By Walter Elliott
MAPLEWOOD – Two reorganization meetings here – held four days apart – invite comparison and contrast among the 13 held or scheduled in “Local Talk” towns Jan. 1-6.
The Township Committee here, for example, swore in newcomer Jamaine Cripe and third term member Nancy Adams on Zoom and before a limited Municipal Building audience 1 p.m. Jan. 1. It and the East Orange City Council, who started their annual meeting on Noon Sunday, strictly adhere to reorganizing on New Year’s Day.
State law requires that municipal-level governing bodies and boards of education who had November General Elections have the elected and/or re-elected members be sworn in during the first week of the incoming new year.
Maplewood and East Orange, therefore, lead other councils, committees and boards of education in some 20,000 other municipalities across the U.S. in inaugurations and reorganizations.
This annual peaceful transfer of political power includes the naming or renaming of individuals to various subcommittees or liaisons. Temporary budgets and official publications, among other housekeeping tasks, are announced.
This week of transitions, however, may mark either a staying of the course by some governing bodies and a change of direction by others.
Maplewood’s Township Committee’s reorganization proceeded Saturday with mostly clear sailing.
The newly assembled committee selected Deputy Mayor Dean Dafis as Mayor and returned longtime Committeeman and former mayor Vic de Luca as Deputy Mayor. Dafis becomes the first self-identified LGBTQ mayor.
The committee thanked the outgoing two-term Committeeman Greg Lembrich – and named him onto the South Mountain Regional Fire Department Board of Commissioners.
SOUTH ORANGE-MAPLEWOOD SCHOOL DISTRICT BOARD OF EDUCATION’s 6:30 p.m. Jan. 5. reorganization may signal that body’s change of course.
The two-town board’s members are to name their next board president plus first and second vice presidents after first-termers Qawi Telesford, Arun Vadlamani – both of South Orange – and Maledwoodian Kaitlin M. Wittleder are sworn-in.
A majority of participating voters chose “Excellence, Action, Accountability” teammates Telesford and Vadlamani and “Student Voices Matter” soloist Wittleder from a nonpartisan field of five, Nov. 2.
Village and township voters, in the process, bumped out first-term incumbent Shannon Cuttle and filled the outgoing Ann Marie Maini and temporary panelist Chris Sabin’s seats.
The new SOMSD board will then take a retreat on Jan. 10. The retreat will orient the incoming trio, have all nine members get acquainted with each other – and perhaps reach a consensus on some of the internal and external matters facing the district.
Those issues include the district’s negotiations impasse with the South Orange Maplewood Education Association, a response to a parents group petition to keep the schools open this month and closing an achievement gap between white students and students of color.
The board seat that Sabin was appointed to for a year was the third occupant in as many years. Kamaljit “Kamal” Zubieta, citing the board as consisting of an exclusive inner circle and a marginalized minority of independents, resigned May 31. Zubieta was first appointed to succeed the resigned Xavier Farfan in March 2020 and was elected to another one-year term in 2020.
SOMSD’s reorganization, Jan. 5’s Essex County Commissioners and Glen Ridge’s Borough Council Board of Education and Jan. 6’s West Orange Board of Education reorganizations are scheduled past Local Talk’s filing deadline.
EAST ORANGE’s MUNICIPAL Reorganization Meeting Noon Jan. 1 represented both continuity and change.
Theodore “Ted” Green was sworn into his second term in the virtual City Hall ceremony. The “Green Team’s” council running mates – Christopher James (First Ward), Christopher Awe (Second), Bergson Leneus (Third), Tamika Garrett-Ward (Fourth) and Alicia Holman (Fifth) were also re-inaugurated.
The full 10-member council, however, decided to name Awe as their new council president. The second term councilman succeeds James, who had held that chair in 2020-21. Awe, as president, is honorary chairman of the council’s eight committees.
The council member who would be Council Vice President, and first stand-in for Awe, was not named Jan. 1. That naming, and which council members will be on which committee, is to be determined at their Jan. 10 regular meeting
ORANGE’s new BOARD OF EDUCATION President, Shawneque Johnson, received a virtual gavel from Board Administrator/Secretary Jason Ballard 44 minutes into their reorganization meeting Jan. 4.
Johnson, now three years into her first term, was unanimously nominated and approved by her eight peers during the Zoom meeting. Her first act was to propose keeping the board’s 2021 committee member makeup “unless someone wants to withdraw from a position.”
The board endorsed keeping last year’s committees as-is – except for its Policy Committee. Second-year member Samantha Crockett was chosen to succeed Sueann Gravesande, who had asked to step down, as that committee’s chairwoman.
Former board president Jeffrey Wingfield was elected Board Vice President on a 7-1-1 split vote. Panelist Guadalupe Cabida dissented and Gravesande abstained.
Incumbents David Keer Anderson, Siaka Sherif and Derrick Henry were first sworn by Ballard into their new terms.
The board, Ballard and Superintendent Dr. Gerald Fitzhugh II were among those who participated from their homes or offices. What would have been an in-person ceremony at the Orange Preparatory Academy Auditorium was moved to Zoom as a COVID-curbing precaution.
WEST ORANGE – Council Member Susan McCartney was formally returned as Township Council President here at the annual reorganization meeting Jan. 4. The five-member council had McCartney succeed Cindy Matute-Brown for 2022 at their preceding Dec. 14 meeting.
West Orange council members, like their Maplewood and Nutley counterparts, select a president for the calendar during their last meeting in December.
BLOOMFIELD – BOARD OF EDUCATION Incumbent Shane Berger was more than reinaugurated here in a 6:30 p.m. remote ceremony in the Bloomfield High School Auditorium Jan. 4. His colleagues minutes later named him their board’s vice president.
Berger will serve as deputy or substitute for Jill Fischman, who was returned as Board President. Incumbent Michael Heller and newcomer Monica Charris-Tabares were also sworn into their seats.
BELLEVILLE – The just-reassembled BOARD OF EDUCATION TRUSTEES named Luis Muniz and Gabrielle Bennett-Meany as their respective president and vice president at the Belleville High School Auditorium Jan. 3.
Newcomers Nicole “Nikki” Coviello-Daddis, Tracy Williams and Lissa Missaggia were inaugurated minutes before. A majority of participating voters had unseated BOET President Christine Lamparello and member Nelson Berra.
The in-person officials and audience opened the ceremony with a moment of silence for Lamparello’s husband. Michael J. Lamparello, 53, died Jan. 2.
NUTLEY – Essex County Clerk Christopher Durkin made making Jan. 4’s BOARD OF EDUCATION reorganization meeting here at the James H. Walker Middle School Auditorium a priority.
Durkin swore in returning incumbent Kenneth J. Reilly. first-termer Joe Battaglia and, in particular, newcomer Nicholas Scotti. Scotti, 19, is the youngest NBOE member elected and currently the youngest elected official in New Jersey.
The reconfigured board later unanimously selected Danny Carcinella and Salvatore Ferraro as their respective president and vice president.
