Williams had been due to interview for the job in Memphis on Monday, May 19. That would have been the formal interview; he’d already done a phone interview, which landed him among the finalists. As Jamie Moses wrote in AV this week, Williams trolled for jobs in other cities while he was superintendent of Dayton schools, too. He said at today’s press conference that Buffalo was it for him; that he’s made a commitment. Moses’ article indicates that he’s said that before as well.

Williams was joined at the press conference by senior staff and the five school board members who seem to think he can do no wrong: Mary Ruth Kapsiak, Vivian Evans, Chris Jacobs, Florence Johnson, and Pamela Perry-Cahill. The four who tend to challenge Williams and his steamrolling style—Ralph Hernandez, Lou Petrucci, Catherine Nugent Panepinto, and Catherine Collins—were absent.

Williams’ performance was recently evaluated by the board, and the overall score he received—comprising an average of the individual scores given him by each board member—was reportedly pretty good. (Of course, it was an average, and there has been some grumbling that dissenting opinions never made it into his final evaluation.)

Did that vote of confidence, asked Channel 2’s Rich Kellman, figure into his decision to stick around?

“I’ve always had the confidence of the board,” Williams said. “When I say ‘the board,’ I mean the majority.”

5/29: Galactic, with the New Deal
6/5: The Disco Biscuits
6/12: Yonder Mountain String Band
6/19: The David Sanborn Group
6/26: Martin Sexton, with the Mike Doughty Duo
7/3: Jakob Dylan & the Gold Mountain Rebels
7/10: Jimmie Vaughan, with JJ Grey and Mofro
7/17: Mickey Hart Band featuring Steve Kimock and George Porter, Jr., with Tea Leaf Green
7/24: Gin Blossoms
7/31: Spirit of the West
8/7: Zappa Plays Zappa, with the Whigs
8/14: Mike Gordon, with Samantha Stollenwerck
8/21: Saliva
8/28: Candlebox
9/4: Big Head Todd & the Monsters, with Indigenous

Here’s the letter of decision from Chambers, and here’s the gist: I was not given access to the team’s 2006-2007 budget, she said, because those records do not exist. I was not given access to audits performed on the team, because no audits had been performed up until the one launched by City Comptroller Andy SanFilippo two weeks ago. Finally, I’ve been denied all correspondence (paper, email, etc.) related to the budgets and expenditures because, she says, they are “intra/inter-agency materials.”

That last denial cites New York State Public Officers Law 87(2)(g):

2. Each agency shall, in accordance with its published rules, make available for public inspection and copying all records, except that such agency may deny access to records or portions thereof that:

…

(g) are inter-agency or intra-agency materials which are not:

i. statistical or factual tabulations or data;
ii. instructions to staff that affect the public;
iii. final agency policy or determinations; or
iv. external audits, including but not limited to audits performed by the comptroller and the federal government; or

I’m not a lawyer, but I don’t believe that the correspondence Chambers has denied access to isn’t covered by one or more of those four exceptions. Especially by (iv), given that an audit of the Mayor’s Impact team is near completion. Any lawyers out there want to enlighten me?

This is the document I was sent: Mayor’s Impact Team records. We’re sorting through it now. Meanwhile, I’m told the comptroller’s audit will be released next week. I also am told it will be thorough; time will tell.

Have you guessed it yet?

Both sacked their own cities:

…The assumption may reasonably be made that the fall of Rome, with the corresponding loss of its great buildings, was caused by invading barbarian armies bent on loot and destruction. From the time of the “Sack of Rome” by the Vandal Alaric in 410, to invading German mercenaries in the 16th century, it is presumed that the awe-inspiring structures of antiquity were pulled down, burned, ravaged and pulverized by conquering outsiders. The startling reality is that the destruction of Rome was not mainly carried out by rampaging armies during time of war, but most of the monuments and structures were destroyed by the Romans themselves! Over centuries the Roman people pulled down the marble statues, temples, basilica and baths. They tore these great buildings down and fed the marble into furnaces to produce lime. Other buildings were knocked down piecemeal by wealthy aristocrats to adorn their Renaissance palaces, to be seen only by a few. Save for the ancient Roman fascisti symbol of the bound ax and sticks adorning Buffalo’s ornate Council Chambers, what parallel does the destruction of Rome in centuries past have to do with the Queen City of the Lakes in the 21st century?

