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GETTING RESULTS: After Four Decades, New Rochelle School District Finally Has a New Law Firm

Written By: Robert Cox

NEW ROCHELLE, NY — Ingerman Smith has been selected through an RFP process to be the outside counsel for the New Rochelle Board of Education and City School District of New Rochelle.

The announcement was made in a statement issued by Board President Jeffrey Hastie.

“After reviewing the qualifications of several law firms, we have decided that Ingerman Smith has the experience and the expertise best suited to meeting the highly specialized needs of our District,” said Board President Jeffrey Hastie. “We look forward to working with them.”

More significantly it means the end of Jeff Kehl in the City School District of New Rochelle.

Robert Cox, Publisher of Talk of the Sound, has advocated for replacing Kehl and his firm for more than a decade.

“No one person has been more responsible for the deteriorating reputation of the New Rochelle public schools than Jeff Kehl,” said Cox. “I celebrate the ouster of Kehl and commend the school board for their decision to part ways with Kehl, Sara Richmond and the rest of the Bond, Schoeneck & King mob.”

The RFP, issued in November after a series of false starts, solicited competitive bids for legal services after 41 years of an exclusive, no-bid “contract” with law firms connected to Jeff Kehl. The multi-million dollar contract as outside counsel for both the City School District of New Rochelle and the New Rochelle Board of Education held by Kehl through his current law firm, Bond, Schoeneck & King (BSK) and Kehl, Katzive & Simon (KKS), the firm he merged with BSK in 2014.

In 2008, the New York State Comptroller first raised concerns about Kehl’s no-bid “contract” saying the failure of the board to bid out the contract raised questions about whether the interests of taxpayers was being protected. Kehl’s firm has been without competition for decades allowing Kehl to bill his “cash cow” client an estimated $30,000,000 to $40,000,000, in today’s dollars, starting in 1977.

Five bids were submitted to the New Rochelle Board of Education on December 15th in response to the long-awaited Request for Proposal for Legal Services. The five bidders are Ingerman Smith of Hauppauge, NY; Guerico & Guerico of Farmingdale, NY; Keane & Beane of White Plains, NY; Thomas, Brohan, Waxman, Petigrow & Mayle of Hopewell Junction, NY; and the incumbent, Bond, Schoeneck & King of New York, NY.

The RFP was distributed on the District web site, BidNet and in the Journal News in November with a deadline of December 15th at 12:00 p.m. An earlier RFP was put out in October. Firms that indicated their intent to bid in October before the first RFP for Legal Services was pulled back but did not submit a bid the second time around are Pullano & Farrow of Rochester, NY; Shaw, Perelson, May & Lambert of Poughkeepsie, NY; and the St. Paul Law Firm of White Plains, NY.

Kehl’s so-called agreement of 41 years might be described as a “no-bid contract” if there actually was a contract. There is not. In response to a Freedom of Information request by Talk of the Sound, school officials admitted in December that there is no record of a contract between the District or School Board with either KKS or BSK.

The School Board Clerk provided years worth of letters signed by Kehl going back to 1999 asking the District to extend his agreement and board resolutions that describe extending his agreement but no actual agreement.

The New Rochelle Board of Education will make it official next Tuesday.

In its statement, a District spokesperson said the board anticipates retaining the law firm of Ingerman Smith LLP to provide legal services for the City School District of New Rochelle at its Jan. 22 special meeting.

With offices in Harrison and Hauppauge, N.Y., Ingerman Smith boasts decades of experience. The firm specializes in providing legal services for school districts, including several in Westchester County.

The Board of Education meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Linda E. Kelly Theater of New Rochelle High School, immediately before the 7 p.m. Town Hall meeting. Ingerman Smith’s service with the District would begin immediately.

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