Assembly Passes Jaffee Bill to Fix East Ramapo Board Error

The East Ramapo Board of Education announced last year that it had forgotten to swear in the only black female elected to the school board, and that therefore she would not be able to serve out her term.

In an attempt to fix that omission, which the mostly Hasidic board called an oversight, New York Assemblymember Ellen Jaffee (D-Suffern) authored legislation to allow East Ramapo School Board member Sabrina Charles-Pierre to serve the full two-year term to which she was elected.

It has now passed the Assembly and the senate.

"I am pleased that legislation I sponsored that unanimously passed both the Assembly and the Senate will correct what the Board President himself described as an “administrative failure” that disenfranchised the voters of East Ramapo. Without the full-protections of the federal Voting Rights Act, it is more important than ever to ensure that in every election at every level, voters in New York State are not discriminated against or disenfranchised,” Jaffee said in her announcement Wednesday. “Passage of this legislation is a significant step in ensuring that Sabrina Charles-Pierre, a strong advocate for the public school students of East Ramapo, would serve her full term. I have sent a letter to the Governor requesting its enactment into law as soon as possible.”

The legislation, sponsored in the Senate by David Carlucci (D-Rockland/Westchester) provides that any school board member from the East Ramapo Central School District duly elected on May 17, 2016 who currently occupies that elected office but who failed to take or file the oath of office within the prescribed period shall continue to serve in such capacity and for the full term to which he or she was elected upon the taking and filing of oaths of office within 30 calendar days.

Charles-Pierre was elected in May to fill the unexpired term of Juan Pablo Ramirez , who quit after being elected. The term runs through June 30, 2018.

But Yehuda Weissmandl, the president of the Board of Education, which has been widely distrusted by the public school community, announced at the end of July that Charles-Pierre had not been sworn in within 30 days after the vote. Therefore she technically was not a board member; so, the other school trustees annulled her election.

The community again erupted in protest, and a petition for Weissmandl's resignation circulated.

Current state law requires that the oath of office for elected public officials, in this case a school board member, must be taken or filed within 30 days after the term of office begins. Routinely, oaths of office are executed and filed before or at the commencement of a term. However, on occasion there are incidents where public officials do not execute and file the document within the required time period, triggering a vacancy or in this case, a truncated term in the position to which they were elected.

"The board president claims that he forgot that Sabrina needed to be sworn in within 30 days after she was elected, which is required when an election is to fill a vacancy. During the past five years there have been several elections to fill vacancies, and the process of swearing in within 30 days was never forgotten. Both board president Weissmandl and trustee Grossman were elected to fill vacancies in 2014, and both were sworn in within 30 days," pointed out Steve White, an activist in the district.

The board did appoint her to serve a one-year term. Then the trustees appointed Joe Chajmovicz, a stranger to the community, as a trustee instead of one of the others who had run for election (they were women).

Weissmandl has stated his support for this legislation, Jaffee said.

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