Holden School Committee Member Is Committing Fraud By Lying About Living In Hopkinton To Send Kids To Their Public Schools, Mansion Being Built Has Lien On It For Being Eyesore

 

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Yesterday we published a blog about a Holden School Committee member named Asima Silva, who we discovered owned a $1.5 million home in Hopkinton. If she lived there then she would be committing election fraud by serving on the Wachusett Regional School Committee, which is what we initially thought. But upon further investigation it appears as if she’s actually committing fraud on the town of Hopkinton.

Here’s a message we received from a Hopkinton resident who read our blog and wanted to share information with us about the Silva’s home at 38 Stoney Brook Road:

I live in the subdivision that the Silva’s house is in (still being built). Highland Park. Their house is a hideous behemoth straight out of the Jersey Shore that THEY’RE BUILDING THEMSELVES! Yep, as in her husband and another relative show up every day in their minivan and hammer a nail or two, and come back again the next day, and the next day. It’s been “in construction” for at least 3 years, which is in direct violation of our homeowners’ association covenants (must be completed in 18 months after breaking ground). We’ve put a lien on the house because of this. Another one is about to be served because their property is completely overgrown, which is also in violation of our covenants. They left a crushed port-a-potty in the front yard for months until our board finally threatened them with another one, so they moved it down the driveway. It’s surrounded by beautiful, well taken care of homes valued between $1.5m-$2m. Neighbors are furious. I’m told the last house they built (in Holden) was done so under the same circumstances (built themselves and took years to complete before they actually made it their residence). This one they’re currently working on apparently has an indoor pool. As you’ve seen, it’s nearly 10k square feet.

Here’s the Silva house, purchased in 2018:

Here are other homes in the neighborhood.

Asima lied to me when she said that her husband lives in Hopkinton while she lives in Holden. According to neighbors no one lives in that house (although he goes every day to work on it) so clearly they all still live in Holden. This means she’s not committing fraud upon the town of Holden, but it means she has no desire to stay here and thus no investment in the community.

However, she does appear to be committing fraud upon the town of Hopkinton. Her son was featured in a tweet by a Hopkinton High School teacher just two weeks ago.

I really enjoyed watching Yasiyn take pride in his work as he finalized his inventive light device @HopkintonHS . @LemelsonMIT @LemelsonFdn @NewsHourExtra InvenEd lesson plans. #STEM pic.twitter.com/tTqma4Og4u

— Mr. Scott 🤖 (@mrscottbot) October 7, 2022

So her kids are clearly enrolled in the Hopkinton Public Schools.

While running for School Committee against me in April of 2021 Asima stated that “I’m a mother of 2 children currently in the Wachusett Regional School District.”

Yet this article, published in October of 2021, lists her son as a National Art Honor Society member.

He would not be able to be a member of the honor society in October 2021 if he enrolled in the Hopkinton schools at the beginning of the 2021-22 school year, which means he was a student in Hopkinton the year prior. The same year Asima Silva stated in a debate that her children attend the Wachusett schools. She voted to keep the schools closed because she was afraid of COVID, while sending her children to schools that were open.

Although she lied to voters and clearly has no ethics, it’s not illegal. However, fraud is. Hopkinton does not have school choice, and they have a strict residency requirement policy:

As a member of the Wachusett School Committee Asima Silva voted on a similar policy for this district. Unless we are to believe that her two youngest children rent an apartment and live with their father in Hopkinton, on top of paying 2 other mortgages while Asima sits in Holden all by herself without her kids, then it appears she is defrauding the Hopkinton Public Schools.

I called the Hopkinton Superintendent’s Office today to report this and they are looking into it.

But the question is, how would they get to school every day? Holden is more than half an hour from Hopkinton. But it just so happens that a Hopkinton Middle School teacher named Laura Kirshenbaum is also a Holden representative to the Wachusett School Committee.

Kirshenbaum was one of the leading advocates to close the Holden schools while Hopkinton remained open. When presented with data showing 80% of parents wanted the schools to be open she voted to close them anyway because those parents voted the way they did “under duress.”

“I would like to question the assumption that 80% of our community is choosing hybrid honestly.”

“People chose the hybrid model under duress. There are some people who chose hybrid because they did not see a viable remote plan moving forward.”

We have no evidence that she is giving Asima’s kids a ride to school every day and she has not returned our message looking for comment. What’s also possible is that David Silva, Asima’s husband, drops his kids off at school every day, which is why neighbors see him working on the Hopkinton house on a daily basis.

The bottom line is that Asima Silva serves on the Wachusett School Committee but clearly is not invested in the community or the schools. She hates them so much that she sends her children 40 minutes away to a school district in a community they don’t live in. She ran for re-election in 2021, knowing she had purchased a home in Hopkinton that she was planning on living in. She has not attended a single meeting in person in almost 3 years. She should resign immediately. If she doesn’t expect to see a protest coming to Holden very soon.