Last Friday Greenwich Roundup Went To The Greenwich BOE Offices To Request A Copy Of An January 4th Email That Superintendent of Schools Sidney Freund's Administration Had Already Given To A Greenwich Time Reporter.
The Email Was About Greenwich Public Schools Facility Director Anthony Byrne, Who Is On Administrative Leave.
Greenwich Roundup Got a Great Deal Of Run Around And Eventually Ended Up Talkinfg To Interim Director Human Resources Director Gina Williams.
Ms. Williams Expressed To Greenwich Roundup That She Was A Friend Of Mr. Byrne And Was Not Going To Give A copy Of The Byrne Memo That Had Already Been Given To The Greenwich Time.
After Debating CT Freedom Of Information Laws With Ms. Williams For Quite A While, She Then Instructed Greenwich Roundup To Leave The Board Of Education Building And Return With A Freedom Of Information Request.
Greenwich Roundup Then Informed Her That He Would Write Her A FOI Letter Right In The Board Of Education Building Lobby And Give It To Her.
Ms. Williams Accepted The FOI Request About Anthony Byrne And Said That It Had To Reviewed By Superintendent of Schools Sidney Freund, And He Would Determine If The Anthony Byrne MemoWill Be Released For A Second Time.
On Monday Greenwich Roundup Left Messages For Williams And Freund, But Niether One Called Or Emailed Greenwich Roundup.
On Tuesday, Greenwich Roundup Returned To The Greenwich BOE Building And Asked For Gina Williams Who Now Said She Was Waiting For Greenwich Town Attorney Wayne Fox To Get Back To Her.
So Greenwich Roundup Went To See Greenwich Town Attorney Wayne Fox And Debra Nielson Told Greenwich Roundup That Gina Williams Had Only Recently Sent Over The Anthony Byrne FOI Request, But Had Not Sent The Actual Memo.
Ms. Nielson Said That The Hold Up Was With The BOE.
First The BOE Says It Is The Town Attorney
And Then The Town Attorney Says That It Is The BOE.
So Greenwich Roundup Went Back To Try And Get To Once Again Get An Appointment With Superintendent of Schools Sidney Freund, To Complain About The Run Around He Was Getting From Gina Williams.
While Greenwich Roundup Was Talking To Linda Valentine, Who Is Sydney Freund's Secretary, In Comes Gina Williams Interupting And Trying To Prevent Greenwich Roundup From Getting An Appointment With Freund.
Ms. Valentine Said That The Superintendent Would Call, But Once Again Fruend Failed To Call.
Later Greenwich Roundup Went And Met With Greenwich Town Attorney John Wayne Fox.
Mr. Fox Told Greenwich Roundup That The Anthony Byrne Memo Was Probably A Public Document That It Most Likely Could Be Obtained By An FOI Request,
Mr. Fox Said He Now Had To Review The Memo, Because The Board Of Education Made A Request.
Mr. Fox Further Stated He Could Not Rule On The Memo, Because The Board Of Education Still Had Not Sent Him A Copy Of The Memo.
Mr. Fox Said That Greenwich Roundup Would Most Likely Get A Copy Of The Anthony Byrne Memo By Friday, If Everything Went Well.
Greenwich Roundup Went Back To The Board Of Education To Once Again Try And Meet With Superintendent of Schools Sidney Freund And Ask Him To Put An End To This Nonsence.
Mr. Freund Was Not There, But Greenwich Roundup Was Told That Rich Calcavecchio The Director Of Budgets & SystemsWas The Highest Ranking BOE Administrator That Could Meet With Greenwich Roundup.
As Greenwich Round Up Started To Talk To Mr. Calavecchio, Here Came Anthony Byrne's Friend Gina Williams To Tnterupt The Meeting.
Greenwich Roundup Asked Mr. Calavecchio To Send Gina Williams Away, Because The Purpose Of The Meeting Was To Complain How Williams Was Making A Mountain Out Of A Mole Hill With This Anthony Byrne Memo FOI Request.
Greenwich Roundup Asked Mr. Calavecchio If Gina Williams Routinely Handled FOI Requests And He Responded That She Did Not.
He Further Stated He Did Not Know Why Ms. Williams Was Involved With This FOI Request.
Greenwich Roundup Expressed To Mr. Calavecchio That Gina Williams Was Making A Big Fat Deal Out Of A Memo That Had Already Been Determined To Be A Public Document By A Greenwich Board Of Education Offical.
Information From The Memo Had Been Featured In A Greenwich Time Front Page News Story And On The Greenwich Time Web Site.
Further, Superintendent of Schools Sidney Freund Had Issued A BOE Press Release That Discussed The Same Information In The Anthony Byrne Memo.
Greenwich Roundup Summed Up His Arguement To Mr. Calcavecchio That There Appears To Be No Privaleged Information In The Anthony Byrne Memo
It Seems That Greenwich Roundup Is Being Denied Access To The Public Document, Only Because Superintendent of Schools Sidney Freund Dislikes Some Blog Reports About His Administration.
It Further Seems That The Greenwich Time Is Getting Access To The Anthony Byrne Memo, Because Superintendent of Schools Sidney Freund Likes Their Passive News Reports About His Administration.
Mr. Calavecchio Said He Would Express My Concerns To Superintendent of Schools Sidney Freund.
Soon After Greenwich Roundup Met With Mr. Calavecchio; Gerry Thompson A Board Of Education's Confidential Assistant Sent Greenwich Roundup This Email.
