To pick a school committee

Tuesday referendum gives city voters opportunity for first time since 2011 to restore the School Committee as an elected body

WOONSOCKET — An oddly-timed midsummer referendum Tuesday will give voters an opportunity to restore the School Committee as an elective body for the first time since 2011.

The referendum comes just six years after voters decided to trash School Committee elections in favor of seating members by appoint- ment – a system that’s gotten bogged down in political disagreements between Mayor Lisa Badelli-Hunt and the City Council.

With the administrative and legislative branches unable to come to terms on who should serve, the School Committee has been operating with just four of five spots filled for more than half a year.

“That’s a linchpin,” said School Committee Vice Chairman Paul Bourget. “If we can’t have a full committee because the mayor doesn’t have candidates that can be ratified, that means if someone doesn’t show up we don’t have a quorum. That’s a problem. That means the committee’s business doesn’t get done.”

Bourget says he and two other current or former members are showing how much they support the conversion to elections by preparing

to run for school board seats if the referendum passes. Bourget says he, Chairman Soren Seale and former Vice Chairman Donald Burke are planning to become candidates for school committee, along with lawyer Lynn Bouvier Kapiskas, chairwoman of the Special Education Local Advisory Committee. She was one of the early and most vocal advocates for returning to an elective school committee after the impasse over appointments developed late last year.

It was a dispute over the reappointment of Burke that brought the issue to a head. A seasoned educator who’s worked in Massachusetts public schools for some 40 years, Burke enjoyed robust support from parents, administrators and his colleagues on the board, but not Baldelli-Hunt. The council demanded she submit his name for another term, but the mayor wouldn’t budge.

Bourget says Burke was being punished for his perceived disloyalty to the mayor on the issue of Barry Field. The fissure opened after Baldelli-Hunt filed a lawsuit aimed at lifting restrictions on the deed to Barry Field, paving the way for the commercial redevelopment of the 22acre recreational parcel.

The lawsuit said the School Committee had waived its control over the parcel, even though it hadn’t. The panel knew nothing about the Superior Court action until it was reported by The Call, at which point the entire school committee wrote the mayor a letter indicating members would not endorse the plan – at least not without discussing it first.

Now Bourget says other members of the School Committee fear they won’t be reappointed, either, when their terms are up.

“When Don Burke was not reappointed it became clear to us that mayor was expecting a certain level of loyalty from her appointed members and we should have delivered Barry Field to her,” said Bourget. “If you demand that kind of loyalty it became clear the mayor isn’t expecting us to be independent or provide the best education for the children at the affordable cost, but to do what she wants. That’s too much power.”

But Baldell-Hunt flatly rejects Bourget’s analysis, saying her choices are driven by who she believes can support the administration’s policies for sustaining the best educational programs in a fiscally responsible way.

“The reality is – and it’s unfortunate, Paul Bourget is a person who has inserted politics into the appointive school committee,” Baldelli-Hunt says.

Bourget is the father-in-law of Council Vice President Jon Brien, the mayor points out, portraying Brien as a “disruptive” presence on the council and, like Bourget, an advocate for the appointive school committee.

Baldelli-Hunt remains a strong supporter of the appointive school committee, a system she says has been instrumental in restoring the Woonsocket Education Department to fiscal health. The city switched to appointments in 2013 because poor oversight of the WED’s finances and a siloed relationship between the WED and City Hall helped open a fiscal hole of some $10 million in school finances – a deficit that nearly pushed the city into bankrupcty.

Under an appointive school committee, those deficits have been replaced by surpluses, and the WED works more like an ally of City Hall, the mayor argues.

“I am a strong supporter of the appointive school committee, and I will be voting to keep it,” the mayor says. “It enables you to have more contact and develop better relationships with the school department. You get rid of the ‘them’ and you replace it with ‘us.’”

A ‘yes’ on the question at the polls Tuesday means a voter supports switching to the appointive school committee. Here is the precise wording that will appear on the ballot:

“Shall the City of Woonsocket Home Rule Charter, Chapter XIV, entitled, ‘Department of Education,’ be amended to provide for a five-person school committee of which members are to be elected by the qualified electors of the City for a term of two years, or until a successor is duly appointed?”

While the mayor will be voting ‘no’, many pundits see broad support for the measure. Even Councilwoman Melissa Murray – who doesn’t often side with the council bloc that championed the referendum – says she’ll be voting in favor of switching back to elections.

“I’ve always been in favor of an elective body,” she says. “I just feel that for a body of that importance, parents, teachers, taxpayers – the should have a say in who is going to have a seat at the table.”

But Murray still has some technical concerns about the timing of the referendum. She thinks it should have been on the general election ballot in November.

The issue deserves more attention from voters – and candidates – than it’s likely to get in late July, says Murray.

If the referendum passes, candidates for school committee will file declaration papers Aug. 22-23, and pick up nomination forms on Aug. 29. The forms will have to be returned with 100 voter signatures by Sept. 4.

Candidates will run on the same ballot as state and local aspirants for elective office, on Nov. 6.

“I’m worried about the turnout for this referendum,” said Murray. “People are on vacation and should this pass it’s a shorter period of time for candidates to be able to run. I’m worried not enough people will know there is an opportunity to run for these positions.”