West Mifflin Area School District Superintendent Daniel Castagna denied several of the charges the district has leveled against him, including he hired a known felon to work as a security guard in the district and that he asked school security personnel to conduct surveillance of board members and candidates.
Testifying during an Act 1080 Hearing before the school board on Monday, Mr. Castagna also refuted previous testimony that he asked members of the Sin City Desciples Motorcycle Club to attend a board meeting to intimidate attendees.
The board is holding the hearings under Section 1080 of the Pennsylvania School Code, which allows it to eventually vote to remove him from office - and void any buyout requirements. Mr. Castagna faces a number of accusations — including a 2017 DUI charge in Beaver County — neglect of duties, incompetency and immorality under the Public School Code.
In earlier testimony, Assistant Superintendent Mark Hoover said a man hired by Pittsburgh Protection, the company the district contracts with for security services, worked for three days as a security guard in 2014 before a background check revealed he had a felony murder conviction on his record.
Mr. Castagna testified Monday he has “no involvement” in monitoring clearances for the security guards and the files on the contracted guards were kept in the office of then-director of security Mark Hart. He also testified he had no part in hiring security guards, or district employees. He said the school board hires district employees and the outside security firm hires guards.
“He was never a district employee,” Mr. Castanga said.
He said Pittsburgh Protection performs two of the three clearances and the district does the other one.
Mr. Castagna testified he was at a meeting at the Allegheny Intermediate Unit in 2014 and asked an employee there to check on the clearances of the guard, as they had not come back yet. While at the meeting, Mr. Castagna said he received an email from a district secretary indicating the guard’s background revealed a felony arrest on his report “from over 30 years ago when he was in his 20s.”
Mr. Castagna said he immediately forwarded the email to the district’s solicitor and called him. He also called then-high school principal Philip Woods and told him “to get the guard and wait in his office.”
He testified he then drove back to the high school and talked with the guard, saying he knew the conviction was a long time ago, but he could not work in the district.
“I just explained to him, you can’t work here,” Mr. Castagna said.
Mr. Castagna also testified Monday he didn’t ask Rick White, a member of the Sin City Desciples, to attend board meetings for the purpose of intimidating the attendees. He said Mr. White came to a board meeting in 2015.
“I introduced him, and at the time he explained he wanted to do a coat drive - or as he testified to - a book bag drive,” Mr. Castagna said.
He added Mr. White wanted to partner with the district to do a targeted drive for children living in Duquesne, where Mr. White’s business, the 13/13 club is located. Mr. Castagna said he advised him the district could not do a targeted drive and anything collected would have to be district-wide.
Mr. Castagna said Mr. White approached the district a second time about doing a matching drive for the district’s Duquesne students.
“We didn’t want to have a program for just Duquesne students,” Mr. Castagna said and added he advised Mr. White to approach the Duquesne School District about doing a drive. No coat or book bag drive was done with Mr. White.
Mr. Castagna also denied he conducted surveillance on a school board candidate in 2014.
In previous testimony, Mr. Hart said Mr. Castagna directed him to drive to current board member Nicholas Alexandroff’s house to see whether he was having a “reading party” shortly after he had been provided with information from several Right to Know requests he made to the district.
“He was filing a lot of Right to Know requests - in the 30s I’d say,” Mr. Castanga said of Mr. Alexandroff.
Mr. Castagna said it was his belief there were more people involved in wanting the Right to Know information and “Nick was just doing the dirty work for them.”
“Did you suggest to Mr. Hart to surveil Mr. Alexandroff?” Ms. Johnton asked.
“No,” Mr. Castagna said.
He added Mr. Hart showed him a picture of a black Hyundai Sonata in Mr. Alexandroff’s driveway in 2014 and told him that then-school board candidate Tony DiCenzo was at Mr. Alexandroff’s house going through the Right to Know requests.
“I didn’t know what he drove,” Mr. Castagna said.
Mr. Castagna said Mr. DiCenzo told him he was at a basketball game at the time Mr. Hart took a picture.
Mr. Castagna also defended the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint he filed in 2017 against the school board, stating in the complaint the board discriminated against his Italian heritage and his age.
Ms. Ramage presented exhibits of screen shots of Facebook posts and posts from the Topix website that were disparaging to Mr. Castagna, some of which Mr. Castanga said were posted by school board members.
Earlier this year to put Mr. Castagna on paid administrative leave. In July, the board voted 6-3 to place him on unpaid leave, with Janice Gladden, Judy Andzelik and Judith Ahern voting against the suspension.
Mr. Castagna has filed a federal lawsuit against the district and the six board members who voted to suspend him, saying he had been targeted because he reported wrongdoings by several district employees. A U.S. District magistrate judge on Monday dismissed a motion by the school district to have the lawsuit dismissed.
The 1080 hearing continues at 6:30 p.m. Oct. 29 at West Mifflin Area Middle School.
Deana Carpenter, freelance writer: suburbanliving@post-gazette.com.
First Published: October 23, 2018, 8:44 p.m.