For nearly four hours Monday night, one passionate, upset and confused person after another –administrators, parents, and even tearful students themselves – paraded in front of a microphone at the Hudson County Board of Chosen Freeholders meeting to plead with the freeholders to consider a resolution to amend the 2010 Hudson County budget in order keep the athletic programs at the Hudson County Schools of Technology alive.
The Hudson County Schools of Technology are a set of competitive countywide public schools that are open to applicants from any town in Hudson County. These students can attend either High Tech High School in North Bergen or County Prep in Jersey City instead of their own local high school.
But starting next year, they probably won’t be able to play sports at the schools.
“When I was locked up, I didn’t like anything, except basketball.” Ivan Torres
________
Sources also said that some of the mayors were miffed because the county teams drew talented athletes away from the individual high school teams.
The money’s there
On Monday night, the Board of Freeholders voted down a proposal, drawn up by Freeholder Bill O’Dea, that would have called for $300,000 of the proposed county budget to be earmarked for athletics and for adult education.
O’Dea devised an amended budget that would have sliced funding from other anticipated county expenses, like the Department of Corrections, and put the money in a separate line item that would be set aside for athletics ($150,000) and adult education ($150,000).
But O’Dea’s plan was dashed when six of the freeholders voted against changing the budget. Only O’Dea and fellow Jersey City freeholder Eliu Rivera voted in favor of the resolution.
“This is like going to war with the other elected officials,” said Freeholder Jose Munoz. “This is the wrong way to do things. It’s going to end all diplomacy with the mayors because they’re going to say no.”
“I don’t like this war,” O’Dea said. “But we didn’t start this war. We need to show that we support the idea of having athletic programs at these schools. I know that there will be fallout over this, but this is only the first step and we have to make sure we do the right thing. We have more than 400 young people who are going to be punished for the sins of one or two people.”
O’Dea was referring to a recent allegation that a county coach recruited a student athlete away from a public school to join his team.
Frustrated parents speak out
The evening started with an emotional address from Mike Rooney, the Jersey City basketball legend who has been the athletic director at County Prep, but received a pink slip a few months ago as a precursor to the budget cuts.
“When our kids leave County Prep, they’re ready for life,” Rooney said. “They get a chance to go to the next level. When I came to County Prep, it was a small school, and now we’ve won 59 championships. We were the little school who went on to take on the big guys. It’s a sad day for me, because we might be throwing the next Hall of Famer to the streets.”
Parent Joanne Agresti of Union City wanted to know why there wasn’t a better plan instituted before it was too late.
“Everyone seems to be so supportive, but nothing ever changes,” Agresti said. “No one has ever addressed the issue. How could we let weeks go by without the parents even being spoken to?”
Fellow parent Lynn Russo asked if the vote was already decided before the meeting.
“Are we spinning our wheels here?” Russo said. “Are we wasting our time? Our kids were told in school that this was a done deal, that nothing was going to change. Well, if it’s a done deal, then you people are making fools of the parents, the students, and everyone here. We’re good people who are willing to fight the good fight. We just want to know who we’re fighting with.”
Another parent, Pete Rivera of Jersey City, wanted the opportunity to see if the parents could raise the necessary funds themselves to keep the programs afloat.
“There are a lot of parents who said that they would work hard to raise the money,” Rivera said. “So just give us that chance.”
“It’s our money and our taxes,” Robert Harari of Hoboken said. “We want to live here and continue to send our kids to school here.”
Harari also made the point that several administrators at the Schools of Technology receive six-figure salaries, and there was never any thought of slicing those salaries to keep the athletic programs operating.
Students emotional
When the time came for the students to speak, then the emotions ran very high.
Ivan Torres is a junior at County Prep who plays basketball. He spoke of his troubled past, which included an arrest three years ago for carrying a concealed weapon. At 15, he was headed to the Hudson County Youth House for his detention. He already had flunked out of St. Anthony’s and Ferris.
“When I was locked up, I didn’t like anything, except basketball,” Torres said. “Basketball is now my life. I once chose the streets, but now, I chose basketball, because it’s what I wanted to do. I’ve chosen to go a different route.”
Altheresa Foster is now a student at Spellman College in Georgia, but the Jersey City native went to High Tech, where she played basketball and softball.
“High Tech gave me the chance to have a new family,” Foster said. “They were my support system. I took those people to college with me. If I didn’t play sports, I wouldn’t have them as my family.”
The High Tech softball team, which recently won the first-ever Hudson County Tournament championship, presented T-shirts to the freeholders, signifying the Lasercats’ county crown.
But it was all for naught, as the resolution was voted down.
The parents in attendance vowed to keep fighting. They planned to head to the Schools of Technology board meeting later this week to discuss the possibility of raising the necessary funds themselves.
County budget passes: $463M
Meanwhile, the freeholders voted 6-2 to pass the county’s annual budget at the meeting. The $463.3 million spending plan includes a $269.3 million tax levy, up 4.8 percent from last year.
Taxpayers in each Hudson County town pay quarterly property taxes that are determined by three budgets: The county budget, the town budget, and the town’s school budget.
The new county budget will raise taxes slightly for taxpayers in several towns, including Hoboken. In some, like Secaucus, where assessed property values did not rise enough, it will not cause a tax increase.
Jim Hague can be reached at OGSMAR@aol.com.