A seat on the Bayonne Board of Education has become the hottest ticket in town, with 16 residents vying for two openings on the nine-member board after two board members recently stepped down.
The resignations of Agnes Rymer and Patrick Conaghan in January have spurred an avalanche of submissions for the two seats now open. All applications, with resumes, had to be submitted by Feb. 18, according to Board of Education Secretary Dr. Gary Maita.
The applicants include community activists Michael Alonso and John Cupo, former Third Ward councilman Raymond Greaves, former councilwoman Mary Jane Desmond, and former at large council candidate John Sebik. Alonso and the Bayonne School Board Choice group were part of the movement to adopt an elected board.
The board is currently composed of President William Lawson, Vice President Ava Mitchell, Theodore Garelick, Mikel Lawandy, Michael Masone, Patrick O’Donnell, and Christopher Piechocki.
Maita would not release the names of the other candidates unless Lawson gave his approval. Lawson did not return a call from the Bayonne Community News seeking those names and the criteria for appointment. Mitchell could not be reached by telephone on those matters either.
The board is entering unchartered territory in its process to fill the two unexpired seats, since the changeover to an elected board will be completed with this November’s elections.
“The openings have always been appointed by the mayor,” Maita said. “This is kind of new to us.”
The Bayonne Board of Education is following the lead of the town of West New York, which changed from an appointed to an elected board last year.
“They were all great resumes. There are 16 good candidates.” – Dr. Gary Maita
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The board revised a bylaw at its Jan. 29 meeting to expedite the process of filling the two open seats, according to Maita. An advertisement was placed for applicants and a board subcommittee of four members was formed to handle the process.
By Feb. 19, 10 of the candidates were interviewed for 10 minutes each, Maita said. The other six were left voicemails to set up their interviews.
Board members were sent packets over the weekend regarding the candidates.
Other interviews will take place on Wednesday, Feb. 25. At the public meeting on the night of Feb. 26, final decisions will be made after each candidate is given two minutes to speak.
Maita said the board has the choice of making the decision on the two seats right at that moment, or going back into closed session. Either way, once the majority of the board votes for two people to fill the seats, they will be sworn in and become members immediately. Maita will then notify the county superintendent of the new board members.
“They were all great resumes. There are 16 good candidates,” Maita said. “I think it was great to see that many. It’s nice to see the people are concerned and interested.”
Maita added that having 16 qualified people would make it difficult for the board to choose the two, but said that it was “a nice problem to have.”
Maita said that the two new appointments will run only through the end of the year. When the first board election is held on Nov. 3, the three seats due up for election, plus these two, will be voted on.
Since Mayor James Davis took office on July 1 last year, three members of the board have resigned their positions. Daniel Bonner was the first, and Davis replaced him with Piechocki, since the city still had an appointed board at that time. That changed in November, when residents overwhelmingly voted for a measure to switch to an elected board.
The Board of Education’s next organizational meeting will be held in January of next year.
Joseph Passantino may be reached at JoePass@hudsonreporter.com.To comment on this story online visit www.hudsonreporter.com.