Former TVCSD Superintendent Pleads "GUILTY" to Grand Larceny

John Sonedecker, the former District Superintendent, left the employ of the Three Village Central School District in 2003. He left under an apparent cloud of "very quiet" controversy the Board of Education at the time would have preferred not be made public. Sadly for them and certainly for Herr Sonedecker, not everyone follows the preferred direction of "Shhhhhhdom" leaders.

Area resident Graham Kirby, dropped a colossal bomb on Sonedecker. After digging into the paper trail of Sonedecker's strip club and worse spending habits, on district time and expense, and then receiving unsatisfactory answers from district board members, Kirby went to the Suffolk County District Attorney. Subsequently, Sonedecker was indicted and, in February of 2005, he plead guilty to Grand Larceny in the fourth degree for actions deemed by the DA's office as a "pattern of financial abuse...[and] sticking the Three Village School District taxpayers with the bill."

Sonedecker was directed to return nearly $49,000, serve five years on probation as well as performing 840 hours of community service.

More of the details about his offenses and the legal ramifications for all of these things are available at a variety of media sources.

But, there's something more to be said about all of this than simply expressing contempt for the man and the failure of the School Board to look out for the publics' fiduciary interests.

YOU are at fault. That's right, YOU. For YOU don't vote. YOU don't push Boards of Education for proof positive of the need for increases. YOU that allows school boards to use the same lawyers and accounting firms year, after year after year. You, the parents of children attending district schools, who blindly believe the contentions of Teacher Unions, District Administrators and/or the Parent Teacher Associations. For, as hard as it is for you ladies and gentlemen to believe, THEY lie. And, especially YOU that have no children in the schools and foolishly assume that parents of children in attendance are paying adequate attention to what is going on.

I now request that YOU do the following:

Right "Click" on this man's image. Save it on your computer. Then import it to a Word document. Center and enlarge the photo to fill nearly the entire page. Beneath the photo, type in bold letters: Superintendent Convicted of Grand Larceny with the help of the School Board and MYSELF. Now print the damn thing out and stick it on your refrigerator.

Then get in touch with what's going on in the school district that is taking money away from your ability to pay for heating oil this winter.