An Open Letter to the Saint David’s Community. |
April, 2011 |
My name is Ben Hume. I both attended and taught at St. David’s.
The following text is what I believe is going on at the School and the residential building next door.
Landlords and lawyers each being what they are, I preface this letter with my
word that I will affirm as true every statement made in this text during a
modern lie detector test, provided that the relevant Administrators, Trustees
and Employees of St. David’s participate as well. This test will be drafted in
order to find out which individuals, if any, are using lies, slander, harassment,
prosecution on false charges, repeated intentional exposure of children and
adult tenants to ear damaging construction volumes, breaking of other building
code and health laws, and knowingly inflicting prolonged acoustic torture which
caused lasting health damages and hospitalization.
I’ve been in conflict with the School for over four years. This was not of my choosing.
Beginning in 2006, a series of unethical and illegal actions began to encroach
upon my health, safety and the utility of my apartment. My discrete
attempts to deal with the Headmaster and Board were to no avail. In fact, it was after I notified the Board
that the most overt hostility began. When
I realized that other tenants were being targeted as well, I no longer felt it
was honorable or appropriate to keep silent. Therefore, I now ask the Community
to join me in requesting answers about how St. David’s School is being
administrated.
As you may remember, the School bought 22 East 89th in the 1970’s, and expanded into part
of it in 2000. In the early 1980’s, the School began offering month to
month leases to new tenants of the building, that they might be conveniently
removed when the School was ready to expand into more of the residential
portion of the building. There is not much that could be ethically done
about the older tenants with sturdier legal arrangements, except to offer them
comfortable alternatives.
In my opinion,
older and disabled tenants of the building should be protected from, not
subjected to, harassment and unwarranted prosecution by St. David’s. I no
longer believe that the School’s actions are accidental. The overall intention and effect is
harassment and abuse for gain at the cost of the School’s reputation and the
safety of its tenants and students.
It appears that,
over the past four years, the School has been intimidating, wrongfully
evicting, and unjustly prosecuting teachers in order to obtain their apartments. One tenant was given a choice between immediate eviction and signing away her future rights as a tenant, three months after her father, on
his deathbed, was reassured that the School would take care of her. Linda Moss,
who has a serious neuromuscular disability, had eviction proceedings drawn up
against her while tending her mother’s broken neck in Florida.
Myrna
Wollitzer, an elderly tenant with chronic asthma, took a trip to Costa Rica specifically to escape the plaster dust falling
through her ceiling and demolition volumes that I personally measured at 600%
above the legal limit. She subsequently
died of respiratory failure, far from friends and family. Myrna was a tireless tenant advocate who had
the last rent controlled apartment abutting the school. The school was fully aware that their
construction volumes and dust were both illegal and causing medical harm before
this incident occurred. They were cited
by the city for both infractions.
When I
wrote them that my acoustic measurements showed that they were endangering the
health of faculty children, the school sued to evict me on contrived charges,
which were only dropped after they completed months of these illegal
activities.
In my case, it started with addenda deliberately being torn off of my signed moving agreement
in 1999 by the Board’s attorney. This
fellow admitted to me that he had done this. Only reluctant intervention
by the Board of Directors prevented the loss of my storage space and several
other compensations. They did not, however,
press charges against this individual, which should have resulted in his disbarment.
Subsequently, on several occasions, I was offered illegal month-to month lease
renewals. When I refused to sign them, they were declared mistakes, and I was
offered rent-stabilized renewals. After
the School learned that I was vulnerable to stress, two illegally loud and
intentionally uninsulated practice rooms were installed against the walls of my
apartment. Beforehand, in an unscheduled test, they pushed a piano
against my wall, and played it so loudly that it frightened my twelve-year-old
autistic music student, making it impossible to continue his lesson. After
banging on my door loudly for five minutes, which I did not open on behalf of
my student, I was called by the business manager and asked if I could hear the
music. I said "I hear it loud and clear," meaning both the hammering
on the door and the piano playing. Despite this aggressive and conclusive test,
the pianos remained and no acoustic insulation was installed. The School was
therefore aware before a penny was spent on construction that such an
installation would make my apartment unlivable. Any statements to the contrary
are false. It was the only one of the thirty suitable rooms in the School that
would have harmed a tenant.
