School Board to Hold Special Meeting to Fill Empty Seat

A special meeting of the Lawrence Township Board of Education will be held this afternoon, Tuesday, May 29, for the purpose of filling a vacant seat on the school board.

The meeting will begin at 5:30 p.m. at the school district’s administration building at 2565 Princeton Pike.

Prior to the meeting, members of the school board are scheduled to tour the program at the Eggerts Crossing Village apartment complex on Johnson Avenue.  

Three township residents – Murali S. Aiyar, Tamara Pommells-Boone and Clifford W. Snedeker Jr. – submitted formal “letters of interest” by the May 21 deadline to be considered for the open seat.

The vacancy is an unexpired term with two years remaining. Joshua Wilson – one of three candidates in the running for the seat – received the most votes.

But in the days leading up to the election, Wilson notified the school district and local media outlets via email that he wished to withdraw from the election due to “an unforeseen personal obligation.” Because he did not withdraw from the race by the March 5 deadline set by the state, however, his name remained on the April 17 ballot.

On April 19, Wilson submitted to the school board a formal letter declining the seat. Even though Wilson officially declined the position, the seat does not automatically go to the runner-up in the April 17 election.

Instead, by law, the school board must appoint someone to fill the seat until the next election in April 2013, when voters can choose someone to serve the remaining year of the term.

That appointment will take place during tonight’s public meeting, after each of the three candidates has been interviewed by the board.

Aiyar, a resident of Port Mercer Road who works as director of clinical data management for Ephicacy Corp., served on the school board from July 2011 through April of this year after he was appointed to fill a previous unexpired term. He ran in this year’s election, but lost to Wilson.

Pommells-Boone, a Denow Road resident who holds multiple psychology and education degrees from Rutgers and Rider universities, works as a mental health clinician for the University of Medicine & Dentistry of New Jersey and as a clinician supervisor for Holistic Behavioral Solutions.

Snedeker, a graduate of Lawrence High School and Westminster College who lives on Irwin Place, worked for the New Jersey Department of Military and Veterans Affairs for nearly 30 years.

For Background, See:

• May 7: “School Board Seeking Candidates for Open Board Seat”
• April 27: “”
• April 23: ""
• April 18: ""
• April 16: “”
• April 12: “”
• Feb. 29: “”