Toms River School Board Set To File Ethics Complaint

TOMS RIVER, NJ — The Toms River Regional Board of Education is moving forward with an ethics complaint against one of its members.

At a special meeting Monday night at the district's administrative offices, the board voted to authorize "the services of special counsel to prosecute a complaint on behalf of Russell K. Corby, Board President, to be filed with the New Jersey Department of Education School Ethics Commission" over "conduct violative of N.J.S.A. 18A:12-24.1."

That refers to the New Jersey school board member code of ethics, which every school board member in the state swears to abide by when they accept election to serve on a school board.

Corby abstained from the 6-1 vote, with Ginny Rhine voting against it. Christopher Raimann, who was elected to the board in 2015, was absent from the meeting.

A handful of residents who attended the meeting pressed the board to be more forthcoming with information about the complaint, including the alleged ethics violations, but Corby and Board Attorney Stephan Leone refused.

"My advice is the matter is confidential," Leone said in response to questions from Robert Onofrietti Jr., who served on the board last year but was not re-elected.

"The second you file something (with the School Ethics Commission) it goes into the public domain," Onofrietti said. "Why is the state making it public and not the board?"

Corby said the board had to follow Leone's advice.

"Why can't we know what's going on?" asked Jennifer Howe, who has five children in the district, including three at Washington Street Elementary School. She also wanted to know how much time and money was being spent on the issue instead of addressing concerns that she and other parents have brought to the board repeatedly.

"We have been asking about a playground at Washington Street for four years and we still don't have one," she said. "We vote for the board to help our kids and our schools. Why is this (ethics complaint) something we don't know about?"

Speculation has been that the complaint is related to the board's investigation last year of information that was shared with the media, including a sexual harassment complaint against Superintendent David Healy.

The board and Healy recently were named in a lawsuit brought by Ann Millard, a Toms River East guidance counselor, whose complaint was distributed anonymously to several media outlets last summer. The lawsuit demands release to Millard and her attorney, Steven Cohen, the private investigator's report on his investigation of the source of the leaks.

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