From: Gerry_Thompson@greenwich.k12.ct.us
To: greenwichroundup@gmail.com
Date: Tue, Feb 9, 2010 at 2:23 PM
Subject: FOI
Mailed-by: greenwich.k12.ct.us
This will acknowledge receipt of your FOI request dated Friday, February
5, 2010. Please be advised that we will respond accordingly after review
with the Town Law Department.
Thank you.
Gerry Thompson
Confidential Assistant
Greenwich Board of Education
290 Greenwich Avenue
Greenwich, CT 06830
(203) 625-7461
FAX (203) 625-7408
It is time to review the Integrity And Transparancy of
Greenwich Superintendent of Schools Sidney Freund's Office
Democratic government is based on the consent of the governed. That consent is based in large part on the public understanding that the people who make up its government perform their jobs competently and diligently and act reasonably and responsibly in carrying out their functions. One of the most important functions is to obey the law and it goes without saying that the public should be able to anticipate that its legal rights will be recognized, not ignored.
Because of the insularity of government as it becomes more removed from daily interaction with the public, to send citizens into government agencies who may realistically never deal with individuals off the street provided a challenging test to the ability of those agencies and their employees to recognize their statutory obligations and fulfill them.
Based on Greenwich Roundup's request for a copy of the January 4th memo about Anthony Byrne, we see that Superintendent of Schools Sidney Freund as a whole flunked with flying colors.
Freund's inability to process a walk-in request for a standard public record carried an impact greater than just passing or failing a test.
It has provided many of the Greenwich taxpayers with a personal illustrations of how poorly the Greenwich Public Schools operate.
Parents are seeing how an encounter with a Greenwich public school employee can prove to be intimidating, unpleasant, and sometimes downright nasty.
Superintendent of Schools Sidney Freund's administration often causes taxpayers to have a consistent disenchantment with government and perhaps a certain sorrow that citizen interactions with Greenwich Public Schools can be so frequently disappointing.
Unfortunately, Sidney Freund's lack of leadership prevents the school system to impliment reforms that will prevent parents from having the overall feeling of intimidation.
It was not so much that the Greenwich Board Of Education employees themselves were intimidating, while in some instances that was the case, but the process of going to the BOE building and getting to the the run around to different government offices that causes citizens to have feelings of intimidation.
Greenwich Roundup did get the feeling that the Anthony Byrne information he was requesting was top secret and that my request was unusual.
At some points Greenwich Roundup did get the impression that BOE employees felt that he had no business with the Anthony Byrne information that he was requesting to see.
Had Greenwich Roundup been just a regular citizen coming into either office and had not known his rights, he would have been more than a little intimidated.
Even knowing that he was perfectly within my rights asking for this Anthony Byrne information, Greenwich Roundup did at times feel a little intimidated.
Greenwich Roundup found this to be a very eye-opening experience.
Perhaps the results will turn into public embarrassment for Superintendent of Schools Sidney Freund, but Greenwich Roundup also thinks there should be some other kind of punishment, such as CT FOI fines, in order for this problem to be fixed at least a little.
Hopefully the Freedom Of Information Request for the January 4th Anthony Byrne memo will demonstrate how the Greenwich Public School System is not complying with the laws, or not having a solid understanding of what the CT FOI law is.
Greenwich Roundup pitys any citizen who requests records from Superintendent of Schools Sidney Freund and is not one hundred percent sure of their rights, because his response is brutal.
All that Greenwich Roundup can really say about the Greenwich Public School FOI request is that it left him feeling exceptionally jaded toward Sidney Freund's administration. Greenwich Roundup did not really expect that there would be easy compliance at the BOE, but he also did not expect the level of paranoia that was encountered when he asked for the January 4th Anthony Byrne memo.
It is really just sad.
The whole Anthony Byrne information request just shows that failed Greenwich Public Schools administrators are so afraid of the public that they make it nearly impossible to get certain records.
Greenwich Roundup don’t appreciate being given the run around by the Freund administration, even when he stated his request numerous times.
Clearly Greenwich Public School employees have not been properly briefed on FOI regulations and therefore resulted in failure by the Freund administration. Freund's administrator's felt vulnerable when A FOI request was put in for the January 4th Anthony Byrne memo.
One woman’s eyes and facial expression actually grew a look of fear and her actions became hesitant. Some BOE employees were quite cooperative with Greenwich Roundup, but they just didn’t know what the FOI specs were, so they were apprehensive about complying with this Anthony Byrne request.
Even though the The Anthony Byrne memo had already been given out by a Greenwich Board of Education official as public document to a Greenwich Time reporter.
A determination had already been made by a Greenwich BOE official that the Anthony Byrne document was a public record and was referenced in a front page Greenwich Time news story.
Once the Anthony Byrne document was determined to be a public record, it is illegal for Sidney Freund to withold it from other Greenwich media just, because he doesn't like the news reports about his performance as superintendent.
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Please send your comments, news tips and press releases to GreenwichRoundup@gmail.com
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Supreme Court of BC Canada declares Yorktown Ventures winner of court case S02436 against Maryann Morrison and Morrison Intermedia
News Release on Maryann Morrison and Morrison Intermedia
An important subject also to cover is frivolous lawsuits, especially between jurisdictions. In the example above, the defendant of the suit (who won) claimed that a frivolous lawsuit was filed by Maryann Morrison and Morrison Intermedia (Vancouver Canada). They even used multiple aliases. The defendant stood firm, and won. But proper legislation should have prevented the suit from being filed in the 1st place. Does Grenwich have anything to protect its citizens against foreign frivolous legislation?
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