The answer is, just like the Romans, Buffalonians at times have been responsible for demolishing, tearing down or destroying the City’s architectural heritage. And this destruction still continues, although with greater difficulty due to the resistance of preservationists who grasp the importance of the City’s rich built environment to future generations.

This must be the writing of Council President Dave Franczyk.

Don’t worry about what this “action plan” is. It’s pretty close to meaningless. What’s important is that Smith, who is one of four councilmembers who comprise a minority bloc, felt slighted by the five-member majority bloc. He accused them of freezing out him and his three fellow bloc members, though none of the other three joined him in his complaint.

Council President Dave Franczyk and Lovejoy District Councilmember Rich Fontana tried to head off Smith’s indignation, arguing that every member of council had received drafts of the plan and invitations to the unveiling by email, to which Smith replied, “Everybody knows my email doesn’t work.” (”Get it fixed,” Franczyk said.) Franczyk said they’d discussed the plan in legislative caucus—the closed [note: I stand corrected, the caucus is open] meeting of councilmembers in which all the voting in the public session is predetermined—but Smith had not attended. (”All I ask is that councilmembers take some responsibility,” Franczyk said.)

But Smith was tapping into his own deep vein of resentment: Ever since last November’s Common Council elections, he’s been in the minority, whereas when he took over the empty Masten seat from the departing Antoine Thompson, he was part of a solid majority aligned with Mayor Byron Brown. It’s no fun to go from starter to second string.

By the end of the exchange, Franczyk and Smith were talking over each other heatedly, and Smith said that if the new majority was going to trample over the other councilmembers, then maybe the minority bloc would have to create it’s own legislative caucus.

What that would accomplish is not clear, apart from creating another set of meetings closed to public scrutiny for councilmembers to miss. But last Thursday Smith filed this letter with the City Clerk offering a rough outline of a proposal for a new legislative caucus, which he calls the “Progressive Caucus of the Common Council of Buffalo,” which “will make the Common Council of the City of Buffalo more democratic by creating an additional center of legislative power that promotes cooperation.”

The next day, as the story was breaking here, the Buffalo Public Schools Web site posted an official statement from Williams, which reads in part, “The Memphis City School District and their representatives recently contacted me regarding my possible interest in the position of Superintendent of their District. I was approached about this position and I have not formally interviewed for the position.”

Williams does not elaborate more on his new job prospects, but Alvin Johnson, speaking today on behalf of Ray and Associates, was able to shed a bit more light on the situation.

Ray and Associates is the executive search company that has been contracted by Memphis schools to find suitable candidates for their Superintendent position.

Johnson says that Williams was contacted by a letter sent to him from Ray and Associates headquarters in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Apparently, Williams will open a letter from a “professional organization that specializes in school executive leadership searches” even if he won’t open a certified letter from a teacher in his own district. In defense of not reading that important message that was reporting alleged fondling of a young student by a teacher’s aide, Williams went on the record saying he doesn’t open any of his mail.

Somehow, this letter was different.

And even though Williams claims to be on a mission for the children here in Buffalo, he not only considered the Memphis offer, he completed an application for the job, according to Johnson.

Johnson also acknowledges that Williams participated in a preliminary phone interview with an associate of the search firm, sometime between the end of March and the beginning of May as part of the recruitment process.

“We’re looking to see if the candidate really matches the profile.” Johnson says.

So when Williams says he hasn’t “formally interviewed for the position,” are we to take that to mean that he was dressed casually when he spoke with Ray and Associates over the phone?

You can read the job advertisement sent out by the Memphis schools for yourself. The ideal candidate will possess (among other things) the following desired characteristics:

• Possesses excellent people skills, will listen to input, but can make a decision when necessary.

• Will inspire trust, has high levels of self-confidence and optimism, and models high standards of integrity and personal performance.

• Possesses the leadership skills required to respond to the challenges presented by an ethnically and culturally diverse community.

• Is strongly committed to a “student first” philosophy in all decisions.

Sounds like our man.

Tonight, the Buffalo school board holds a closed meeting at the Hyatt to discuss Dr. Williams’s evaluation. Since every one of these evaluation meetings have been attended by Williams—the very man being evaluated—he is expected to further explain why he told no other board members besides Mary Ruth Kapsiak of the Memphis job prospect.

