By Walter Elliott
ORANGE – Board of education elections statewide are nonpartisan – except apparently here in Orange for Nov. 3.
“Local Talk ” has noticed how the formerly known “Good to Great” team of E. Lydell Carter, Fatimah Turner and Jeff Wingfield have been increasingly calling themselves “Orange Board of Education Democratic Team” on their printed materials since Oct. 1.
A “Local Talk” delivery crew first noticed Carter/Turner/Wingfield banners placed at key city intersections Oct. 15.
The banners are headlined “Orange Board of Education,” immediately followed below by “Democratic Team.” Its third line has a “Biden Harris 2020” logo, followed by head shots and ballot locations of Wingfield, Turner and Carter.
Those banners also bear an “Orange Kids Matter” slogan and orange outlined raised fist logo. There is also another, pre-existing OKM slate – Sharon Forde and Marsha Escalliere’s “Our Kids Matter” team.
The same crew, on their Oct. 22 deliveries, saw similar configured signs on some city front lawns – and, in the Orange Post Office’s lobby, a stack of “Orange Board of Education Democratic Team Official Democratic Voter Guide.”
The guides are double-sided 12-in. by 10-in. palm cards whose front has a configuration similar to the said banners and lawn signs. By front, there is a “Local Postal Customer” address, a USPS EDDM Retail postage paid square and a 528 Nassau St. return address.
Turning the guide card to its back side, there is a copy of two mail-in ballot lines – Line A for Democratic Party candidates from President to 3rd District County Freeholder and Line I for Orange’s members of the Board of Education.
Line I has Wingfield, Turner and Carter’s ballot places highlighted in yellow in the midst of the other six OBOE candidate’s names and slogans blurred out. Right below these three candidates’ names and “Good to Great” slogans, however, each have “Democratic Party” names.
Line A, looking back up, also has yellow highlighting for the team’s preferred candidates – and the superimposed “Democratic Party” labels.
“To: Orange Residents, Parents and Students,” reads a blue-backgrounded portion, “Support Biden-Harris 2020 & The Orange Board of Education Democratic Team.”
The team’s campaign materials have “Local Talk,” and maybe you, asking, “How did a nonpartisan board of education election become politically partisan?”
“Local Talk,” before continuing, would question the Republican Party or any other party in any other of our towns’ BOE elections on this matter.
Orange, indeed, is having its fifth board of education election Nov. 3 – and third straight on the November General Election ballot – since a majority of city voters approved switching the formerly mayor-appointed board to voter-elected in 2017.
The team’s materials, which mention “Democratic” or “Democrat” up to seven times on a side, are not designed out of ignorance or accident.
Wingfield, who is running for re-election, and Carter, who is looking to return to the board, were originally appointed by Mayor Dwayne D. Warren. Warren, who won his third straight term in last May’s nonpartisan election, is a member of the Orange Democratic Committee.
“Local Talk” called Clifford Ross – the city’s Democratic Committee Chairman and newly-elected Councilman-at-Large – with the same number given by two sources 7 p.m. Oct. 27.
“Local Talk” will not learn of the committee’s consent to having the BOE candidates use the Democratic name or of the committee’s involvement in the campaign. “I cannot talk now. Wrong number,” was the received text message.
Meanwhile, “Local Talk” turned to the New Jersey School Boards Association. The NJSBA had been advocating for non-partisan school board elections since before 80 percent of public school districts, including Orange, moved their elections from April to join the General Election ballot.
It was the NJSBA who helped design your Vote By Mail Ballot to keep the BOE elections separate from the rest of the General Election ballot. County boards of elections and clerks, at the organization’s urging, have the school board candidates on the second, or back page.
The NJSBA referred “Local Talk” to a link onto its 56-page 2020 School Board Election Guide. This guide, in turn, references NJSA 19:60-1. That statute declares that “no political party designation may appear on the school board election ballot.”
The state statute citation is in reply to the guide’s Question No. 43: Can candidates be endorsed by a political party? That paragraph noted that “the Commissioner of Education has traditionally frowned upon political party endorsements of school board members, as school elections should be non partisan.”
NJSBA, in its correspondence to “Local Talk,” noted that they have noticed “increasing endorsement of school board candidates by party officials.”
So, the “Orange BOE Democratic Team,” by keeping “Good to Great” on the ballot, is adhering to the letter of NJSA 19:60-1.
But will we be seeing more BOE Democratic – or Republican – or, say, Garden Party Team in our future? Will we wind up voting for school board members on the basis of their party affiliation?
Part of what the State Education Commissioner and the NJSBA has dreaded has happened in the wake of the 2011-18 massive school board election shift to November.
Some political party elected officials and/or candidates have endorsed school board candidates. There have been some teams running for Newark Public School Board of Education seats who have had a constellation of officials endorsing them on their materials.
Some among the voting electorate have bemoaned how governance on the federal, state, county and/or municipal levels have been replaced by party politics. Will this trend enter the board of education level?
That is an answer only the registered voter can answer on or before 8 p.m. Nov. 3.
