Cosmo Valente

MARLBOROUGH -- Hoping to win a fourth term on the School Committee, 74-year-old Cosmo Valente says he's committed to education because he cares deeply about children.

"My concern is that the children get the very best quality education," Valente said."I've always supported those things that included a budget that would best service the children."

For 35 years, Valente worked for the school district as director of music.He retired in 1990 and a year later, won a seat on the School Committee.

Yet the 12-year committee veteran has been criticized throughout the campaign, and during past elections, for not taking part in candidates' debates and refusing to be interviewed for a possible endorsement by The Daily News.

Valente says all the negative talk doesn't bother him at all.He knows what he stands for and thinks debates are unnecessary.

"Early on with the debates, I didn't like the format," he said."I still don't particularly like parts of the format.My real feeling is that it's good exposure for someone who isn't known.It gives them a chance to get in front of the public.But for someone who's known and who's been around in the community, it doesn't serve any purpose."

On top of that, Valente says he doesn't need to be endorsed by any organization, newspaper or publication.

"You sit down with someone for 20 minutes and they make a decision about whether you're capable or not," he said."I really resent that."

Despite what some may see as indifference, Valente says he cares very much about the school system and his post on the committee and would like to keep his seat.

"I've been around long enough, they know where I stand on the issues," he said.
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Valente said going into Tuesday's election, a major concern for him is school space.Unofficial enrollment numbers for this school year, released this week, show that Marlborough brought in an additional 116 more students that the projected 40.

"The enrollment keeps going up and they're not stopping building," Valente said of apartment complexs and homes that continue to sprout throughout the city and in neighboring towns.

His six years in the city's middle and high schools forged the platform for his campaign, and Valente, whose father, Cosmo Valente, was then a school music director, said officials knew of his arrest when they hired him.

Valente's probation stemmed from a 1985 traffic stop in Leominster that led to him being charged with cocaine possession and operating a car under the influence of drugs.He was 28 at the time.

In an interview yesterday, Valente said the situation in no way impaired his teaching career, and has no bearing on his qualifications as a School Committee member or council candidate.He said he plans to hold both positions if elected to the council Tuesday.

"I've spent all this time trying to be a good person, to be a good businessman, to make the community a better place," Valente said."Beyond that one problem, people know who I am and what I've done."

The Daily News found Valente's arrest record during research into candidates on the Nov. 4 city election ballot.

According to court records, in March 1985 Valente was arrested in Leominster and pleaded innocent to charges of cocaine possession and operating under the influence of drugs.

A district judge in Leominster found Valente guilty in January 1986 of cocaine possession, while the OUI charge was continued for a year without a finding.Valente paid about $800 in fines, completed probation successfully and had the OUI charge dismissed.

"I have no criminal record," Valente said, disputing that the possession charge ended up as a conviction.However, a Leominster court clerk said yesterday that the guilty finding on the possession charge was considered a conviction.

Valente said he got into an accident that night but was not taking drugs.Although he was alone in his own car, he said the cocaine was not his, he did not use it, and he does not know for certain who put it in the car.

"It was not what it appears to be," he said.

When asked if he was using drugs during that period, he said, "That was 20 years ago.Those were bad times back then."But he declined to answer when he had last taken illegal drugs, if ever.

"Don't ask me that question," he said.Later in the interview, he declined a second time."I'm not going to answer that.God, it was a lifetime ago," he said.

Valente said, however, that he has never been under the influence of drugs or alcohol while on school property, while participating in School Committee meetings and other official events, or while driving.Until fairly recently, he had owned and operated a limousine company.He now runs his own entertainment agency.He is married and has six children.

"Everybody who knows me knows I don't drink," Valente said.

In the early 1980s, Valente taught three years at the private Hillside School, though he had yet to earn a bachelor's degree.When he joined the public schools, Marlborough officials gave him high marks for his teaching, he said, and encouraged him to get his degree from Framingham State College so he could remain on staff.

Valente went on to earn a bachelor's degree from Framingham State and a master's in education from Fitchburg State.

When Valente became a Marlborough music teacher, his father, Cosmo Valente, was the district's music director.Cosmo Valente, who retired as a district employee in 1990, has served on the School Committee for 12 years.He is up for re-election Tuesday.

Both father and son said yesterday it was the superintendent at the time, and not Cosmo Valente, who pushed for his son's hiring.

"He did me a favor," Cosmo Valente said of his son."We had an illness in the music department and he came in to cover that and stayed with us until he went into the private sector."

As music director Cosmo Valente was not in a position to hire any music teachers.That was the administration's duty, he said.

Valente said the district knew about his conviction and probation when it hired him.

"I think they were aware of it," he said.He said he was pretty sure he told officials of the situation.If not, he said, the rumor mill would have filled them in. "It was news back then."

Yesterday, Superintendent Rose Marie Boniface said she did not know Valente had a police record and said she cannot speak to the Marlborough School Department's policies of 1986.Today, the school system performs extensive background checks required by state law, she said.