A resolution about the timing of school board elections caused two council members to walk out of a City Council meeting on Wednesday night, meaning the meeting could not be held, since not enough members were left for a quorum.
Four council members remained sitting on the dais: Michael Russo, Theresa Castellano, Tim Occhipinti, and Beth Mason – all opponents of Mayor Dawn Zimmer.
The brouhaha took place when the four council members proposed a resolution regarding a recent change in state law allowing cities to move their annual school board elections from April to November. The proposed resolution was meant to put a potential change on the public ballot so the voters could decide in a referendum.
“The school board isn’t the council’s little sister.” – Councilwoman Carol Marsh
____________
It is believed that the local school board, controlled by Kids First (allies of Zimmer), will broach the topic at the next meeting in hopes of moving elections to November.
Zimmer and her allies appeal to the newcomer crowd in Hoboken, who often vote in November in major elections and not as often in May or April for solely municipal elections.
Just before the meeting began on Wednesday, Occhipinti distributed a resolution, sponsored by Castellano, to put the issue of school board elections on the public ballot. Once council members Peter Cunningham and Carol Marsh – allies of the mayor – saw the resolution and realized they would be in the council minority, since the council’s three other pro-Zimmer members were absent, they quickly slipped out of City Hall.
Council members Ravi Bhalla, David Mello, and Jennifer Giattino were not at the meeting. Cunningham, moments before he left, said he was battling the flu. Marsh was in the mayor’s office for Zimmer’s open office hours, but took the elevator to the basement, bypassing where the meeting was being held.
On Thursday, Marsh said she left because of other reasons in addition to the Board of Education resolution.
She said she wasn’t sure what else the anti-Zimmer members, who would be in the majority at that meeting, would have done at a meeting. Currently, there are two Zoning Board seats that need to be filled by the council. The appointments can be made by a simple council majority vote, meaning the mayor’s opponents could have put people on the municipal board on Wednesday if there was a meeting. Marsh also said she doesn’t believe the council should vote on the Board of Education elections, and the choice should be the school board’s.
“The school board isn’t the council’s little sister,” Marsh said. “They are a body of their own.”
But Russo, who spoke on the microphone to blast his absent council colleagues after the meeting was called off, said he didn’t know that Zimmer’s allies would be absent.
“The intention was never to introduce it because they weren’t at the meeting,” Russo said in an interview on Thursday. “Their not being there was an added bonus – we thought we might be able to get something passed.”
Zimmer’s office released a statement that another council meeting will be held on Feb. 8. Occhipinti said he will bring the resolution back.
Bhalla, the council president and an attorney, said Wednesday night that he was absent from the meeting because he was caught working on a big legal case.
Bhalla called tacking the resolution onto the agenda at the last minute a “political stunt.”
Russo reacted to Bhalla’s statement on Thursday.
“He didn’t show up and he calls it a political stunt,” Russo said. “A political stunt is running out of the room when you don’t have the votes so there won’t be a meeting. That’s a political stunt.”
Russo said he thinks Cunningham and Marsh should forfeit their pay for the meeting. Council people make approximately $24,000 per year.
Councilwoman Theresa Castellano, another Zimmer opponent, also blasted her colleagues.
“They took the cowardly way out,” Castellano said Wednesday night.
She and the other anti-Zimmer voting bloc stood by the message that the people should decide when elections should be held.
Zimmer’s allies have already tried to move the annual mayor and council elections from May to November, but rescinded the move after 4,000 people signed a petition to have the issue placed onto the ballot.
Would it have meant anything?
The resolution to be put forth on Wednesday states, “The City Council declares that it will not take any action on its own initiative to move the Hoboken Board of Education election from April to November, but rather, will place an appropriate referendum on the November 2012 General Election ballot so that voters may determine whether future Hoboken Board of Education elections should be held either in April or November.”
But the city’s legal team charged that the resolution would not have changed anything, as a measure to put any matter onto the public ballot has to come in the form of an ordinance, voted on at two meetings.
And according to the state legislation, the only action that can be taken by the council would be to move the elections to November. Otherwise, the elections remain in April.
“They know what the law is,” Zimmer said on Friday. “The council minority was just playing politics…[Marsh and Cunningham] did the right thing. They saw through the games that were being played. The bigger question is why did the council minority put this forward at the last minute without any public notice for discussion?”
The mayor said the city’s legal team confirmed that the resolution “would have meant nothing.”
What does the Board of Education think of all this?
The Board of Education’s decision has been dragged into the overall, sometimes volatile, Hoboken political scene. The board is also politicized on some issues, but is usually less controversial than the City Council.
Rose Marie Markle, the Board of Education president and member of the Kids First slate, said the issue of moving elections would be discussed in a Governance Committee meeting on Wednesday.
“We’ll bring it to committee this week and decide if it will be on the agenda [on Feb. 14],” Markle said on Thursday. “I support [moving elections] because there are a lot of people who don’t vote in April.”
However, moving the elections to November would strip the right of the public to vote on the annual school budget if it does not increase by more than 2 percent.
Frances Rhodes-Kearns, who is in the minority on the school board, said she would like the issue to be placed on the ballot.
She said, “I do think in November we’ll get more voters, but ultimately it should be a decision by the public.”
Theresa Minutillo, the board vice president and Kids First member, said she has heard from her constituents that they want elections moved to November.
“Over 140 boards in New Jersey have moved their elections,” Minutillo said. “I’ve been stopped on the street numerous times. People do want to talk about it. I haven’t been told by people to not move them.”
Ruth McAllister, another board member allied with Kids First, said she will withhold comment until the meeting.
“I’m glad that the council doesn’t appear to be taking it upon themselves to make a decision on the move,” McAllister said, adding that she believes the board should make the final decision.
Political observers expect harsh comments to be exchanged, instead of love notes, for the Valentine’s Day school board meeting.
Ray Smith may be reached at RSmith@hudsonreporter.com