New Member To Temporarily Fill Vacant Seat On East Brunswick Board Of Education

EAST BRUNSWICK, NJ — Members of the East Brunswick Board of Education recently voted to select a new member to temporarily fill a vacant seat.

Tim Cummings will be filling the seat left vacant by Susanna Chiu who resigned from her post in April this year.

Two candidates — Cummings and Dhar Khona — were shortlisted and appeared in front of the Board for a question-and-answer session on June 13.

Around six questions were asked to both candidates and the final vote was taken during the June 15 meeting.

Board president Laurie Lachs recused herself from the process due to a “potential conflict of interest.”

Cummings received four votes, with Mark Csizmar, Mark Carangelo and Jeffrey Winston voting ‘no.’

While board member Heather Guas nominated Cummings, Csizmar nominated Kona during the June 15 meeting.

The board secretary did a role call in the order of the nominations, with the roll call ceasing once Cummings received a majority, according to the BOE bylaws.

Csizmar welcomed Cummings to the board but said he had an issue with the bylaw as it did not permit him to cast his vote for Khona.

“In my opinion, the bylaw is flawed. I think that both individuals that put all this time should hear that they had support from the board,” Csizmar said.

“It was not an easy decision looking at everybody's resumes and stuff. But like I said, I wish Mr. Khona could have heard my ‘yes,’ and I welcome you, Mr. Cummings to the board.”

Regardless of his vote, Winston welcomed Cummings to the board and gave an explanation for why he voted ‘no’ to his appointment.

Calling Cummings a "terrific person,” Winston said the district will benefit greatly from his skill set.

“With equally due respect, you've been here for 24 months, which did cause reservations on my part. Your contributions to this town are limited at best at this point, nor would I expect anything different based on the amount of time that you've been here. It is greatly concerning, but I don't think that is preclusive of why you will or won't be successful in the role,” Winston said.

He also went on to criticize the process in which the voting was moved up during the meeting to allow board member Vicky Becker to vote and then leave immediately due to a family bereavement.

“I think that's unfortunate for this board. I'm very sad that if this continues, we’ll have a singular voting bloc that determines the direction and this board truly becomes a board of no more than five. And it's unfortunate,” Winston said.

Around seven candidates submitted their applications to fill in the vacant seat.

The Board of Education election will be held in November this year.

To watch Cummings and Khona answer questions from other board members, click here. For the June 15 meeting link, click here.

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