Meet the Candidates Running in the Upcoming BOE Elections

The annual school elections are coming up and voters will head to the polls to vote on the school budget and also elect Board of Education (BOE) members for the school districts in Rumson, Fair Haven and Rumson/Fair Haven Regional High School (RFH). The election this year will be held on April 27.

Two of three BOE elections are not contested this year—the number of open seats on the board equals the number of people running. The candidates running for the board of RFH and the Rumson School District will fill those open positions.

Rumson School District has five people running for five open seats, according to the school’s business administrator, Denise Friedmann. The open seats for three-year terms will be filled by Colleen O’Connor of Lenox Avenue, Colleen Hodge of Monmouth Avenue, and Kim Swain of Rumson Road. O’Connor is an incumbent and the current president of the BOE. Hodge is also an incumbent, and Swain was appointed to the board in March 2010 to fill a vacancy. The position open for a two-year term will be filled by Peter Jarck of Ridge Road, who is also an incumbent. The remaining fifth seat is a one-year term, which will be filled by Margaret Kaminski of Hartshorne Lane.

For RFH, there were 3 people running for three open seats, two of which are incumbents. The incumbents running are Jane Pattwell of Rumson and Lisa Waters of Rumson. One newcomer is also running: Charles (Chuck) Volker of Fair Haven, according to the business administration office. All are running unopposed.

The only contested race will be for Fair Haven School District, as four people are running for the three open seats that are each three-year positions. According to Business Administrator Valery Petrone, the four candidates are: Karen Saad, 45 William Street; Mario S. Venancio, 133 Buttonwood Drive; Cathy Alescio, 255 Oxford Avenue; and Elaine Lehnert, 209 Cambridge Avenue.

Patch gave all four candidates the opportunity to respond, via email, to questions about their experience, their views and why they are running for the board. Here are their responses:

Elaine Lehnert

 Q: Can you give us some of your background information, your experience and qualifications? How many children do you have, their ages, and are they in the school district?

A:  I am a 19-year Fair Haven resident with two daughters in the Fair Haven public school system, one in third grade, and one in eighth grade. I am a graduate of Rider University with a BS in Accounting.  I am a Certified Public Accountant and have been working in the accounting field for the last 22 years.  I have been working as an accounting consultant for the last ten years, providing internal audit, forensic accounting and expert witness services.

Q:  What else can you tell us about yourself that would be of interest to the readers? What other positions/members have you held?

A:  I have been the Fair Haven PTA Treasurer since June 2009 and have served as the treasurer of the Fair Haven Republican Campaign Committee.

Q:   Why are you running?

A:  I am running for Board of Education because there is no greater gift that a parent and a community can give to its children than an opportunity to succeed through education. My goal is to expand the success of our schools and to strive to ensure that the children of Fair Haven have the best environment for learning.  

Q: What do you believe is one of the most pressing issues/or major challenges facing the school district?

A:  I believe the biggest challenge that is possibly facing the Fair Haven school district is the potential for future cuts in state funding.

Mario Venancio

Q: Can you give us some of your background information, your experience and qualifications? How many children do you have, their ages, and are they in the school district?

A: My experience as a real estate agent whose primary territory is Fair Haven and Rumson affords me with a unique perspective regarding the importance of Fair Haven’s school system, and concomitantly the Fair Haven Board of Education. More specifically, unlike the various other professionals who reside in Fair Haven - including physicians, attorneys and engineers, many of whom are my clients, neighbors and friends – professional success and the ability for our community to continue to thrive are contingent on the reputation and direction of our school system. 

I also feel I have a well-rounded and deep understanding of the different demographics that make Fair Haven what it is. As a result, the members of the board must be able to negotiate, to compromise, and ultimately, to “sell” our decisions to the residents to ensure they remain confident in our decisions even if they do not necessarily agree with them. In reality, since I have been successfully “selling” the virtues of Fair Haven’s School system to prospective buyers for over 20 years, I possess an ability to sell these same virtues to our residents. 

Q:  What else can you tell us about yourself that would be of interest to the readers? What other positions/members have you held?

A: I am a proud parent of three young children in our school system. As such, I am deeply invested in the success and direction of our schools.  Additionally, since my wife, Phyllis, and I both work full time—Phyllis runs her own business providing home care to the senescent and infirmed—we understand the issues facing many of the working families who reside in our wonderful town.

Q: Why are you running?

