The recent and suspicious fire that wiped out a private fleet of buses that transported hundreds of students from all over Queens to the prestigious Bronx High School of Science may also leave parents burned.
Despite the name, the Bronx Science Bus Service is a privately-held corporation that billed parents more than $2,000 per school year for bus service to-and-from that school and the High School of American Studies at Lehman College, a short distance away.
The company is owned by James Gagnon, who reportedly took over “an ailing minibus company” 35 years ago and turned it into a “niche enterprise.”
However, the company doesn’t own any of the 23 upscale school buses that caught fire from the inside on the night of Thursday, February 19, while parked in a yard at 20-39 129th Street in College Point.
According to Thomas Guida, who “ran day-to-day operations” for the service company, 11 were owned by Gagnon Bus Company, a separate Gagnon-owned corporation.
Guida told The Courier that the other 12 were owned by “one of the managers.” He said that he and three other managers had formed another corporation last November, named Bronx Science Express, after Gagnon announced his intention to retire.
Neither owner had fire insurance on the equipment, Guida said.
It was Guida who was the contact person for parents, according to Phoebe Cooper, Assistant Principal for Organization at Bronx Science. “We had nothing to do with the company – it was strictly between them and the parents,” she said.
“We only got the complaining calls whenever they did something wrong like making an illegal left turn because they had the school name on the bus,” she added.
It was Guida who sent out letters to the parents, advising those who had paid-in-full that they were entitled to a pro-rata 45 percent refund. Although there was a monthly billing plan, prepayment discounts could run as high as $400 according to one parent.
Guida’s letter, as well as an entry on the school’s and parent association’s web site, directed parents to Vallo Transportation, another school bus operator, for service.
According to Vallo president, Linda DeSabato, the overwhelming majority of parents made arrangements with her company within a week of the fire. Some have contracted with them for next year.
“We prepaid Vallo to get a discount,” said Vincent Tabone, a Bronx High parent. “My nephew used Gagnon and had $1,000 on his contract. It’s lost,” he said.
Guida and the other partners in Bronx Science Express may be in a lot worse shape, according to a letter he sent to parents on February 24, five days after the blaze that totaled the fleet.
In the letter, he revealed that for nearly three months, he and the other supervisors had “used personal resources for the day to day expenses of the Service, including fuel, tolls, payroll and bus repairs, parts, and upkeep, terminal rents and back rents.”
Guida claimed in the letter that he and the others were awaiting reimbursement for “over $250,000.”
“We were bled dry and the drivers had a payless payday on February 13,” he said in the letter, suggesting that “an irate driver might have caused the fires,” but pointing out the investigation by the NYPD and Fire Marshals.
Some parents, like Tabone, have already paid Vallo for next year to get the discount.
When asked what kind of shape he and his partners were in going forward, Guida replied tersely, “To be determined.”
