Why Are New Jerseyans Barred From Hearing From Some Of Their Elected Leaders About Matters Of Public Concern?

New Jersey Monitor

November 25, 2025

That’s the question at the heart of a new lawsuit filed by a school board member out of Alloway in Salem County who is facing ethics charges because she asked constituents on Facebook what they thought of a potential school tax hike.

“As a resident of Alloway, I am wondering what other residents think about a 9-15% school tax increase?” reads one post from the school board member, Gail Nazarene.

“My personal opinion is 3.3% is the max I can afford,” reads part of another.

Pretty milquetoast, if you ask me, especially if you consider the tons of AI slop and nasty political rants you can find on Facebook at any given moment. But they were enough to trigger an ethics investigation, with one of Nazarene’s colleagues filing a complaint with the state School Ethics Commission that says Nazarene’s posts violate the state School Ethics Act. The complaint, from Alloway school board member Sara Cobb, says Nazarene’s Facebook posts reference potential tax hikes that “were not formally reviewed, adopted, or confirmed by the Board.”

“The publication of these figures created confusion and concern among members of the public, and conveyed the impression that Ms. Nazarene was speaking on behalf of the Board without authorization,” it reads.

Cobb also took issue with another Facebook post where Nazarene asked, “I am ASKING this FOR MYSELF NOT the board. What if taxes went up 20% is that a number you will except (sic)?” Cobb wrote that this and other posts “appear to use the prestige of her Board membership to promote a specific budgetary narrative, potentially undermining official communications from the Board or administration.”

You know that old canard “you can’t shout fire in a crowded theater”? Apparently, New Jersey’s version is you can’t potentially undermine the Alloway school district’s communications department.

There’s no state law that explicitly bars school board members from speaking to the public, of course. But the School Ethics Commission has interpreted the School Ethics Act in a way that school board members risk violating it if they discuss any school matters with members of the public, even if they offer disclaimers that they are speaking for themselves as private citizens and even if the issue in question has yet to come before their school board but could at some point in the future. Even posting a link to public information — with no additional commentary — would not immunize a school board member from an ethics investigation, the commission says.

Indeed, the commission has reprimanded school board members for things like writing opinion pieces endorsing other school board candidates or posting on Facebook about school overcrowding.

Nazarene’s lawyer, Daniel Zahn, said the state’s interpretation of the School Ethics Act plainly violates the First Amendment. Zahn sounded mystified that state bureaucrats would want to limit the type of communication elected officials have with their constituents.

“It seems that for democracy to thrive we should be encouraging posts such as these that are engaging with constituents, asking them questions, respecting different viewpoints, and for the state to threaten sanctions for this type of respectful, powerful communication between elected officials and their constituents not only damages the First Amendment and free speech values, but also damages democracy and broader American values,” Zahn told me.

Anthony “Skip” Cimino has some thoughts on this. Cimino represented the 14th Legislative District in the Assembly from 1988 to 1992, and he sponsored the School Ethics Act. Cimino told me he thinks the commission has interpreted the law incorrectly in Nazarene’s case.

“The act was really geared toward dealing with conflicts of interest and, quite frankly, people of ill repute doing things inappropriately,” he said.

Nazarene is an elected official who should have the right to talk to her constituents about school matters without violating the School Ethics Act, he added.

I am not opposed to strong ethics laws. But this is New Jersey. Not too long ago we had a sitting U.S. senator issue a public threat to anyone who dared challenge him at the ballot box. Last year, a state senator told an obvious lie to drum up support for a bill to gut our public records law. The members of our Legislature voted to give themselves gigantic pay raises with almost zero public input or debate. Yet there’s a very real chance a school board member will get an official reprimand from the state for asking people on Facebook what they think about tax increases. This is asinine.

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