenwich Roundup intimated.

Greenwich Roundup is not entirely sure about this, due to the Greenwich Post's history of caving in to establishment pressures. All one has to is take a look at the Chris Fountain incident and the absence of the "For What It's Worth" real estate column. The Greenwich Post's reputation is what it is.

But one must agree that Joe Pontoriero did run and hide like the Board Of Education Chairwoman, he talked with the Greenwich Post Reporter and answered all of the questions, except the big one about mold.

As you know, up until this mold controversy, Joe Pontoriero has refused to comment in any detail to any press.

Now that Worth Construction has given a reporter and his publisher permission to enter the building and confirm a parents disturbing observations and descriptions, Hamilton Avenue Parents might start get to the truth of what went wrong at their child's school.

Greenwich Roundup must admit Ken Borsuk Has been the only newspaper reporter to stand up to the BOE and Building Committee.

We don't see Greenwich Time cub reporter Colin Gustafson taking on Greenwich Education officials. Scared little Colin has his head in the sand, because the Board Of Education did not send him a press release about the possibility of mold in the 3o Million Dollar School Building.

Greenwich Citizen Editor Don Harrison is waiting to assign a reporter to rewrite Colin's story, if it ever comes out.

Perhaps Greenwich Roundup was foolish to trust Sue Wallerstein and Frank Mazza, when they said all the problems were because of Worth Construction.

It is very hard to see who is speaking the truth, because of the lack of transparency from the Board Of Education.

Ken Borsuk's articles at times, have been a very outspoken advocate for the ignored parents of Hamilton Avenue School.

Greenwich Roundup doesn't agreed with Mr. Borsuk's or the Post's decision to hold off on the story.

However, we have heard that Mr. Borsuk's cautious approach has allowed him to discover something that just might send Greenwich taxpayers with pitch forks to the next Board Of Education meeting.

While Mike Bodson shares misinformation to Hamilton Avenue parents his is unaware of the potential explosive information that is about to surface in the Greenwich Media.

"Mike Ken Borsuk from the Greenwich Post is on line one."

"WGCH wants to tape your reaction to the Greenwich Post story on line two"

"Mr. Bodson the Greenwich Time is on line three trying to catch up with the weekly newspaper.

"The Greenwich Citizen has came out of it's self induced coma and is on line four"

"How did the New York Times get your cell phone number?"

"Cablevision's News 12 is knocking at the front door!!!!"

"Ahhhhhhh Bill Clark from Greenwich Gossip is on the Internet with a detailed timeline that exposes all of your and Betty Sternberg's half truths and misrepresentations !!!!!"

We have all been informed by a number of people, that the building committee is the only entity that can get rid of Frank Mazza. Since they voted him in, they must be the ones to vote him out.

We doubt, very much that Building Committee will have the guts to stand up and do what's right.

Only time will tell.

The only other way to get rid of Mazza is if he resigns, which the self centered megalomaniac shows no intention of doing.


From the Editor, Publisher, Reporter, Photographer and Copy Boy of Greenwich Roundup

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