ORANGE, NJ — Although Tuesday, Jan. 31, was the deadline for the Orange Board of Education to add a referendum to the special election ballot on Tuesday, March 14, asking city voters for permission to bond for the $2.5 million that Board of Education President Cristina Mateo said is needed to perform much-needed capital improvements at public schools across the district, no action was taken.
Attorney Stephen Edelstein, of Schwarz, Simon, Edelstein & Celso Law Firm in Whippany, was hired by the BOE at a special meeting Monday, Jan. 23, to file a legal injunction seeking to stop the changeover from a Type 1 board format, in which board members are appointed by the mayor, to a Type 2 format, in which board members are directly elected by voters. Orange voters chose to make the change in the Nov. 8, 2016 election. Edelstein took no action to block the change by Jan. 31.
However, David Saenz, press secretary for the state Department of Education, did confirm the BOE had filed paperwork regarding the upcoming special election and the ongoing changeover from an appointed board to an elected board.
“It was filed with the NJDOE on Friday, Feb. 3,” Saenz said in an email Tuesday, Feb. 7. “The NJDOE mailed it to the Office of Administrative Law yesterday, Monday, Feb. 6. The (Office of Administrative Law) will schedule an emergent relief hearing with an administrative law judge, and the (administrative law judge) will issue an order for the New Jersey Education Commissioner to review. Upon receiving that order … the commissioner has 45 days to issue a decision.”
According to a copy of the petition Edelson filed with the NJDOE on Feb. 3 from the Orange City Clerk’s Office by the Record-Transcript, Edelstein filed a petition on behalf of the BOE to have the Nov. 8 vote on Public Question No. 1 declared “null and void,” saying the referendum had been executed “improperly … and was so procedurally and substantively flawed, brought about consequences unknown to the public and even unknown to the council, and has such direct and negative impact on the capital needs of the district, that it must be declared null and void.”
Edelstein continued, “An election for two board members, scheduled for March 14, 2017, to increase the size of the board from seven to nine, is inconsistent with the express language of the referendum. This election should be cancelled, pending the disposition of this petition, and the commissioner should issue an appropriate injunction to do so.”
“I have been told that the Orange Board of Education chose to or did not submit the appropriate documentation in order to have the wishes of the Orange voters honored, i.e. an election for Board of Education members,” Tom Puryear, president of the Oranges-Maplewood NAACP and a member of the state NAACP Education Committee, said Wednesday, Feb. 1, in an email to Mayor Dwayne Warren.
“So at this time, there will not be a Board of Education election in March. Municipal politics and fiscal matters are at the foundation of the mess that city finds itself enmeshed. What happens next will make some lawyer firms richer! When will children become the priority?”
Puryear said he was planning to contact other legal minds regarding the matter.
“It would appear that the BOE’s responsibility is to follow the mandate of the voters,” Puryear said Tuesday, Feb. 7. “And it would appear that there is still an opportunity for an election to be conducted, if the BOE does what is required by statute. However, the response from the New Jersey School Boards Association does not address who enforces the mandate given to the BOE. It appears that the wishes of the voters is still on hold.”
Mayor Dwayne Warren, an attorney, said, “Perhaps we should leave the explanations to the attorneys assigned to the case to provide an update and an explanation,” on Saturday, Feb. 4. “The vigilance exhibited here should have been on the front end, before any vote was taken and any public question was considered. The advice and guidance of counsel at that point would have obviated the need for this exchange. I urge you to resist the terse comments and wait until the legal documents are appropriately filed and served.”
Janice Morrell, a former Zoning Board member and 2016 mayoral candidate, disagreed with Warren’s assertions, saying she thinks his administration has been involved with every action the BOE has taken to seemingly thwart the will of city voters who voted to change over to an elected board.
According to Derrick Henry, who is running for one of the two seats on the BOE in the special election schedule for Tuesday, Feb. 7, “If the office of Admin Law at the NJDOE runs up against those 45 days, the will of the voters is challenged regarding its empowerment, because the board’s counsel is legally stalling to postpone voters choosing an elected board,” said. “At this point, regardless of where the BOE and Edelstein firm file, it is evidently clear they are not exercising the will of the people, which leaves us no alternative but to fight by any means necessary, because now they’re messing with our rights.”
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