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One of the biggest issues discussed Wednesday night was whether the current Middletown school board is transparent with town residents. MIDDLETOWN, NJ — On Wednesday night, the Monmouth County League of Women Voters held a forum for the seven candidates running for the Middletown school board. The forum lasted for 1 hour, 30 minutes and you can watch it here: https://lwvmonmouth.org/vid98.... All candidates participated except for Joe Fitzgerald, who said he declined to participate because of, as he said, the League's "partisan stances and their history of attacking conservatives." (Fitzgerald's entire statement as to why he did not participate is at the bottom of this article.) The League of Women Voters moderator said "unfortunately, he could not be with us this evening." During the Q&A Wednesday night, the candidates were asked a number of questions submitted by the public, including how they would improve transparency and communication with the community; what their thoughts are on redistricting and how they would address Middletown's budget crisis (earlier this year, a majority of the current BOE approved a 10.1 percent school tax increase, and the district said it has a $10-million budget deficit.) The first question submitted from the public was: "The budget seems to be a contentious issue in Middletown, a 10 percent increase last year. How would you address this financial challenge today?" "The 10 percent increase was a failure of oversight over the course of the years ... this was completely avoidable," candidate James Dobis answered, in part. "There's no reason that there should have been a last-minute deal to have to decide at 5 p.m. that there was gonna be a vote at 7 p.m. to close schools. The fiscal cliff should have been recognized." "If I'm elected, we're gonna start digging into some of these contracts, some of these consulting contracts that they're sending RFPS out for," Dobis continued. "We're spending tens of thousands of dollars in order to do things that maybe the administration could do. We're gonna have to look into the size of our administration and other areas to reign costs in." Said Chris Aveta: "There were other alternatives. When you first heard, it was going to be around 5.88 percent. Then they said OK, let's apply to the state to go up to 10.1 percent and then all of a sudden there was a vote and they went right to 10 percent ... So, rightfully so, the community is very upset by this ... All's we got was a huge increase with nothing to show for it, and maybe another one coming next year." James Cody's answer was similar: He said when he was on the board he was on the Middletown school board, he was aware of the budget starting in January. "So I don't know how this board is saying (in March) they were blindsided. I think all's it was was a money grab," said Cody. "Because we did have talk about 5.88 percent ... and then it came back and said they were $700,000 short ... and they came out with the 10.1 percent because they were able to." "And we'll get elected and go in there and find out exactly what happened." "Le'ts be honest: The 10.1-percent was completely unnecessary," said Sarah Weinstein (She, Aveta and Cody are running together as a slate). "We did not need to increase it that much for the county to approve the proposal ... It was stated in the meeting that more money is more money, and that's always a great thing, but we are still going to listen to whatever this third-party study has to say regarding school closures. But nobody wanted to listen to that comment. Instead, there was a lot of yelling and screaming and people were pushed to vote for a 10.1-percent increase that didn't do anything except for burden our taxpayers and our fellow neighbors that don't even have children in the schools." Leonora Lacqua-Caminiti is currently on the Board. She was one of the board members who voted for the 10.1 percent tax increase, as did Fitzgerald. On Wednesday night, Lacqua-Caminiti said she and the rest of the BOE were kept in the dark by BOE leaderships Board president Frank Capone and Board vice president Jacqueline Tobacco). "I sit on the board. I was one of the people who voted for the 10 percent increase," she said. "It's nice when board leadership brings you into the fold. There was no discussion on what was happening with our board. It was thrown at us the night we went out to vote on the budget." "What would I do differently? I would have forced myself into that room to make sure that we are all there as a board representing the taxpayers," said candidate Erin Torres. "It is not acceptable that we have people who are gatekeeping and keeping this information to a closed circle rather than the full Board of Education." In that vein, one of the biggest issues discussed Wednesday night was whether the current Middletown school board is completely transparent with residents of the town. Torres vowed she would "end the closed-door meetings" on the Middletown school board. Torres also said the BOE president should publish a president's report to inform the entire town about what is going on with the school district, including policies, building maintenance, the budget and contracts the district is giving out. Cody similarly called for the Board of Ed. to put out a newsletter once a month. Lacqua-Caminiti said the Board should respond to members of the public when they ask questions at meetings. "If we can respond, we need to respond to them. It should be an open dialogue," she said Wednesday night. Dobis commended Lacqua-Caminiti for asking that workshop meetings and committee as a whole meetings be brought back. (Lacqua-Caminiti and board member Joan Minnuies have been asking for several months now to bring these meetings back.) "It allows for greater transparency," said Dobis. There was then a dispute over whether minutes from all Board committee meetings are accessible to the public. This started at minute 45:51. Lacqua-Caminiti said all committee meetings are required to have recorded minutes, but "We have not been doing that recently," she said. Cody then said: "I don't know that any committee meetings don't have minutes, and they would be shared with the whole board. So if that has changed, then that would be something that I would demand should come back." "Mr. Cody, the rule hasn't changed, but it hasn't been followed," said Torres. "There are specific committees that have met. There have been OPRA requests, and there have not been minutes for the meetings that we know have been had ... Right now, there is no trust that whatever we are getting are even full minutes ... because we know meetings have happened that we have no record of." Weinstein countered that the minutes from committee meetings are indeed available. "They're available; you just have to read them," Weinstein said, to which Torres shook her head and said "not true," and Weinstein replied "yes, it is." Again, you can watch the whole forum here: https://lwvmonmouth.org/vid98.... Middletown Election 2025: Vote Early In Person This Week, All The Candidate Profiles Here is Fitzgerald's full statement on what he did not participate in the Oct. 29 forum:
