ASBURY PARK Increasingly powerless because of deep divisions and a state that
controls essential decisions, the city school board is engaged in a fierce
internal battle over what little control it does have.
For the second time in a week since president Remond Palmer was forced off the
board because of a long ago cocaine conviction, members opposed to Palmer
walked out of a meeting Tuesday night before the opposition could appoint a new
member to preserve that Palmer majority.
As it now stands, the 9-member board has two vacancies and the seven sitting
members split four to three.
The current fight is over filling the vacant seat that had been held by city
Police Sgt. Connie Breech who resigned in June. If the three members opposed to
the Palmer majority can get that seat, it brings the power struggle back to
four against four to fill the last seat vacated by Palmer.
Last week, two members in the minority left before the meeting so there was not
a quorum and the majority could not appoint Qzeena Taylor, a Union Avenue
resident who had never attended a board meeting but was told by Palmer to
attend the meeting.
This week, the meeting got underway but as the majority led by vice president
Geneva Smallwood once again attempted to appoint Taylor to the board, the state
fiscal monitor Lester Richens working in the district said the board had lost
its opportunity to appoint Taylor because 65 days has passed since Breech
resigned. Now, under law, the appointment is in the hands of the executive
county superintendent, Richens said.
Alan Schnirman, the board attorney whom Palmer brought on to fight the
majority's causes this past spring, urged the board members to go ahead and
make the appointment. Otherwise, they could lose that right, he said.
"The law is what the law is but it is always open to interpretation,''
Schnirman said.
As the board majority started to make the appointment, the three opponents
Gregory Hopson, Gregory Brewington and Sheila Brazile all opponents to the
majority, left the meeting and the meeting was over.
Mark
1503 Emory
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