A: Over the last several years I have become concerned that the fiscal issues facing our town and the Board of Education have polarized our residents into two distinct factions unwilling to compromise.  One faction consists of our residents without children whose primary concern is lowering taxes without regard to the adverse impact on school system and the resultant depreciation of property value.  The other faction consists of our residents with school-age children whose myopic concern is to improve the school system without regard to the fiscal problems we face and without empathy toward those residents without children in our school system.  I am running because I understand both factions’ primary concerns, and I believe I can help make the difficult decisions and help broker the requisite compromises which need to be made.

Q: What do you believe is one of the most pressing issues/or major challenges facing the school district?

 A: The fiscal problems we face along with the escalating property taxes remain our most pressing concerns.  Fortunately, the parents in our community stress academics and the importance of education. Even with the great resources our children and community have, our board must be ready, willing and able to make compromises and then must be able to persuade our residents that the compromises we made are for the benefit of our entire town.

Cathy Alescio

 Q: Can you give us some of your background information, your experience and qualifications? How many children do you have, their ages, and are they in the school district?

A:  I am most importantly a mother of three children. Michael, 14, is a freshman at Rumson Fair Haven Regional High School. Nicholas, 12, is a sixth grader at Knollwood, and Christina, 9, is a third grader at Sickles. Our family has lived in Fair Haven for the past 12 years.

I have a BA in Communications from Rider University. Currently, I am the Fair Haven PTA President, and have been on the PTA Executive Board for the past 4 years in various roles.

 Q:  What else can you tell us about yourself that would be of interest to the readers? What other positions/members have you held?

I have served on the Fair Haven Schools Booster Club as Vice President for two years. I am currently a member of both the Tri-District Wellness Committee as well as the Fair Haven Centennial Committee.

I was previously the Sponsorship Coordinator for Fair Haven Baseball for five seasons. I have regularly attended the Board of Education meetings for the last five years.

Since my oldest child first started in the school district in September 2001, I have taken a very active role in the schools and the community.

Q: Why are you running?

A: I am running for the Board of Education to continue my work for the schools and the children of Fair Haven.

Q: What do you believe is one of the most pressing issues/or major challenges facing the school district?

I believe the greatest challenge facing the Fair Haven School District is to maintain a fiscally sound budget while continuing to improve the quality of the education for our students.  I look forward to rolling up my sleeves and continuing my work in the community.

Karen Saad

Q: Can you give us some of your background information, your experience and qualifications? How many children do you have, their ages, and are they in the school district?

A: I am currently a full-time mother of three children.  Grace is in the fourth grade at Knollwood, Jack is in the first grade at Sickles and Owen will be entering Kindergarten next year.  I also volunteer in our community, working with the PTA on the Harvest Fest Committee, as a class parent, and by helping out with events.  I have held various leadership positions in the Junior League of Monmouth County, a non-profit organization serving women and children, and am currently an advisory member.  I am a Cub Scout leader and a religious education assistant with The Church of the Nativity.  My husband, Omar, is an equity analyst with ISI Group and a soccer coach with the Fair Haven Recreation Department.

Q:  What else can you tell us about yourself that would be of interest to the readers? What other positions/members have you held?

A: Prior to becoming a full-time mother, I was a professional specializing in finance, consulting and accounting.  I have six years experience as a Vice President with The Carlyle Group, a Washington, DC-based private equity firm.   I worked on real estate investments and focused on purchasing, developing, repositioning, and selling properties.  I also am a Certified Public Accountant with over five years experience doing audit and consulting work at Arthur Andersen.  While at Andersen, I specialized in government contracts.  I was born and raised in Metuchen, N.J. and graduated from the College of William & Mary with a BBA in Accounting and a minor in English. 

My strong finance and accounting background will allow me to focus on budgeting, an important issue in these economic times.  My government contracting experience allows me to understand many of the specialized regulations concerning contracting and negotiating with public entities such as schools.  And my real estate investing background helps me to assess the capital assets of our district and provide creative solutions to issues regarding land and space.  I also have prior board experience, having served on the Board of Directors of the Junior League of Monmouth County.  As a board member, I received significant training on the roles and responsibilities of the board and feel I am well prepared to take on this role for our school district.   

Q: Why are you running?

A: I am running because I believe that education is one of the greatest gifts that we can give to our children. 

Q: What do you believe is one of the most pressing issues/or major challenges facing the school district?

A: I feel that our school district, and public education as a whole, faces numerous challenges.  Specifically, I would like to address issues such as continuing pressure on the budget from numerous sources, changing curriculum needs due to legislation and restrictive physical property issues in our district.  I feel that my professional and volunteer experience provides me with a unique combination of talents to address these and other issues and make a positive difference in our school district.