Judge Adalberto Jordan
U.S. District Courthouse 8th Floor
301 N. Miami Avenue
Miami, FL 33128
Dear Judge Jordan:
In the matter of sentencing Pat Tornillo, I would like to share with you some thoughts on leadership and voluntary or elected service to a constituency. Honesty is the chief element here. If a representative does not represent, this is dishonesty.
In my lifetime I have been a Union founder; its President; A Faculty Adviser to an honorary educational fraternity); a member of a choir that sings without recompense and the elected President of the Condominium in which I live. I also voluntarily record textbooks on Disks for people who are blind or dyslexic – without pay. I drive miles to get to the facility. I have walked a picket line to demand the right for teachers in the city of Newark to unionize. I have been on strike at Monmouth College to protest efforts to kill the union. All of these activities were performed without taking a penny in pay. I have also been a keen observer of the service performed by exemplary leaders of unions.
Aside from the adulation and near deification of David Dubinsky, he was an honest and clean union president in New York City. Albert Shanker, President of the UFT and instrumental as leader in the New York City Teachers Union lived parsimoniously and never took a dime. He lived on his pay as a teacher and as that Union’s President. There are many, many more examples of elected and voluntary leaders who do not plunder the resources of the people they represent.
Mr. Tornillo is a shame and disgrace to the Teaching profession and to the members of unions everywhere.
As a founder of the Education Honorary Society where I taught for many years, I served in many capacities. When I was asked to be the Faculty Adviser, I did so and was able to see how the organization had grown. I also was able to see how the new leadership had abused its powers and misused the Society’s funds. They dined lavishly at meetings and urged me to choose the most expensive dishes. I also was privy to the ways in which they used the Society’s money for their own purposes – not on the scale of Mr. Tornillo – but in a way that demeaned them and all such leadership. They were not ashamed by my observation that they were not honest and were unafraid when I left them enjoying their spoils.
Mr. Tornillo deserves more than a slap on the wrist. He stole monies from his union to spend on himself. He pleads for special justice for himself in a bargain made by our system. You have a book, throw it at him. To do less would shame your function in dispensing justice.
Sincerely yours,
Aaron H. Schectman Unpaid President of 7th Moorings Condominium Assoc., Inc.