Bob Harrison Candidate for Scarsdale School Board
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Bob Harrisson is an independent candidate for the Scarsdale School Board. Here are Bob's credentials: Bob Harrison is a candidate for the Scarsdale School Board for the seat of outgoing board member, Jeff Blatt . In Scarsdale you must run for a specific named seat. Mr. Blatt's open seat is for a 3-year term. By law each candidate must submit a petition signed by at least 25 qualified voters to appear on the ballot. Bob Harrison's candidate petition was signed by 67 qualified Scarsdale voters. His opponent filed her petition with 32 signatures. Bob encourages Scarsdale residents to vote for his candidacy on May 18th.
Bob Harrison's campaign is to maintain and improve the quality of our Scarsdale School system at an affordable tax rate. Bob has given 30 years of service to the Scarsdale community and our students including raising $25,000 to restore the Middle School Tennis Courts in 1983 which has allowed the programming of the Scarsdale Spring and Summer Youth Tennis Leagues that have served over 18,000 youths, allowed for tennis in the physical education program of every Middle School student, given Scarsdale Village the courts to have a major revenue producing lesson program for adults and youth and allowed families to enjoy the sport of tennis. Bob has personally coached over 60 youth sports teams since 1983.
Bob was a founding board member of the Scarsdale Teen Center and helped raise $250,000 to invest in the Teen Center. Bob served on the Adult Teen Center Board for seven years as first vice-president and financial advisor. Bob continues to support fund raising for the Teen Center and strongly believes that the School Board should maintain its commitment to funding the Teen Center jointly with the Village Board and restore the $ 12,500 to the Teen Center Budget from the $ 134,743,938 proposed 2010-2011 total School Budget. Bob also feels that the BOE should restore the $13,000 that was cut from the school budget to the Scarsdale Edgemont Family Counseling Service, that is also funded by the Village Board.
Bob has a long-term record of being pro-education, pro-students and pro-Scarsdale. He has helped 19 students fulfill their dream of attending Penn State University as a volunteer alumni recruiter since 1991.
Bob has supported smaller class sizes in the elementary schools with public comments and a letter to the editor. Bob helped the school board review the insurance industry it its move to a self-insured health plan in the 1980's and served on the school board's technology study committee in the 1990's and was the SNAP representative to the board in its superintendent search in the 1980's.
Bob has been a supporter and contributor to Field For Kids at the High School, the SOS4 Education Campaign after Hurricane Katrina, the Scarsdale Family Counseling Service, and the Scarsdale Volunteer Ambulance Corps new building among many other Scarsdale community efforts. Bob has been an active supporter of the Wall Street Division of the UJA Federation of Greater New York since 1968.
Professionally Bob has a 43-year career in business and finance, which includes an MBA in finance and marketing from the Columbia University Graduate School of Business where he is actively involved with the Business School. He has a B.S. from Penn State where he is involved with the Smeal College of Business and has given a number of speeches to business school students. His professional experience includes being a Vice-President of Goldman, Sachs for over 28 years from 1966 to 1995, working in the same team of professionals plus assistants for 20+ years serving the financial needs of institutional and private wealth clients of Goldman, Sachs in the New York City Area , upstate New York and eastern Canada.
For the past 15 years he has had his own firm , Harrison Capital Management, with an office in Greenwich and more recently in Scarsdale providing professional money management advice to his past clients from Goldman, Sachs as well as new clients.
Bob's 43 years of professional business and financial experience including the analysis of school budgets, corporate financial reports, earnings reports, interest rate trends and municipal finance would help the school board make sound educational and financial decisions for the future.
Bob has a vested interest in Scarsdale schools with two sons who went through grades 1 to 12 and K to 12 of Scarsdale Schools and two grandchildren living in Scarsdale who Bob wants to benefit from an excellent Scarsdale education. Bob wants young families of different means to be able to afford our property taxes and to maintain a diverse community and to keep our long-term residents here with their wisdom and memory for Scarsdale.
