Candidate Says he was Booted from Council as Payback

A candidate for the Belleville Board of Education said he was removed from an advisory body in retaliation for criticizing the board during a public meeting.

“I opened up a can of worms with the board,” said Ralph Vellon, who is seeking one of two board of education seats up for election April 27. Also running are incumbents William Freda and Joseph Longo, as well as challenger Eric Schwartz. Schwartz and Vellon support each others’ candidacies.

On Jan. 21, Vellon was appointed to the Belleville Special Education Advisory Council, after being nominated by Belleville Board of Education member Judy Piscatowski. The dormant council was reactivated this year in the wake of revelations that the district’s special education program had been found deficient in several areas. The council, which includes members of the public as well as school officials, is charged with advising the district on special education matters.

Vellon attended the first meeting of the re-formed council in February, according to Vellon and others present at the meeting. A few weeks later, on March 13, Vellon received an email from Patti Dolan, another council member, containing the agenda for the following meeting, which was scheduled for March 15. Vellon showed Patch a copy of the email.

The day after receiving that email, March 14, Vellon attended the Belleville Board of Education meeting at Belleville High School. During public comments, Vellon criticized the board for failing to adhere closely enough to ethical standards, accusing the board in general of being under the sway of “political” influences. In prior interviews, Vellon had accused the board of being too closely aligned with Richard Yanuzzi, a controversial figure who has long been active in local politics. Yanuzzi has commented publicly on behalf of Freda and Longo, Vellon’s opponents in this year’s BOE race.

Yanuzzi is chair of the board of the Belleville Public Library and has worked with volunteer groups and efforts sponsored by the Belleville Board of Education, including a combined BOE-rec department after-school program and a holiday event co-sponsored by the board of education and the township government in December 2010. He has been an invited speaker at a number of functions sponsored by the board of education as well as at board meetings.

Vellon’s comments at the March 14 board of education meeting drew a heated response from one board of education member, John Rivera, who challenged Vellon to “file an ethics complaint” against the board.

The day after that meeting, Vellon said, he found an envelope from the Board of Education in his mailbox, which apparently had been hand-delivered. The envelope was not stamped and had no postmark, said Vellon, who showed Patch the envelope.

“I know from distributing campaign literature that  you’re not supposed to just put things in people’s mailboxes,” Vellon said. “It’s supposed to go through the post office.”

That envelope contained a brief letter informing Vellon that Piscatowski “is withdrawing your appointment to the Special Education Advisory Council effective immediately.” The letter, dated March 15 -- the day after Vellon spoke at the Board of Education meeting -- was sent by the school district’s business administrator, Edward Appleton.

Piscatowski declined to comment about the matter “until after the board of education election,” she told Patch yesterday.

“My reaction to this is that it was in retaliation for what I said...I was thinking, wait a second, they can’t do this, where are the bylaws? They just can’t remove you for any reason,” Vellon said. "I felt it was a direct response to my comments, which is indicative of how they work,” he later added.

It was unclear what the advisory council’s policy is regarding the removal of members. A copy of the constitution describing the council’s policies states that a member may be removed if he or she misses three consecutive meetings. A member may also be removed if a super-majority of the council votes to do so. Neither circumstance applied to Vellon.