Lacey Recall Petition Seeks To Remove Longtime BOE Member

LACEY TOWNSHIP, NJ -The members of a committee seeking to recall a longtime school board member will meet on Thursday with Ocean County Clerk Scott M. Colabella to see if their petition can be certified.

If it is certified, they can begin gathering signatures for the recall, said organizer and committee member Mand Buron.

"I expect the recall petition to be live Friday or Monday the latest," she said.

The recall stems from the controversy over the apparent suspension of two honor students who received in-school suspensions after pictures apparently taken at a offsite gun range were posted on social media.

Board of Education members were advised by Board Attorney Christopher Supsie that they were prohibited from discussing any confidential details involving any students, so they did not address the audience's concerns at the March board meeting.

Supsie said at the meeting that a previous policy dealing with students and guns crafted in 1995 was done with input from the federal Secret Service's Safe School Initiative and the state's Zero Tolerance For guns Act.

The district's policy is being reworked so that it would apply to students who performed a criminal activity, even off-campus, with a gun; possessed an illegal firearm; or brought any firearm onto school property or a school bus. The new version would not involve students who lawfully possess a gun or use a gun off school property, Supsie said.

The recall petition targets longtime board member Linda Downing, since she was on the board when the former policy was formulated.

The two newly elected board members cannot be recalled because they have not served for a full year yet, Buron said.

Board members Robert C. Klaus II and David Silletti will be up for re-election this year.

"...if they choose to seek re-election, so we felt that recalling them would be unnecessary, although we will oppose their reelection campaign as well," Buron said.

Complicating the matter is the requirement that a separate committee of three people must be formed for each candidate to be recalled, she said.

"The only other board member we could have ran a viable recall campaign against was Shawn Giordano, so we thought that in light of the foregoing circumstances it was more appropriate to recall Ms. Downing, as she has played a larger role in the current climate on the board of education," Buron said.

Downing also has a relative employed by the district as does Supsie, whose wife works for the Lacey district, she said.

The taxpayers and parents need board members who are not conflicted so the board can hold the administration to account, Buron said.

"The campaign has been squarely focused on issues of civil rights and due process violations in the high school, but supporters have said that they are supporting the campaign for other reasons, including the mismanaged $19.8 million solar panel project that was the subject of a comptroller’s alert," she said. "Downing is the only member of the board that remains who presided over that project."

Patch will update if and when the recall petition is certified.