Bob has been a member of the Town and Village Civic Educational Forum since 1986 and served on its Educational Study committee and as a past Co-Chairman. Bob has served on many TVCC committees including the current TVCC Education (Fiscal) Committee report on the proposed BOE 2010-2011 budget that was worked on for many months by a number of people and signed by 12 people including two highly respected past Mayors and approved by six members of the TVCC executive committee. The report has significant reservations about use of reserves, order and timing of facilities projects, multi-year contract extension with teachers and multi-year no layoff clause, multi-year contract with bus drivers with no outsourcing clause, changes to teacher work loads, and changes in teacher headcount funded by federal stimulus money that may extend beyond the expiration of that funding.
Bob encourages every Scarsdale resident to read the TVCC budget report at www.scarsdaleforum.com or to contact him for information about his candidacy or the report at 914 725-0962 or by e-mail at proscars@aol.com
Dealing With Local Disasters at the Scarsdale Forum
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Two Scarsdale residents, Dr. Richard Garwin and Jonathan Lewis, will discuss Dealing with Local Disasters: What Can Nuclear and Pandemic Disaster Planning Teach Us? The talk is the third this year in the Sunday Speaker Series from the Scarsdale Forum and will be held on May 16th at 3pm at the Scarsdale Woman's Club.
With the recent storm that left almost 80% of Scarsdale residents without electrical power for multiple days, and the severe flooding that occurred in April 2007, many people are asking if there is something that we can do better to help mitigate the impact of future disasters. Dr. Richard Garwin and Jonathan Lewis, will present a discussion on what has worked in the past and how we can apply it to Scarsdale. Eric Rothschild, Sunday Speaker Series Chair, will welcome questions from the audience at the conclusion of the presentation.
Dr Garwin is a long time club member of the Scarsdale Forum and Jonathan Lewis is the past President. Both have relevant expertise in this area.
Dr. Richard Garwin was born in 1928 and earned a B.S. in physics from Case Institute of Technology in 1947, and a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Chicago in 1949. He began his work with nuclear weapons technology in 1950 at Los Alamos Laboratory. He joined IBM in 1952 and became an IBM Fellow at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center in 1967, where he worked until 1993. He has authored and co-authored numerous books, published more than 500 papers, and has 43 patents in his name. Dr. Garwin has extensive experience in nuclear arms policy having served on the Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States and JASON, an independent group of scientists which advises the US Government on matters of science and technology. He continues to be an influential voice in national security issues today.
Jonathan Lewis is the author of “Spy Capitalism: ITEK and the CIA” and the co-author of “Reflections of a Cold Warrior: From Yalta to the Bay of Pigs” and the past Scarsdale Forum President. In his work on both the history of the CIA and on partnerships between the private sector and the national security establishment, he has explored a variety of themes related to crisis management. He has spoken on intelligence related issues at the JFK School of Government at Harvard and at Yale University. He is a member of Business Executives for National Security (BENS) and for many years co-chaired the organization’s intelligence reform effort. He was a part of the BENS panel that reviewed the CIA’s venture capital initiative, In-Q-Tel, as part of a congressionally mandated study, and was also part of a BENS study for the CIA on pay for performance. The BENS panel was awarded the Agency Bronze Seal Medallion for their work in this area. He is a director of the Westchester chapter of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and a Trustee of the American Jewish Historical Society. He is a co-founder of Samson Capital Advisors where he is a member of the executive committee and chairs the investment committee.
The reception will begin at 3 pm on May 16 at the Scarsdale Woman's Club, 37 Drake Road in Scarsdale, and the program will start at 3:15 pm. Admission is free, plenty of free parking is available.
The Scarsdale Forum Sunday Speaker series is made possible in part by the Irving Sloan grant from the Liz Claiborne / Arthur Ortenberg Foundation.
Suzanne Seiden Candidate for Scarsdale School Board
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Suzanne Seiden is running for Scarsdale School Board in the first contested elections in at least 20 years. She was nominated by the Scarsdale School Board Nominating Committee and encourages you to vote on May 18th. Here are Suzanne's credentials:
Suzanne has been a tireless volunteer at all levels of the Scarsdale school system and in our community. In all her activities, including as president of the Middle School and Quaker Ridge PTAs, Ms. Seiden has continuously demonstrated a passion for the critical issues facing the our school district as well as a capacity to work with others to deliver meaningful results.