In typical fashion, Williams kept his behavior secret until the story broke in the Memphis newspaper. At which point, he issued a hasty statement that does not fully describe his involvement in the job search. He’s clearly interested in the Memphis job or he would have ripped up the letter from Cedar Rapids and replied: “Thank you for the opportunity to apply for the position of Superintendent of Memphis Schools. However, I must respectfully decline your offer because, as the current Superintendent of Buffalo Schools, I am on a mission for the children of the city of Buffalo.”

Here’s the letter in which Carl threatens to sue the Common Council if it does not rescind its resolution condemning him for saying that Buffalo [but Memphis-bound?] Schools Superintendent James Williams was hired because he’s black.

I think it’s interesting that the reports on Paladino’s threat to sue the Council have ignored this accusation he hurls at Ellicott District Councilmember Brian Davis, who wrote and submitted the resolution:

“The irresponsible Brian Davis wanted to paint [my remark] as racial to spin his community out of their growing distaste for his self-serving special tax benefits and relationship with program workers who were compelled to share their checks with him.”

Come again? By saying “special tax benefits” he refers to the fact that Davis’s family built a tax-free home on a formerly city-owned lot in an Empire Zone. But that second accusation? That he skimmed money from paychecks? Anyone know anything about that?

I arrived at 5:40 and found every door to City Hall locked. Seriously. This sucks, I thought. Then: But at least its’s fodder for a column.

So I hung around, peering in the door, ringing the bell that surely does not work, waiting for someone to leave. At about 5:45pm I was joined by a news crew from Channel 4. We tried calling people we knew inside, but everyone was gone for the day — or in Council Chambers, attending the “public” hearing that the public was unable to attend, because all the doors were locked.

At about 5:50pm, Inspections, Permits and Economic Development Commissioner Rich Tobe exited the building but let the door close behind him before I could shout out to hold it open. “Sorry, I can’t get back in now,” he said. I told him I was trying to attend a public hearing up in Council Chambers. He agreed that locking the doors on the evening of such a hearing was curious. But not, he thought, unusual.

Nor did Deputy Mayor Steve Casey seem to consider it strange that the doors were locked, as the Channel 4 team and I raced to the elevators at 6pm, when we finally slipped in the door behind an exiting bureaucrat. “Hurry up,” he said, “it’s just about over.”

Right he was: In the absence of any “public” in the public hearing, the Council had rolled two hearings into one and wrapped the whole thing up by 6:10pm. Exactly one person had signed up to speak. Everyone in Council Chambers was on the public payroll.

Afterward, Delaware District Councilmember Mike LoCurto summed up the hearing for me: a whole lot of nothing. He too was unsurprised to learn the doors had been locked. They had been locked during the previous day’s public hearing as well, he said.

Antoine Thompson is no doubt somewhat discouraged about a being a member of the minority party in the NY State Senate. Today’s Buffalo News story about pork barrel spending showed that republican Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno doled out not twice as much cash, not five times as much cash, not ten times as much cash, but more than 20 times the amount of cash that was given to Antoine to spread around his district. Bruno clocked in with over $4.2 million to dole out, while Antoine limped home to Buffalo from Albany with what must seem like pocket change, $190,000. Assemblyman Robin Schimminger of Kenmore controlled a hefty $2.2 million to give away…. but he gave three quarters of that to places far away from home, Manhattan, Brooklyn and Syracuse.

.

SHEILA KEE DOUBLE DIPS: A former Erie County worker is collecting a big state pension, while drawing an even bigger state salary at the same time! All this with a huge state deficit looming.

Sheila Kee was appointed as Associate Commissioner of the New York State Health Department for the Western Region in 2007. But at the time, as a state retiree, she was collecting a pension of $99,000. Typically, if someone is going to enter back into the state public workforce, collection of their pension is suspended until they retire again. But in the case of Sheila Kee, she continues to collect her pension, while also being paid $143,013 as Associate Commissioner.

Nardin 8th Grader Michael Viola is headed to the National Spelling Bee in Washington D.C. at the end of the month to compete in the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

Viola won the 81st News Spelling Bee after correctly spelling “gelatigenous,” which means producing a gluey material. It was that correct answer that earned him the ticket to the national competition. (Artvoice feels obligated to promote anyone who can spell, there are so few out there.)