Superior Court Judge Maurice J. Gallipoli ordered Wednesday that Hoboken School Board candidate Douglas Peterson be removed from the ballot for the April 18 Board of Education election, but not before he chided board secretary David Anthony from making “a total mess” of the balloting process.
Meanwhile, the lawyer and the candidates for one ticket charged that Anthony, a former president of the Board of Education, used his relatively new position of board sectary to give an “unlawful advantage” to the candidates on Frank Raia’s “Putting Children First” ticket, which is supported by Mayor David Roberts.
Some observers charged that Anthony may have helped Raia’s ticket because Raia helped him get the paid job on the board staff, while Anthony denied this.
Meanwhile, in a related saga, there are also questions about what inspired former candidate Douglas Petersen drop out of the race, for the second time in three years.
The election In the upcoming April 18 school board race, six candidates are running for three unpaid seats on the nine-member school board.
A ticket backed by Mayor David Roberts includes board member and real estate developer Frank Raia, board member Wanda Santana-Alicea, and Police Captain Anthony Romano.
Opposing them is a self-proclaimed reform ticket called “Kids First,” including school activist Theresa Minutillo, accountant William Tobias, and former board member Carrie Gilliard.
Until a month ago, the field also contained independent resident Peterson, as well as other prospective candidates who dropped out for various reasons.
Some usually withdraw In February, 11 candidates turned in signed petitions to run for the board. It’s not unusual in Hoboken for candidates to make political agreements to drop out.
Before the March 8, ballot drawing four candidates had already dropped out of the race. That left two tickets and Peterson.
Peterson’s inclusion added an interesting political dynamic. Peterson, as an paid employee of Department of Human Services, reports directly to Carmelo Garcia, the director of Human Services and president of the Board of Education. Garcia and Peterson are also close personal friends.
While Garcia has been Roberts’ political ally for years now, there have been recent signs of cracks in that relationship. In recent testimony before the state School Ethics Board, Garcia accused Roberts trying to exert undue influence Board of Education.
Additionally, Garcia has had some very public personal and political confrontations at Board of Education meetings with Raia, who is now on the team supported by the mayor.
Over the past several weeks, there have been rumors that Garcia, who can produce a sizable number of votes in the election, would steer his supporters to vote for Peterson and Alicea and away from voting for Raia.
So it would be advantageous for Raia if Peterson is not to be in the election.
March off the ballot Then, at some point, Peterson dropped out.
Peterson said Thursday that he wrote the letter announcing his withdrawal on March 9, but didn’t make up his mind on whether to officially drop out until around March 15.
It was that day that he spoke with Anthony and Raia about the procedure for dropping out of the race, he said. The letter of withdrawal that Peterson had written was submitted to Anthony, and was signed by Frank Raia as a witness. It was stamped with a date of March 15.
It’s somewhat unusual situation for a candidate for elected office to sign as a witness for another candidate’s withdrawal.
The fact that Raia and Anthony, together, talked to Peterson about the withdrawal procedure and the fact that Raia signed the withdrawal letter has led some to question Anthony’s independence in this matter.
Anthony denied that Raia put any type of pressure on Peterson to leave the race. He added that he would help any candidate, regardless of political affiliation.
Anthony added that Raia just happened to be at the Board of Education office when Peterson turned in his letter. He said that “to protect” Peterson, they needed someone to sign as a witness.
Too late? Peterson said he was told that all he had to do was give Anthony the letter he would “take care of everything.” But as it turned out, Anthony did not have the authority to unilaterally withdraw candidates after the ballot positions were drawn.
According to state statute, “Any candidate may withdraw as a candidate in a school election by filing a notice in writing, signed by the candidate, of such withdrawal with the secretary of the Board of Education before the 44th day before the date of the election.”
But in this case, Peterson’s letter was time stamped by Anthony on March 15, which was several days past that deadline.
The ballot positions had already been drawn and other candidates had already printed up promotional materials to advertise their ballot positions.
And in a further step that was later called into question, Anthony independently certified a new ballot. On March 22, Anthony sent a letter to Hudson County Clerk Javier Inclan asking him to approve the certification.
“Historically speaking, it’s not usual for candidates to drop out] for whatever reason before the election,” Anthony reasoned Wednesday. “Going on past protocol it is up to either the board secretary or the county clerk [to remove them].”
He said that candidates have withdrawn at this late of a date in past years and “nobody objected.”
“All I was trying to do was keep things simple and be fair for the candidate and for the voters,” he added, saying he consulted the board’s attorney at every step.
Accusations about Anthony and Garcia There are some who believe that Anthony expedited getting Peterson off the ballot as political support for Raia. Carmelo Garcia, who was high critical of Anthony’s hiring from the beginning, said that he was concerned that Anthony would politicize what is supposed to be a non-partisan position.
