Parents speak out on BOE winner’s residency

BLOOMFIELD, NJ — A group of Bloomfield parents, concerned with the allegation that a winning school board candidate may not have been a township resident for the requisite time, spoke out over the weekend.

The parents were Jen and Ted Gamble; Stephanie Gulley; Satenik Margaryan, Ben Morse, Lauren Fabetti, Meghan Gulczynski and Kim Beese. The group met at the Gamble home on Linden Avenue in the Watsessing section of town.

Morse ran unsuccessfully this past November for the school board, while Ted Gamble won a seat on the township council. The winning board candidate, whose residency qualification was suspected by the group, is Gladys Rivera, of Ampere Parkway.

One thing with which the group did not agree was the characterization, by board member Emily Smith, that the only people who have questioned Rivera’s residency were parents from the Watsessing area.

Smith publicly said the school board received emails from Watsessing parents because they were prompted by BOE member Shane Berger, the board representative to Watsessing Elementary School. Berger, an incumbent BOE member, lost his seat in the November election.

Gulczynski said she had two children attending Berkeley Elementary School.
“I am a concerned parent,” she said. “I don’t need Berger to tell me.”

Gulczynski said she was shocked to learn that Smith signed Rivera’s nominating petition. Rivera’s lack of the necessary residency status to run for office was first alleged by Leo Marin, 15, the son of her landlord during the public hearing portion of the Oct. 18 BOE meeting. Nominating petitions were received by the Essex County Clerk’s Office in July. Margaryan said that Smith had signed the petitions of Rivera and Lillian Mancheno, two winning board candidates who did not want to participate in a candidates debate. The debate was subsequently cancelled because full participation, by the nine candidates running for three three-year seats, was not possible. Parents at the meeting thought that was a mistake.

“Emily is framing it as a political issue,” Morse said.
“She’s suppose to work with us,” Margaryan added.
“We’ll find a lawyer and find another remedy,” Morse said. “Maybe they’re hoping we go away.”

Margaryan said she was not about to go away. Gulley said it was not practical to expect the county board of elections to police everything.

“There’s no clear set of responsibilities,” she said. “Who should verify the qualifications? I would think the school administration should be involved. The board is required to verify if students live in the district but not the candidates?”
“We have a non-resident that potentially will be on the board,” Morse said. “It’s no one’s responsibility. It’s an honor system. How can anyone serve who doesn’t know the issues?”

But Fabetti said there was an awareness of Rivera’s residency qualification at the Oct. 18 board meeting.

Rivera was a virtual unknown to Bloomfield voters but received the second-highest number of votes behind incumbent Jill Fischman, the current board president. The names of the winning candidates were the first ones in the voting booth. Berger, whose name was placed fifth, received the fourth-highest number of votes. The position of names is done by lottery.

Morse said it is up to the school board to verify qualification. He thought making sure the board did that in the future could be an aim of their group.

Concerned parents, Ted Gamble said, have learned something as voters.
“We have to raise awareness,” Gamble said. “It’s a hard lesson to learn now. But in the future we have to get the word out.”

Jen Gamble said the discussion did not paint a favorable picture of the board of education.