Everyday Math: How Many Quail Does it Take to Fill a Union Leader?

Last Updated: Friday, Feb. 18, 2011, 8:00AM

Updated  LINKS as of Feb. 18:
The UFT official thrown out of an Albany restaurant says portion size wasn’t the issue. (Daily News)
NYC EDUCATOR : What Your COPE Dollars Buy

The UFT is not having a good day. Officials are having difficulty COPING after it was revealed that they used COPE funds to pay - or rather try not to pay- for a $40 price fix meal for 3 tables full of union officials plus drinks (lots) that totaled almost $2000. Picky, picky, picky. I see what Egan was doing - creating a big stir as an excuse not to pay the bill and saddle member contributions to the political action fund with the cost. The guy is brilliant. Reminds me of the movie "Victor, Victoria" where they were too poor to eat but carried along a cockroach to release as a way to skip out on the bill.

City union officials were ejected from an Albany restaurant after contesting their check. (Daily News)

The UFT official thrown out of an Albany restaurant complained about its bad service. (Daily Politics)

The official, Paul Egan, was implicated in a cheating scandal as a teacher in 2000. (DN, Post)

Our sources tell us that Egan will be punished by forcing him to go on a quail hunt and must bring back enough quail to feed the entire Executive Board at their next meeting. Honestly Paul, I only ordered quail once and after I saw that little bony bird I said "never again." It cost about $22 and I could have eaten 10 of them and not feel filled. Stick to the mashed potatoes.

A Daily News editorial - which would hammer the UFT if it were run by Mother Theresa, did come up with some info:

On Monday, Egan led a delegation of 24 - count them, 24 - union reps on an Albany lobbying blitz. Then the big guy treated his troops to dinner at Marché, a restaurant in a boutique hotel near the Capitol. This was no Applebee's. No, it was expense-account heaven with a $40 prix fixe menu. Egan had the quail. Of course he did. But then he didn't like the quail. He thought the quail a disappointingly small bird, apparently having missed the part of the curriculum where one might learn that quail is, well, a small bird.

Let's change the math question: How many quail does it take to fill 24 UFT officials - probably make quail extinct.

And then there was this "insider" comment. I know all the people referred to but let's keep this Peyton Place clean.

BRENDAN BEHAN said...

FROM TODAY'S DAILY NEWS: The issue is not “Tubby” Egan or his mashed potatoes- it’s his chronic drinking and outbursts that UFT president Michael Mul-Dew has overlooked for too long because Egan protects the son of an ousted Mul-Dew/Weingarten crony-one of the top five officials in the union- who was caught taking kickbacks from a local hotel while making his subordinate have sex with him. Egan also protects a do-nothing woman who Randi Weingarten promoted even though she is totally useless but is “very close” to key male legislators. “Very” close. Egan has a history of getting soused at union weekends and in restaurants where he is known for chowing down, then whining that the “portion” was too small. Lobbying legislators? Teachers who attend the UFT dog and pony show called “Lobby Day” get up at 5 A.M, travel to Albany on a bus, get a box lunch and a bag of pretzels and come back the same night. Unlike the Mul-Dew flunkies, they don’t get to spend two nights in Albany, eat three or four meals a day and put their Egan-sized bar bill on their UFT padded expense sheets which sleazoids like Weingarten/Mul-Dew bully David Hickey ($220,000 per year) overlook. Lobbying? Why does it take 12 UFT political hacks-all tied into the Mul-Dew Unity Cult Caucus ----to lobby when there are only three people: Silver, Skelos and Cuomo who make the real decisions? The Daily News should check the bar tabs of other top Mul-Dew butt lickers who get paid $170,000 and up with unlimited food and drink and travel and parking budgets, all signed by Mul-Dew sycophant LeRoy Barr. A [UFT top oficial] drank so much at a UFT weekend in Princeton in October 2009, that she was running around the dance floor hugging everyone and saying “I love you.” She had to be carried back to her room and it was only 9 p.m. UFT members would freak out if they could see Mul-Dew’s bar bill disguised as “union business.” He gets just as nasty as Egan but hides it better- his hangover days are spent in tirades against his staff and covering up for Bloomberg as he throws the contract out the window. He is more pathetic than Egan.

Then came this news:
Principal of union-run charter school resigns mid-year

by Anna Phillips

After several years of mixed reviews and a decision by its authorizer to give it an abbreviated charter, a charter school run by the city’s teachers union is losing its principal.
Sources close to the school said that Danny Wilcox, the principal of the United Federation of Teachers’ secondary charter school is stepping down. Wilcox, who would not comment on his departure, is the third principal to leave the secondary school since it opened in 2005.  More

Hey, guess who the first principal let go from this school, which just happens to be housed - co-located - invading - George Gershwin middle school where I was in the first 3 year graduating class in 1959? No less than the son of Unity hacker Peter Goodman who blogs as Ed in the Apple. I thought that would have been an interesting factoid for the article, especially since Gotham likes to link to UFT shill Goodman so often. There's some more interesting info about the school but I ain't goin' there.

Oy vey. I'm starting to feel sorry for these guys.

Afterburn:
Mona Davids asked Gotham to do a story on her corrupt charter school but so far no dice. Here is her comment at Gotham:

Hey Anna,
As I mentioned to you last Friday, can you do a story on my charter, Equality, where the principal was fired two weeks ago. Our school has extremely low test scores (majority of kids failed the state tests), high teacher turnover, high student attrition, high board turnover, cronyism, nepotism and mismanagement.
Oh, and the fact that the school notified 8th grade parents, 3 days to the high school applications deadline that they’re no longer going to high school. Leaving parents to scrambe to find any school for their kids. I think my charter is a bigger story than the UFT charter story especially considering it’s in it’s second year and worse than Ross Global and East NY Prep put together. Like the aforementioned schools, we’re DoE authorized.
Follow the money at my school and get answers to why the principal was abruptly fired by the board.
Best,
Mona