Congratulations to the Henry Hudson Regional Board of Education on its reorganization this week and its enthusiasm for continuing to represent taxpayers in both municipalities in providing education for the pre-K through 12 student population.
Board member Rebecca Wells said it right when she noted that while the board president elected for the upcoming year is from Highlands, it’s a sign of members from both towns working well together with the election of Atlantic Highlands resident Kim Kozic being elected vice-president. With regionalization with Sea Bright still a question to be decided by voters, it’s great to see this body working together to get things done. Congrats also to Rich Colangelo for his term; it couldn’t have been easy to be the first president of a brand new board and to set direction for its future.
Congrats also to the board administrator for anticipating questions and finding right responses. It seems when a board member nominates someone for an office, it isn’t necessary to have a second to the motion; at the meeting, candidates were nominated for both offices but with and without a second, and the administrator said her research showed either way was proper.
And Atlantic Highlands resident Mark Fisher was at it again, this time protecting safety for property and personnel as the dedicated firefighter he is. He got assurance when asking whether regulations prohibiting parking in fire zones would be enforced this year. It was attendees at a meeting last year that noted that a vehicle which apparently belonged to a paid contractor was parked in a fire zone; at this meeting, Fisher noted there were several vehicles that were parked illegally and given the few persons in attendance at the meeting, it appeared the violations were either by employees, contractors, or at least folks arriving very early for the meeting.
But on the good news side, I Join that with the mayors of Highlands, Atlantic Highlands and Sea Bright getting together over lunch or whatever, and seemingly working well together to come up with the pay schedule each town will pay to continue the education in the district. It’s hard to see how Highlands and Atlantic Highlands taxpayers can continue to pay the millions of dollars for education of such a relatively small group of students without the help of another borough. Sea Bright’s millions coming in could well help keep the school district very similar to what it is now; looking at Middletown’s problems and soaring taxes for education in their schools and the need to either tear down or pay millions to renovate old schools, especially one so close to both the bay shore towns in Navesink, and looking at how new state law is calling for larger regional districts, it’s looking more and more like this charming regional district could well be swallowed up as Middletown East if this board and towns don’t take action and let the people decide.
Not so pleasant, and certainly apparently not aware of the Bill of Rights of the United States, was the stand-in at the Henry Hudson organization meeting for its regular attorney, Metuchen Mayor Jonathan Busch.
After the meeting was ended, when a journalist went up to the newly elected board president, and after congratulating her, asked what she is thinking about regionalization, the representative, presuming she is an attorney, quickly jumped in and told the journalist she can’t ask a question after a meeting. It was only after the questioner reminded the woman that Highlands where the meeting was held is a part of the United States and 250 years ago a lot of fine men fought to give us all the right to free speech, that she changed her story and said the board member doesn’t have to answer. Good she knew that right is also guaranteed by being in a free country. But the taxpayers still pay for her appearance and her opinions at a public meeting.
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