MEET AND GREET
Hamilton School Board revives public-record agenda session meetings in narrow vote >>
HAMILTON >> Township school board members will soon host more public meetings and continue receiving zero compensation for their service.
That’s because the Hamilton Board of Education narrowly voted last month to restore the so-called agenda session, a dialogueintense meeting held under the full committee spotlight.
Beginning in November, the school board will hold an agenda session to discuss district business and a subsequent regular meeting to vote on agenda items.
The school board had historically operated under a system where all nine members would participate in open-public agenda reviews. That changed in 2015 as the board unanimously accepted theninterim superintendent Thomas Ficarra’s recommendation to implement a subcommittee system for agenda review.
The subcommittee system divided the school board into small groups or committees that would each work on different agenda items behind the scenes. Some of the board members, however, grew to dislike the committee system.
Rookie school board member Angelo Hall on Sept. 25 introduced a motion calling for a return to the full committee agenda session.
“I think it’s more beneficial to the board as a whole,” he said, “if we could meet as a full board and discuss all items as a whole board as opposed to separate committees and then having to read minutes from each committee and hope you understand how the discussion was formulated and so on.”
“Right now I feel like a one-third board member,” Hall added. “I feel like I participate in onethird of all of our discussions. I hear about everything else; I read about everything else, but I don’t get to have a full conversation exchange just as we are having now.”
School board members Anthony Celentano, Albert Gayzik, Cameron Cardinale and Dina Thornton supported Hall’s motion to restore the full committee agenda session effective November.
Board members Richard Kanka, Susan Ferrara and Pamela Kelly voted against the motion, while Board President Susan Lombardo abstained from voting.
Thornton, Gayzik and Celentano all supported the committee system in 2015. The three of them, however, also kept open the door for their eventual reconsideration.
“I was on the board when the board decided to move toward the committee system,” Thornton said at the September meeting. “At that time, I will be 100 percent honest, I was a little skeptical.”
Thornton lost re-election in 2016 but returned to the Hamilton Township Board of Education several months ago following the resignation of Jessica Young, a former board member who stepped down in May for personal reasons. Young in February voiced support for the subcommittee system now opposed by her successor Thornton.
“I personally prefer the agenda meeting and the business meeting,” Thornton said at the Sept. 25 board meeting. “That is just my personal opinion. I’ve experienced them both.”
“I’ve been on both ends of this,” Kanka said. “I’ve been on the end where we’ve had the committee, and I’ve been on the end where we’ve had the full board, and sometimes we didn’t get out of here until midnight.”
Known for being timeconsuming, the newly resurrected agenda sessions shall take place in public and may foster a range of discussions between board members and district officials. The meetings also may feature a public comments portion.
When the board previously held agenda sessions, members of the public were allowed to comment on anything, including items not on the agenda.
At the school board’s agenda meeting of Feb. 20, 2013, for example, township residents Connie Silakoski and Steve Cook talked about insurance reform. That meeting began at 7 p.m. and adjourned more than five hours later at 12:26 a.m. following numerous discussions on many issues, meeting minutes show.
At the Sept. 25 board meeting, Ferrara rebuked Celentano and voiced strong opposition to Hall’s motion, according to a recording of the meeting obtained by The Trentonian under the Open Public Records Act.
“I would just like you all to think about the work that we are now going to put on the staff to be in a meeting where the conversations might be neverending,” Ferrara said. “And you know, Mr. Celentano, you are on your way out the door.”
Celentano, who declined to seek re-election this year, took umbrage to Ferrara’s remarks.
“The words you used, ‘Out the door,’ are not appropriate, OK,” he said. “I’m leaving the board because I chose to leave the board. I’ll have a bigger voice when I’m off this board.”
Gayzik has pushed for months to restore the full committee system for agenda review.
At the Feb. 27 school board meeting, Gayzik and Cardinale introduced a motion to eliminate the subcommittee system in favor of a “committee as the whole,” minutes show. The motion called for “two public meetings effective as soon as possible,” and the board voted 3-5 to reject it, with Hall abstaining from the vote and Lombardo voting in the negative.
At the Jan. 7 reorganization meeting, Gayzik and Celentano introduced a motion that would have amended the school board’s meeting schedule to include an agenda session meeting every third Wednesday of the month. The board “tabled” or declined to vote on the motion at that meeting.
With the school board voting last month to restore full committee openpublic agenda sessions, school board candidate Janna Sheiman voiced full approval in public comments. She said the public can get a “better understanding of what’s being done and why it’s being done” if all nine school board members review and discuss the agenda in public prior to a regular session.
Agenda sessions have not always been orderly, Ferrara said.
“At the end of the day, I think there is a move afoot to take control of the district,” Ferrara told The Trentonian on Saturday. “But at the end of the day board members don’t run the district, they make sure the district is run well. I hope that the board president doesn’t allow it to be like it was before.”
“We are all on the same team,” she added. “I don’t want to see it go back to the days where the board is angry and demanding answers.”
Lombardo at the September board meeting said she will meet with Hamilton Superintendent of Schools Scott Rocco to “figure out” how the district is going to implement the newly revived agenda sessions.
“If you need help, give me a buzz,” Celentano said. “I put 35 years into the agenda meetings. I think I have a little experience.”