Tweed and the Mob - Will Joel Klein End Up With a Horse Head in Bed

Now we know. The NYC Dept. of Education's Pupil Transportation program is completely mobbed up and the NYC Dept. of Education's top leadership goes right along with it. US Attorney after US Attorney in NYC have indicted, tried and convicted NYC DOE Mafia-dominated busing firms and the unions they control. We even get the occasional indictment and conviction of someone who works in the NYC Dept. of Education's Office of Pupil Transportation (OPT), which enables the mob domination to continue and greases the path of corrupt companies who are free to abuse the children they transport, especially the vulnerable kids with disabilities.

It's time for a thorough house-cleaning starting right at the top. The US Attorney should convene a grand jury to investigate the entire NYC Dept. of Education's busing program; take it all the way up, and if it means implicating the Bloomberg Administration honchos who handle the Dept. of Education and facilitate or tolerate this corruption and abuse, well then, so be it! The US Departments of Education and Health and Human Services shell out heavy federal money to subsidize this school busing system and appear willing to do so forever. We need a prosecutor with gumption to stop the mob ... and its NYC school buses and ripoffs.

Dee Alpert, Publisher
SpecialEducationMuckraker.com

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/an_offer_to_refuse_v2nVi3CQGa4BosRxYO5fnL

An offer to refuse

Last Updated: 2:02 AM, April 7, 2010

Posted: April 07, 2010

Let's see if we fully understand this: Department of Education transportation chief Eric Goldstein won an order of protection against Atlantic Express owner Domenic Gatto -- who runs some 25 percent of the city's school buses -- after Gatto produced a gun during the talks.

And the talks, as best can be determined, continue?

One more time, for emphasis: Gatto pulls a gun and DOE keeps talking?

It gets an order of protection?

For its negotiator?

Okay, we'll ask: Who the hell's protecting the kids?

It is utterly astonishing that the city continued any relationship with Gatto for one nanosecond after the gun came out -- especially given the school-bus cartel's long history of mob-related corruption.

For all we know, Schools Chancellor Joel Klein ended up with a horse's head in his bed and opted to keep talking.

Now, it's good that Gatto was charged with menacing, harassment and reckless endangerment. Charges are pending.

Yet when queried about Gatto's future relationship with DOE (his current contract expires in June), the department said it "cannot comment on the status of any negotiations."

The key word being "negotiations." It's hard to take that to mean anything other than that DOE is still talking with guys who carry guns to the table.

Astounding.

This shouldn't be difficult: You pull a gun, you lose any chance of a city contract -- and it's profoundly troubling that Team Bloomberg won't say so publicly.

Gatto's lawyer, of course, maintains his client did nothing wrong: "The gun was never removed from its holster. No one was threatened, nobody was menaced."

Sure -- and cement shoes are just a fashion accessory.

DOE needs to cut this guy loose.

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