Additionally, during the summers, I and other tenants were subjected to regular doses of
dangerously loud and illegal construction noise. My requests for mercy
were mainly ignored, or responded to with intimidation by construction workers,
refusals of certified noise inspectors, and offers of uncertified ones.
When I informed them that they were breaking the law, I was again reminded that
complaining was dangerous: The school produced a story about me having drug
parties in my home and advertising them on the internet. As I do not
drink or take drugs, the implication that they would lie to get me evicted was
unmistakable. I repeatedly wrote the Headmaster, who had conveyed this
libelous fiction, asking him to identify the author. He never responded. The
illegal noise continued even after the School was repeatedly informed by
doctors that my health was being damaged by the effects of the noise. The
volumes and durations, consistent with acoustic torture, had dire effects on my
health.
I was not only deceived
about the presence of acoustic insulation, but also about “remediations” by
being shown a “soundproof” wall two days before it was perforated by many large
holes. I had been waiting for this wall for sixteen months, during which
time I contracted diabetes and other stress-induced problems such as insomnia,
anxiety and agoraphobia. Out of concern for my health, I was shown the
perforated wall by Tommy Panarello, a friend of my father and a longtime
ventilation contractor for the School. The perforations destroyed any
sound attenuating qualities of the wall, which was its only purpose.
After I notified
the Board of Trustees about this deceit, I made four subsequent attempts to
converse with Tommy when I saw him around the neighborhood. Each were interrupted
by a mysteriously aggressive employee of the School. He was threatening, loud,
and insulting, and gave me the clear impression that, although he was dressed
as a maintenance worker, he had been assigned, among his other duties, to
prevent any communication between Mr. Panarello and myself. When I
happened to see Tommy through an open door as I walked to my hard-won storage
space in the basement of my building, I greeted him and asked if he was working
on the boiler. Mr. Panarello’s new and now constant companion yelled “get out
of here,” rushed at me and shoved me against the wall opposite the door. I was not attempting to enter the boiler
room. Curiously, Mr. Panarello, who had
been looking me in the eye, turned his head and looked away. Subsequently, Tommy claimed that he was
looking at the boiler and didn’t see any violence. When I requested the
shover’s name for a police report a half hour later, I was given a false name.
A few weeks later, the fellow was fired, according to a witness, for using
profanity while insulting me in front of the school. The insults
indicated that someone had been broadcasting the fact that my medical condition
(PTSD) had become chronic enough to require medication. As I had done
nothing to provoke this aggressive and obscene behavior, I concluded that he
was either trying to intimidate me or to bait me into joining him in violent
behavior. Fortunately, I don’t have that kind of PTSD.
These increasingly
unethical and dangerous occurrences, combined with the School’s irresponsible,
belated, and superficial responses to the illegal noise levels, eventually
required that I be hospitalized for extreme stress. A professionally
conducted noise test, as well as my own measurements, both showed that I had
been subjected to practice noise volumes more than four times the legal limit,
and much higher summer construction volumes for several years. I developed a
neuroendocrinological condition which left me so sensitized to ambient noise
that I contracted diabetes and several other stress related medical
conditions. To this day, I experience anxiety attacks, hives, sweating,
agoraphobia, insomnia, and chest pains when I hear loud or persistent noise or
any amount of practice music. Well after the Administration and Board knew
of the dangerous medical conditions their decisions were causing, loud 8 am percussion classes were “accidentally” added to my
misery. These are a continuous part of my life. They trigger 40-point blood sugar spikes and anxiety attacks that last from several days to several weeks. The school has belatedly offered me a smaller, poorly ventilated apartment even though an acceptable apartment has remained unoccupied for several years.
When I notified
the School in October 2009 that I was documenting their construction volumes
and that they were loud enough to damage not only my hearing, but also that of
the boys, and faculty children, someone concocted an eviction proceeding
against me, based on false statements about my behavior and character. I was
described as a dangerous and belligerent menace to the community and a source
of fear to women and children. Despite the obvious need to prosecute such a
person, the School never supplied a Bill of Particulars or any witnesses to
substantiate their charges to the court, nor did they cease to accept my rent.
