Ex-gubernatorial hopeful Paladino booted from Buffalo school board

BUFFALO, N.Y. » One-time Republican candidate for New York governor Carl Paladino, whose published insults of former President Barack Obama provoked a public uproar, was removed from Buffalo’s school board Thursday for improperly discussing teacher contract negotiations.

State Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia announced her decision Thursday, a day after Paladino protesters disrupted the school board’s latest meeting with calls for his ouster.

The protests have been happening since December, when Paladino, who helped chair President Donald Trump’s campaign in New York, told a local arts newspaper he wished Obama would die of mad cow disease. But it was a later article written by Paladino that led to his removal. In it, he revealed collective bargaining strategies discussed by school board member in executive sessions.

Elia sided with fellow school board members who said Paladino had willfully disclosed confidential discussions, including the superintendent’s “panic” over the threat of a teacher strike. The revelations revealed vulnerabilities that ultimately benefited the teachers’ union and other units with pending contract negotiations, union and school board officials testified during a hearing in June.

Paladino had argued his disclosures more than two months after an agreement was reached were justified because his intent was to inform his constituents about what he viewed as “a scheming and rigging of a contract.”

Elia also rejected Paladino’s contention that the board’s real reason for the removal petition was retaliation for his Obama comments, which he said were not meant for publication but nevertheless protected by his constitutional right to free speech. A federal lawsuit filed by Paladino against the board accuses members of attempting to stifle that right.

The Obama comments may have set into motion Paladino’s ouster, Elia wrote, but Paladino’s subsequent executive session disclosures “provided a new, independent ground for seeking (Paladino’s) removal.”

Paladino, the Republican nominee for New York governor in 2010, did not immediately respond to telephone and email requests for comment.