It’s very easy to see why Sea Bright’s Charlie Rooney is so frustrated with school boards that yesterday he posted this giant sign on the front of his house on Ocean Avenue.

To know Charlie Rooney first of all is to know the love and dedication he has for his town and everyone who is fortunate to live in it. Charlie comes from a long line of Sea Bright-devotees, his Dad being the most popular Mayor ever, even before Charlie himself was elected to be on Council. 

Here’s a man who works tirelessly for whatever he feels, after research, study, and proofs, he believes is the very best for the people of Sea Bright.  Charlie Rooney and Sea Bright are synonymous and Sea Bright can take pride and comfort in that.

But his sign went up because of the recent absolute total waste of taxpayers’ money on two school boards continuing to challenge what was made into law two years ago. Going to the New Jersey Supreme Court after being shot down three times by the Appellate Court does not look like a wise expenditure of a few thousand dollars more.

NEW JERSEY — Could New Jersey one day soon be consolidating more school districts?

The concept is definitely on the horizon, as last week Gov. Phil Murphy signed this Senate bill that provides funding for school districts to study consolidation.

The bill, which is now signed into law, specifically establishes a grant program to reimburse New Jersey districts for costs they incur doing “regionalization feasibility studies.” The bill also gives financial incentives to school districts that choose regionalization.

That’s the lead on a story from 2022.

Henry Hudson Regional wanted to be the first to accomplish this. They did, but not with any great savings. Heck, when it comes down to it, all Hudson really did was take the three schools in the two towns that had been under a single superintendent as three different school boards, and combine them into one.

A wise one, economic to a degree, and sensible, something that should have been done 50 years ago. But it doesn’t bring any more money into the mix to relieve the taxpayers, because it didn’t “ADD” any new district.

Bringing Sea Bright in would, and it’s been shown many times that $2 million would be added to help offset the tax rate in both of those towns if Sea Bright were added. Still, for some still unknown reason, this current interim, unelected school board stalls and spends money and listens to paid employees  who should be spending time on educating, not money,  rather than let the people decide on whether it’s a good idea.

Not wonder Charlie Rooney is frustrated by all of this.   Don’t know what’s happening with Oceanport and Shore Regional, but certainly open the first elected board of the new Henry Hudson Regional district pays heed….and is open and honest…with the taxpayers.

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Oceanport and Shore Regional school districts have put the New Jersey Supreme Court on notice they plan to challenge the latest of the three decisions Appellate Courts have made upholding Sea Bright’s attempts to become part of the Henry Hudson Regional School District.

“This is a terrible waste of taxpayers’ money,” said Kerri Wright, an attorney with the Porzio firm representing Sea Bright. “What is worse, they are using Sea Bright taxpayers’ money to continue this fight.”

Sea Bright taxpayers are paying their attorney, the Porzio firm, to represent them to enable the question of regionalization to be a matter for the residents to decide by a public referendum, at the same time, paying those same attorneys to represent them in the legal actions Oceanport and Shore Regional districts are lodging attempting to prevent the residents from voting on the right to decide where their want their children to be educated.

News came Tuesday, the day after the deadline the school boards had for filing any action against the Appellate Court’s upholding Sea Bright’s right to let the voters decide if they should leave their current districts and join the newly formed Henry Hudson Regional District in Highlands and Atlantic Highlands.

Shore Regional and Oceanport filed a notice in a joint petition requesting the state Supreme Court, the highest court in the state, to review the Appellate Court certification earlier this month. Such a request is rarely heard except under rare circumstances. As an example, the Supreme Court may hear a matter if an Appellate Court had issued its final decision by a divided vote. In the case of the Sea Bright matter, the Appellate Court, in its 34-page decision, was unanimous Sea Bright had the right to put the matter to its voters to decide.

While it is not yet determined if the Supreme Court would hear the matter, it would most likely be several months before a decision is reached if they did.

But the arguments of Oceanport and Shore Regional are more severely limited at this level. They cannot introduce any new evidence, nor can they argue anything other than citations the Appellate Court gave in handing down its unanimous decision. Their arguments are also limited to fewer pages than earlier appeals.

“Not only is this putting a heavy tax burden on residents of all three towns, “ Wright said, “ it is depriving the people of Sea Bright the right to make their own choice on how and where they want their students educated.”

It has not been reported when either of the two boards of education at Shore Regional and Oceanport met in executive session to discuss their intended actions , nor if they held announced open meetings, either jointly or combined, in order vote to approve taking their matter to the highest court in the state.

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It’s Only Taxpayer Money

Let’s hope that Shore Regional and Oceanport Boards of Education finally admit that not once, not twice, but three times the court has told them their appeal of Sea Bright’s desire to join Henry Hudson Regional School district isn’t going anyplace,. At the very least, they should at least explain to their taxpayers why it’s so important to spend more than $200,000 in the last two years simply to tell the judges they don’t like their decision.

And that goes without even asking what it is costing Sea Bright, not only to share part of the bills these lawyers are charging all three of those two municipal taxpayers, but also even more to pay their own attorney to defend their position!. The irony of it all is Sea Bright, who simply wants a better education at a better price for their kids, has to finance both sides of this too-often fought fight that is simply delaying a vote to let the taxpayers of these towns have the right to make their own decision.

Let’s remember Sea Bright only made its request to join Henry Hudson after the Legislature introduced and passed a law that was designed to specifically allow towns like Sea Bright to do exactly what they have been trying to do for a few years now.

With it taking so long to get responses for OPRA requests for specific bills and payments for specific reasons like regionalization, it isn’t easy to provide readers with all the information.

But even with only some of the figures, the numbers are staggering for local residents. Oceanport’s bills for their attorney simply for regionalization, not any other work she does, totaled more than $116,000 between February of 2022 and last September. Add that to Shore Regional’s bills for the past one year of more than $80,000, and it all adds up to the attorneys are making out well while the residents are continuing to be deprived of their right to make a decision they want.

To put it in another perspective, one bill for Shore Regional from October of two years ago was for $18,715. That was the month after another bill for $12,500. Most months for the past two years run between $2,000 and $7,000 a month. …just for the regionalization battle. Lawyers got thousands more for all the other jobs they did in addition to the regionalization fees.

That’s in addition to Oceanport. Over two years, those taxpayers paid $143,000 for general services, they only paid legal bills for special education totaling $14,000. Yet they paid $116,377.30 to continue their fight rather than accept the judgement, wisdom and decision of the Appellate Courts.

Isn’t it time to quit fighting judicial decisions and let the law that was designed to make regionalization of towns like Sea Bright an easy and wise choice take its course?

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