Four Seasons Residents Rebut BOE Member's Comments

Members of the Four Seasons 55-and-over community in Smithville took exception to recent comments from a Galloway Board of Education member, and they let their feelings be known at Monday night’s Board meeting at the middle school.

Four Seasons Association President Jo Mongiello, Tony Annacone and Carol Criss were in attendance to fire back at comments made by Board Member Bob Iannacone to another media outlet, in which Iannacone placed blame for the defeated school board budget on the members of the Four Seasons community.

The proposed budget was defeated on April 27. After absentee ballots were counted, the difference proved to be 61 votes.

“We are incensed that an elected official would make comments about that section of the district,” Criss said.

“We help the children without having any children in the schools,” Mongiello said. “When he spoke, he spoke for the board.”

During a public statement during the meeting, Annacone—who shares no relation with Iannacone—pointed to comments made by the other board members saying the parents of the children were to blame.

“We didn’t have a large turnout from the parents,” Galloway School Board Vice President George Schwenger said in comments made during the meeting. “We have 3,600 children in the district. If two parents came out for every child, that’s 7,000 votes. I’m more than disappointed; I’m to the point of disgust with what goes on in this township. There’s no reason the budget should’ve been defeated.”

“We need to be more proactive,” board member Rosemary Holloway said. “We need to engage parents.”

“What do you want us to do, knock on doors?” asked Schwenger. “I’m not begging anyone.”

But while most board members put the blame on parents who didn’t come out to vote and citing the need to be more proactive in future elections, Iannacone pointed to the fact that there were people who didn’t come out to vote on the three open seats but did make the effort to come out and vote against the budget.

“In Smithville, there were 241 people who came out and voted on the budget,” Iannacone said. “Only 149 came out and voted for (the candidates). If you can tell me you saw seniors go out and vote for the budget, I’ll apologize.”

“If he can prove that every member of our community came out and voted against it, I’ll apologize,” Annacone told the board. “I don’t think he can do that. We had a secret ballot last time I checked.”

Annacone requested a written apology from Iannacone, and Iannacone refused.

“There are 1,216 homes in our community that supply $7 million to (the township) and (66 percent) of that is the school budget,” Annacone said. “We give all that money and no one has a child in school. That’s a freebie for you. You should think about that while Iannacone berates us and the board doesn’t do anything about it.

“I look forward to seeing all of you at Four Seasons when you want to discuss the school budget next year.”

The $53,729,135 budget called for a tax levy of $28,338,076. It translated into eight-tenths of a cent tax increase, or $16 a year on a home assessed at $200,000.

The school board met with township council members prior to Monday night’s meeting, and discussed that meeting in closed session following the board’s regular meeting.

That regular meeting followed the Board of Education’s reorganization meeting, in which Ernest Huggard was unanimously elected to reclaim his role as board president, a role he held for several years before not being re-elected in 2010.

Schwenger was re-elected as vice president, a role he has served for several years.

Schwenger and John Knorr were both current board members who were re-elected to the board this year. Huggard was re-elected after not serving last year. Knorr served as board president for the past year, and nominated Huggard to the position at Monday night’s meeting.