Over the past nine years, Ms. Seiden has had numerous leadership roles, starting with her efforts for two years as Co-Chair of the PT Council Young Writers’ Conference and as Co-Chair of the Scarsdale Schools Bond Committee in which she helped organize and lead the community’s efforts to pass a bond to support necessary construction on the Quaker Ridge School. She subsequently served the Quaker Ridge PTA president-elect and president where, among other efforts, she worked with the other PTAs to change the funding of elementary school playgrounds.
Following her experience at the elementary school level, Ms. Seiden served as the President-elect and then President of the Middle School PTA where she focused on creating a school of empathy and implemented a new fundraising program for the school. She has also had leadership roles on the Scarsdale Task Force on Drugs and Alcohol where she worked with other parents, school administrators, and Village representatives to create and deliver programs and educational material for youth and adults about drugs and alcohol. She also currently serves as the Publicity Chair for the Scarsdale High School Scholarship Fund.
In addition to her activities with our schools, she has volunteered on a number of community organizations including with the UJA Federation, Scarsdale League of Women Voters, and Temple Israel Center.
Her volunteer activities in Scarsdale build upon professional experience as a labor and employment lawyer at Clifton, Budd and DeMaria and service in the federal government. During the Clinton Administration Ms. Seiden worked as the General Counsel of the Office of Personnel Management, the chief legal officer for the federal government’s human resources agency, and in the Wage and Hour Division of the US Department of Labor where she helped coordinate the Administration’s anti-sweatshop initiative.
Ms. Seiden graduated from Tufts University and Boston University Law School; she is married to Kevin Thurm, and has three children in the Scarsdale Schools: Eric, 12th grade; Jason, 9th grade; and Samantha, 3rd grade.
Learn more about Suzanne Seiden at: http://www.vote4suzanne.webs.com
Candidates Forum and Luncheon from the LWV
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On Thursday May 6 at 7:30 pm, the League of Women Voters of Scarsdale will sponsor a BOE Candidates Forum in the Scott Room at the Scarsdale Public Library. The candidates for the Scarsdale Board of Education will be invited to participate. After the candidates speak briefly, there will be a question and answer period. The public is invited and encouraged to attend. For more information, contact Jane Veron at 472-2933.
Dr. Jennifer Ashton, Medical Correspondent for the CBS News Network, will share her unique perspective on the devastation in Haiti and the challenges that face the Haitian people at a luncheon at Scarsdale Golf Club on May 14. In January, Dr. Ashton traveled with a medical team to Haiti, where she treated victims of the earthquake for eight days. She is a daily contributor to the Early Show and appears regularly on the CBS Evening News.
The luncheon is sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Scarsdale. All League members are invited to the League’s annual meeting, which will be held before the luncheon at 11 am and will include electing a new board and adopting a budget and program. The luncheon will begin at 11:45 am. To RSVP, call Anne Lyons at 725-9810. The cost is $40 per person ($45 after May 7) and is payable at the door or in advance (make your check payable to League of Women Voters of Scarsdale and mail to Anne Lyons, 82 Greenacres Avenue, Scarsdale 10583).
SHS Mock Trial Team Are County Champs
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Scarsdale High School’s Mock Trial team finished first in Westchester County this year, in a tournament sponsored by the Westchester County Bar Association. The team, in its ninth year of competition, also won the county championship in its first year of existence.
This year’s case imagined a Ponzi scheme concocted by Shawn Miller, a stand-in for real life schemer Bernard Madoff. In six rounds of trial – sometimes prosecuting Mr. Miller, and sometimes defending him – Scarsdale emerged victorious.
“We've been practicing hard since early December when the New York State Bar Association released this year's case,” said Ethan Gottlieb, a defense attorney for the team. Since “trial season,” which started in February, Gottlieb said the team has been practicing more frequently and fervently. The team faculty advisor and coach is SHS Social Studies teacher Daivd Heyman.
Team members pictured here are:
Curan Mehra - Defense/Prosecution Attorney
Ethan Gottlieb - Defense Attorney
Vidya Venkatakrishnan - Defense Attorney/Defense Witness
Callie Gilbert - Defense/Prosecution Attorney
Morgan Hecht - Prosecution Witness
Brian Guggenheimer - Defense Witness
Lisle Winston - Defense Witness
Peter Herman - Prosecution Witness
Harrison Shapiro - Prosecution Witness