This should demonstrate that the lawsuit was an abuse of the legal system
designed to intimidate me into keeping quiet about the noise code violations. I
have been living peacefully within the St. David’s community for 54 years, and
have been a teacher for over 30. I have ample equilibrium to conduct
myself moderately. I have been known as a decent and friendly person to
every teacher, janitor, cook and secretary for over half a century. The
charges against me were dismissed because no evidence was provided by the
School. They continued to expose the community to ear-damaging
construction volumes. (113 decibels was this summer’s record.) I lost
thousands of dollars in legal fees.
My decibel meter
is consistently accurate when compared to the calibrated decibel meters brought
to my home by New York City noise inspectors (only City readings are admissible in court). However, the
construction noise was consistently stopped when the inspectors tried to gain
entry to the School’s worksite to take measurements. To circumvent these
coincidences, the inspectors had to access the worksite via the roof. They
found that the School was using illegal volumes and operating without the
required noise permit. My personal log shows 59 dated reports to the city
of illegal volume measurements, 22 of which have been signed by
witnesses.
The three
maintenance workers who actively obstructed my ex officio investigation have
been fired by the School. Also, both contracting firms who were involved in the
construction of intentionally uninsulated walls between the School and my home
have been replaced. Both contractors had admitted to me personally
that they were directed to build these acoustically transparent walls by School
employees.
I believe it is
past time that real consequences for unethical conduct should be chartered into
the Board guidelines, and that both Faculty and Tenant representatives should
be present at all Board Meetings.
I am writing this
letter as a painfully considered response to what I now consider as a
persistent and intentionally harmful use of power. The School’s delay in
acoustic testing, procrastination regarding insulation, inappropriate actions
against other longstanding members of the community, attacks on my person and
reputation, and the consequent erosion of my health, leave me no choice but to
demand an accounting of these disgraceful methods. I endured brutal
mistreatment, serious health damage, threats, attacks, acoustic torture and
hospitalization while trying to protect the name of the School. I have
tried everything to avoid publicizing this and have been severely abused for my
patience. I believe that other people in the community are going to
be harassed, evicted, threatened and harmed if I do not speak up. I am
therefore asking for the understanding and support of the St. David’s community
in demanding that these incidents be investigated and explained.
My protests in
front of the School will be conducted legally and safely, with consideration
for each member of the St. David’s community. Tell your sons that protestors
are seldom dangerous, but are, more often, decent and moral people. They are in
fact the ancient and natural enemies of those who would harm by greed, and are
necessary to the health of any community. I both love and recommend St.
David’s. My issue is with an unknown percentage of Administrators, and/or,
Trustees and/or Employees and/or Affiliates who in my opinion cannot tell the
difference between the big picture and the bottom line. I believe the
above evidence shows that these individuals have intentionally forsaken the
fundamental responsibility of protecting each of the members of this community
and the reputation of the school. When, for money’s sake, confused or misdirected
individuals within large and powerful institutions proceed with reckless
gluttony, the result is often harm to innocent and vulnerable people.
I am inviting all
relevant Administrators, Board Members, and School Affiliates to join me in an
investigation involving the vastly improved (97%+ accurate) lie detector
tests. Such tests can be administered by reputable retired FBI agents.
The questions will help indicate who, if any, had foreknowledge of the moral,
legal and health laws being breached, and whether or not deceit and conspiracy
were used. I will also participate in order to affirm the truth of my
position. Alternatively, I ask you join me in demanding that the School be
closed until more ethical Administrators, and/or Trustees, and/or Affiliates
can be found. Stories have been offered that I am somehow hard-to-please
or unbalanced. The lie detector test
will prove these allegations to be false.
Scroll forward for
reliable updates. Having experienced what I have, over the past several
years, I do not believe this problem will go away without the support of the
community. St. David’s is a rare and wonderful school, well worth the
extra effort required to protect its vision of safe and effective preparation
of its students for a life of integrity and service. We will need good
men to make good men.
