Bedford School Board Election Coverage: Q & A With Richard Hooker

This is the second in a Q&A series that we are running on the candidates for the Bedford Central School District Board of Education. In this edition, we interviewed Richard Hooker, who is challenging incumbent Vice President Mark Chernis. There is another open seat, an uncontested race being run by incumbent board member Eric Karle, a Mount Kisco resident. Read the Q&A with Chernis here. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Richard Hooker said he was "born at Northern Westchester Hospital here in Mount Kisco in 1964 and never moved more than 5 miles away." He was raised in Mount Kisco and New Castle and attended Chappaqua schools. He received a degree in 1994 in Urban Forestry (Horticulture, Conservation) from the Northern Westchester BOCES Tech Center in Yorktown. Hooker has two daughters, Montana, who attends Mount Kisco Elementary School and Christiana who attends Fox Lane Middle School and the family resides in Mount Kisco. He has worked since 1998 works for the Town of Pound Ridge (part of Bedford Central Schools) for the highway department as a motor equipment operator.

Patch: Why do you want to become a board member?

Hooker: Why? Very simply put. My employer has informed all 50 full time employees that they can no longer afford to give employees a pay raise each year because of the school taxes. The higher taxes are forcing more and more residents out of town, which the town would rather keep than its employees. It has been 2 years since our last 3 percent pay raise. School employees are paid with tax dollars as we are, but seeing teachers and staff members pay less than 10 percent into their medical insurance, getting 6.5 percent yearly raises, plus 3 percent step raises each year for 15 years—a 9.5 percent increase—a year..then when summer gets here, if they take a 40 hour class (which will only be 30 hours for real), they will earn at least $6,000 more per year in salary. Teachers also have the tenure working in their favor and will not be fired after completing 3 years of work no matter what they do wrong. Note, that for all Pound Ridge employees to get a 3 percent raise, it would cost each household $30.00 more in taxes each year. I feel as a civil service worker, I can offer the school board a different perspective than all the other white collar workers on the board. I feel that we need a high quality education for our students, but not tax everyone to the point they only will live in the area when their kids are in school in Bedford. I am a third-generation family living in Mount Kisco and would like to continue with a fourth generation living here, but if something is not done now to control spending in Bedford, it will force me and many others out of the district.

Patch: What qualifications will you bring to the position?

Hooker (Editor's Note: Hooker submitted a copy of his resume in response, which includes 29 years as a Mount Kisco firefighter, including two as chief. He also is currently a motor equipment operator for the Town of Pound Ridge, a job he has had since 1998. See the complete resume attached to this article as a PDF.)

Patch: What are the top three issues facing the board during the 2011-12 school year? What's your suggestion for tackling one (or all three) of them?

Hooker: [First] School workers should be treated as a team: We currently speak about how parts of a school work as separate entities; rather envision it as a team of workers completing a job together. Each member of the team could not do their job without the work of the other team members doing their jobs. All team workers should ultimately have the same contracts, with the same benefits (medical, retirement, step raises, number of work hours, continuing education opportunities etc.) signed at the same time, with the same raises. The only difference on the “team” would be the salaries.

[Second] Begin to fight the War on Drugs within Our School System: 

• All Staff members including teachers would have a pre-employment drug and alcohol test performed. They should be tested randomly at least once a year which is similar to the Federal Motor Carrier requirements for someone with a commercial driver’s license.
• Bring in the police with a drug sniffing dog to check the classrooms and locker areas of the schools. Allow the police to walk with the dogs along parked vehicles in on school grounds.
• Perform back ground checks and abstracts of their driver’s license on all staff members every 5 years. We should not want an unlicensed driver, driving onto school grounds daily.

[Third] Institute quarterly meetings with the local emergency service organizations (police, Fire, EMS, Highway Depts.) as suggested by the NYS education department. The purposed would be to better plan for a local emergency and to discuss any future improvements to the existing school buildings and grounds within the district and incorporate ideas and information on all future buildings and projects. Have 1 Mass Casualty Incident every 3 years with in the district and at a different building each time. This would include but not be limited to Police, Fire Fighters, EMS workers, First responders, Student, Parents, Local Media, Possible Hazmat teams.

Patch: Given some of the topics that arose in the district's "Future Focus" session held in March (re-opening the teachers’ contract, reconfiguring the middle school model, moving to a contracted transportation service, closing an elementary school), what makes the most sense to you as an issue to address as a school board?

Hooker: I would like to revisit re-opening teachers contracts, but without help from NYS [New York State] in getting rid of tenure and the Triboro Amendment, it seems pointless. Teachers are not here to help the local tax payer, teachers are here to make the best possible money they can, no matter who they have to hurt into getting it.

Patch: Given the talk of a proposed annual cap on property tax increases, in relation to state mandates such as employee pension contributions, would you be willing to go with a cap that does not address the mandates, or do you believe tackling both at once are needed?

Hooker: I think a property tax cap is needed. State mandates are not the issue here. More teacher contributions are the issue.

Patch: Do you support repealing the Triborough Amendment that keeps terms of expired union contracts in place until new agreements are reached? Would you support changing the state's pension systems for teachers and other public employees? If so, what type of changes would you want to see?

Hooker: I support the the idea of repealing the Triborough Amendment and abolishing tenure. If you're a great teacher you will be employed for a lifetime. If you're not a great teacher, you should be out the door, union or not. Don't waste my child's time.

Patch: How do you think spending of reserves to lower the tax levy should be handled in future school years? Do you believe there needs to be a reduction in use, or keep them roughly the same as now?

Hooker: I don't think spending reserves will lower the tax levy, in the end you will have to restore the reserves at some point and it maybe more costly in the future to do it.

Patch: Is there anything we haven’t asked that you would like the public to know about you or your candidacy?

Hooker: The person I am running against is a great person and is working well on the board of education. However, the way in which Bedford Central school system works is is a candidate has to run for a specific seat, so if there are 3 people running for 2 seats, the top two people with votes may not be elected. This is another issue that should be worked on for future elections.