Blind Brook Blogger Will Run for Seat on Board of Education

A Blind Brook blogger and parent who has been critical of the district’s spending is now running for a seat on the Board of Education.

Jeff Diamond, a 20-year resident of Rye Brook who runs the “, officially will announce his candidacy Friday afternoon on his website.

Diamond, who also serves on the district’s Citizen’s Budget Advisory Committee (CBAC), spoke to Patch Thursday night and said he decided to run because serving in a public role will allow him to have a greater impact on how money is spent in the district.

“I really think it would be the best way for me to have an impact on what’s going on. Writing a blog is great and serving on the committee is limited in terms of its impact,” he said. “The authority and decision making power really all lies in the hands of the school board.”

Diamond’s relationship with the Board of Education has grown more contentious in recent months as he has criticized its actions on his blog. He has written many posts about his interactions with the school board in his capacity as a member of the CBAC—a group of residents that gives the board input on matters related to the budget. He has said that the board did not value the committee’s input when it came to issues regarding school spending.

Tensions arose again last week when the school board accused the committee of violating Open Meetings Law because it had planned to hold an additional meeting in one of its member’s office to discuss its recommendations, which it will present to the school board on March 21.

Earlier this year, Diamond even had , a gesture he maintains was prompted by someone who did not like the opinions he expressed on his blog.

Diamond said he isn’t worried about similar incidents happening again. He said his election to the board will benefit the community. 

“I think it would be good for the community to have somebody who has a contrary point of view to what the common thinking has been on the board,” he said.

In recent months, school board members have said that Diamond's blog has been counterproductive to discussions about the school budget. 

When the was proposed in February, school board president Steve Kaplan said  that “blogs that we see in the community are sometimes troublesome.” He also suggested that Diamond was positioning himself to run for a seat on the Board of Education.

Diamond said Thursday his blog and participation with the CBAC were not intended to launch his candidacy. However, he said Rye Brook residents have been “incredibly supportive to me.”

He will be running to fill one of two available seats on the board. Board of Education Vice President Glen Schuster and Lawrence Engle are up for re-election this year. If elected, Diamond will serve a three-year term.

Diamond picked up his petition at the district’s offices earlier this week. He will need 28 signatures from residents and will have to submit the petition to the district’s office by April 18 to put his name on the ballot for the May 17 election. 

He said his campaign platform is not about cutting school spending in a way that will adversely affect programs or services to students. He said residents currently cast an up or down vote for the budget and that they don’t have as much input into what is put into the budget before it is presented. He hopes his candidacy will change that.

Diamond said he wants to build “a sustainable model for educating our students” and that the district needs to begin “making good, thoughtful, financial decisions that will maintain the high quality of education in Blind Brook.” 

“We need to look down the road and come to grips with the financial challenges that we can see and start planning for them today rather than reacting to them year by year,” he added. 

Diamond, who has never run for public office before, hopes to draw on support from residents who agree with many of the things he has advocated, both on his blog and at school board meetings.

“We’ll see whether it was a very vocal minority who likes what I have been saying and advocating or whether it’s representative of the wider community,” he said.