Frantantoni: BOE Trustees Using Children as a Stepping Stone

Belleville's leading public advocate sounds off on school board trustees abandoning their sworn oaths of office to seek a higher political opportunity on the Belleville Council.

 

 

To the Editor,

They were SO concerned for Belleville’s children and taxpayers.

The list is long. Notari, Longo, Caputo, Pallante, Paserchia, Fuscaldo, Scaperota, Spillane, and others. They all sought seats on the Belleville Board of Education, to “serve the children”. History proves they were acually serving themselves. It was an easy lift to get elected to the Board of Ed, usually requiring less than 1200 votes. These characters used the Board of Ed and the children as a stepping stone to seek higher office, to our Township Council, to a county or state job, and possible appointment to a lucrative state commission. Some, like Notari, left the BOE before his term expired to serve on the Township Council. Others, at least, finished their BOE term.

And now we once again have two opportunists who want to abandon their BOE seat to run for Township Council. Tom Graziano and Liza Lopez have only served a little over a year of their three year term. Accomplishments so far? Raise the Board of Education spending by $6.4 million, and support a bond ordinance of $49 million which will actually cost taxpayers $74 million when the interest is added. Lopez is seeking the Mayoral seat and Graziano is running for Councilman at large. I have attended town meetings for 50 years and I never saw either of these two at a town meeting.

Lopez appears to be tied to a Newark group that is seeking to gain control of our $64.8 million Council budget. Graziano is running with former Councilman Michael Melham who almost destroyed the “Valley” section of Belleville with his monstrous redevelopment plan which would have destroyed many businesses, and relocated many residents with long standing family histories in the Valley. The Valley residents were forced to raise thousands of dollars to defeat Melham’s plan.

If elected, there will be two empty seats on the BOE which will require a special election, costing overburdened taxpayers more tax dollars. In addition, there will be turmoil in our education system as new BOE Trustees will have to get up to speed on the workings of our school system.

For the sake of our children and taxpayers, do not cast a vote for these two. We desperately need stability in our school system. They MUST finish out their term.

 

Vincent J. Frantantoni
129 Mt.Prospect Ave.
Belleville, NJ 07109
973-964-7105
frantan39@aol.com

 

 

 

About Griff 321 Articles
Lee "Griff" Dorry - Founder, watchdog, and public advocate. ♫ They've got strings, but you can see, there are no strings on me. ♫

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