“For the last 20 years, we had a board secretary who was impartial and did his job,” Garcia said. “Now, in his first big test, [Anthony] fell short.”
But is Garcia free from such conflicts? Several sources close the Board of Education said that Peterson “was sequestered” in Garcia’s office on March 8 doing work, which would have been the last day he could withdraw without incident.
Lawsuit heard “Kids First” candidates Gilliard and Tobias also submitted a letter to Inclan on March 23 to protest Anthony’s attempt to take Peterson off the ballot without a court order. They argued in the letter that Peterson has missed the deadline.
“We are particularly disturbed by the circumstances apparently surrounding the rumors of withdrawal and the reports of partisan involvement by the board secretary,” Gilliard and Tobias’ letter reads.
They also claim that they have spent $2,500 for professional leaflets and newspaper ads with their ballot positions.
They filed a lawsuit in New Jersey Superior Court against Anthony and the Board of Education.
In court On Wednesday morning, a gaggle of lawyers went before Judge Gallipoli to sort out the twisted situation. Gallipoli was not happy with the conflagration over something as simple as ballot positions.
He said Anthony made a “total mess” and that the situation was “muddled by absolute nonsense.”
The bulk of the discussion centered over when Peterson could withdraw from the election without getting a court order.
Steven Kleinman of the firm of Scarinci & Hollenbeck, the lawyer for the Board of Education and for Anthony, said that their position was that the board secretary could pull candidates off of the ballot up until the time the sample ballots were printed and mailed out. He added that forcing candidates to get a court order could discourage people from running from office, because withdrawal could mean spending money on a lawyer.
Hudson County Clerk Javier Inclan said that it is his experience that if the statutory deadline has passed the candidate should receive a court order to withdraw.
George Somers, the lawyer for the Kids First slate, argued that state statute and case law dictates that candidates have to withdraw before 44 days before the election. If they don’t, they have to get a court order.
He also accused Anthony of telling associates of Raia’s ticket about the new ballot positions before the changes were certified.
Somers said that the Anthony certified the new positions at about 4 p.m. on Friday March 24, and that by the morning of March 25, campaign workers for Raia’s ticket were already handing out color flyers with the new ballot positions.
“This raises the question of whether this was secretly disclosed before March 24, and whether this gave an unfair advantage to one slate of candidates over another,” Somers said.
Anthony denied that he told the Raia camp before he told the other candidates. He said that the proof was that in that weekend’s Hoboken Reporter there was a Raia ticket campaign ad that still had the old ballot positions.
The judge rules After some heated discussion, Gallipoli ruled that, without a court order, Peterson would have had to remain on the ballot. The judge then swore in Peterson, who was in attendance. Under oath, Peterson told the judge of his wish to withdraw. Gallipoli then ordered that Peterson be allowed out of the election.
Peterson said Thursday that he also blames Anthony for fouling up the balloting process.
“Basically everything that transpired was because of lack of planning and lack of knowledge,” Peterson said Thursday. “My position is that things should have been handled in a straightforward way, and should have been done by the book. In this case, nothing was done by the book.”
Peterson said he dropped out for personal reasons. The upshot That left a problem in that both slates had printed up flyers with different ballot positions on them.
Gallipoli ruled, based solely on economic grounds, that Peterson space should be eliminated and the each of the candidates would be moved up a spot.
To compensate the Kids First ticket, the judge ordered the Board of Education to pay them $800 so they could print up new literature.
Anthony said that – without admitting guilt – he would personally reimburse the Board of Education the $800, so that the money “is not taken away from the children.”
Minutillo said they will donate $800 to the Hoboken High School student government.
Send them on their way To conclude the eventful hearing, a clearly upset Gallipoli said that he was not happy with the “mess that [Anthony] has created here.”
“If this is what is done to make this simple, I would hate to see what complex is,” the judge said, referencing Anthony’s defense that he originally pulled Peterson off the ballot to make things simple and fair.
The judge then gave a stern warning.
“This won’t happen again,” Gallipoli said.
Peterson’s history of withdrawing This isn’t the first time that Peterson withdrew from a school board election late in the process amid accusation of political deal-making.
In 2003, he turned in his petitions to run for the Board of Education, but withdrew just weeks before the election. About that time, he was hired by the city’s Recreation Department. Rumors of a political deal were so loud that Peterson wrote a letter to the editor of the Hoboken Reporter to explain.
In his letter, he said that he could better serve “Hoboken’s youth by coordinating and overseeing programs that will have an immediate impact in the coming years” in the Recreation Department.
Peterson said Thursday morning that there “absolutely no quid pro quo” and that he “did not get offered anything” to drop out of the election.
“I just felt like this wasn’t the right time,” Peterson said. “Next year is my year, and I will run then no matter what.”