Dear Group Members:
This is a relatively "short" report on last night's BOE
meeting from a Board member who does not speak for the Board.
The four and a half hour meeting began with a public hearing on the
re-financing (legal term "refunding") of all of the outstanding bonds
we have been paying for. That includes the 1997 $2,000,000. bond
issue and the year 2000 $1.3 million dollar bond issues as well as
outstanding bonds from 1989 and 1994 (which involved the construction
of the Bradley School). The current rate is 5.6% and the new rate
will be between 3.5 and 4 %. Refinancing a total of $8.5 million in
bonds at the new rate saves approximately $60,000. per year for ten
years.
Barbara Lesinski and I spoke of the commitment made to the
people of Asbury Park when the 1997 and 2000 bonds promised not only a
refurbished stadium but three separate ball fields (including a
separate Little League field). Savings from the re-fi should first go
to complete the promises made a decade ago. That was also the message
from the members of the public who spoke at the hearing, including
Danny McKee, the President of the Little League. The state "monitor"
was even chastised by my neighbor and longtime teacher, Esther Kelso,
who said "Stop harassing the Little League!" The "monitor" took that
opportunity to say that he had been misunderstood, and that he never
said the Little League could not remain at its present location. (Two
words come to mind: Bull-ony). After the public hearing, the BOE
unanimously voted to re-finance the bonds.
The High School principal, Mr. Tyler Blackmore, then gave us an
exciting presentation his plans to re-organize the high school and its
faculty and student body into three separate "academies" for the 10th,
11th, and 12th graders. The first will be the Entrepreneurship,
Business, and Technology Academy, the second "Humanities and Fine
Arts" , and the third "Medical, Science, and Engineering." Instead of
traditional departments, there will be cross-curriculum teams of
teachers for these themed academies.
A closed session was held so that the BOE could discuss the
status of talks with the Little League being represented by attorney
Tom DeSeno, with whom a one-hour conference call was held earlier in
the day. Without breaching the confidence of the closed session, it
is safe to say that the controversy is now moving in the right
direction.
The BOE meeting resumed with a public comment session on agenda
items. The first order of business after that was to appoint a new
interim School Business Administrator/Board Secretary. Mr. James
Cummings was appointed to that position at $600 per day. The vote was
8-1. He will not be required to attend BOE meetings, hence the reason
for my no vote.
Another vote of note was the vote to inform the suspended
Superintendent, Dr. Lewis, that the BOE did not intend to renew his
contract. Under the law, a superintendent must be told in the
penultimate year of his contract (in this case the 3rd year of a 4
year contract) that the Board does not intend to renew, or else the
contract is automatically renewed for the same perios of time (!) The
vote to inform Dr. Lewis that this Board did not intend to renew his
contract was 7 yes, one abstention (Mrs. Sanders) and one "no"
(Garrett Giberson).
We also voted to acknowledge the results of a state investigation
into allegations of "Grade interference" by an administrator. The
state found evidence that special ed laws were violated and that the
BOE had to come up with a corrective action plan to remedy same.
The Business Department's agenda was approved. However, I again
asked that the legal bills be separated. I had asked that we be given
a separate accounting for the amount of money spent thus far on the
Little League controversy. No such accounting was given. The total
legal bill for November alone was about $39,000. The vote was 8-1 to
approve the legal bills. I voted "no" for the above reason.
Towards the end of the meeting, the BOE went into closed session
again. When we emerged, there was a unanimous vote to engage with the
AP Education Association on a plan to offer a "separation" agreement,
which may encourage a voluntary reduction in the teaching staff since
future funding by the state may not allow us to maintain the same
number of faculty members.
The meeting ended at 11:35 PM.
Frank D'Alessandro
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