Board Of Ed Pans Charter Panel Proposal On Districting, Shorter Terms

By John Voket

Nearly half of a two-hour Charter Revision Commission meeting Tuesday was spent hearing from every member of the Board of Education, each who offered individual but uniform opposition to a proposal passed one week earlier. Last week, a quorum of four charter commissioners unanimously moved to amend the constitutional document to provide two-year terms for school board officials, increase the board to nine members, and split their jurisdictions into three, three-member districts mirroring the Legislative Council.

The proposal also would create a minimum minority representation of one candidate in each district from each major party, a concern that was critical to Charter Commission Chairman Al Cramer. While last week’s vote should have permitted the panel to move on to consider other charges, discussion on the matter was reopened after strong objections were lodged by school board Chair Elaine McClure, and charter commissioners Joan Plouffe and Guy Howard who were absent for the vote.

School Superintendent Evan Pitkoff led off the first public comment segment of the charter meeting, reading from a volume of “best practices” manual on school governance. He noted that all but two Connecticut municipalities had four-year school board terms of office, and that two-year terms would hamper continuity because of greater turnover among elected members.

He also suggested districting school board representatives was discouraged in the text, saying electing from the community at large would ensure the best possible representation for all children and all citizens of Newtown.

Andrew Buzzi, Jr, echoed Dr Pitkoff saying the charter amendment, if enacted, would stimulate turnover on the board.

“You’ll see a lot more people leaving after two years,” Mr Buzzi said.

Tom Gissen argued that districting the school board might deprive the community of electing the best possible candidates, if appropriate recruits could not be put up for seats in one district and another district had more than the required number willing and equipped to serve. Mr Gissen also said a nine-member panel would be “less practical.”

“Fewer people means fewer steps, and those members are more accountable,” he said, adding that an even-numbered board encourages more “consensus-building.”

School board member David Nanavaty circulated a copy of several state statutes regarding boards of education suggesting that some elements of the proposal might be in violation of state guidelines.

“I think this board made a decision in a vacuum,” Mr Nanavaty said. “The Board of Education is a quasi-state agency, and as such, there are certain limits to changing the makeup.”

Board member Paul Mangiafico said the charter panel’s proposal was “a drastic mistake, that might not easily be corrected.”

“You’re attempting to fix a problem where there is no problem,” Mr Mangiafico said. He added that making the school board larger would hamper its efficiency.

Ms McClure simply stated that charter commissioners should make voting for the school board as easy as possible for the voters. This issue, seemed to coincidentally coincide with comments made shortly thereafter by Mr Cramer.

He first addressed the complaint filed by Commissioners Howard and Plouffe, which in part, demanded the subject be reopened for discussion because, according to Ms Plouffe, “some of the BOE issues voted on last night were neither on the agenda nor previously discussed.”

Mr Cramer referenced minutes from two previous charter meetings attended by both Ms Plouffe and Mr Howard where the school board issues were discussed at length. He then turned his attention to Ms McClure’s comments, pointing out the current number and at-large status of the school board could account for many ballots for party-endorsed candidates being disallowed in municipal elections.

Mr Cramer and fellow Charter Commissioner LeReine Frampton, who is also one of Newtown’s registrars of voters, clarified that every time local school officials appear on the local ballot, the major party candidates alternate from one election to the next as the majority of candidates eligible for election on that ballot. Due to existing charter stipulations, every election that seats two Republicans and one Democrat is followed by an election that will seat two Democrats and one Republican.

The number of candidates that can be nominated for those seats from each party, however, stands at three. That means while each ballot instructs voters to “vote for any three,” only two from each major party can be seated. If a voter casts ballots for three candidates from the same party, that vote is disallowed.

Mr Cramer argued that the best way this “disallowing” of votes can be corrected, while offering voters a manageable number of candidates to consider, is by capping the number of party and/or unaffiliated candidates to three from each district and requiring a minimum majority of one per party, per district.

The charter chairman also has suggested on numerous occasions that this would potentially stimulate more unaffiliated voters to seek elected office, an issue that has been supported by every charter commissioner on the current panel. While Ms Plouffe suggested this week that the problem could be simply solved by directing voters to “vote for any two Republicans and one Democrat” on the ballot, Ms Frampton confirmed with the Secretary of the State’s office that incorporating that directive on the ballot face was illegal.

Mr Howard also referred to Mr Nanavaty’s concern about the legality of the proposal, noting that in his reading of the Connecticut General Statutes, there appeared to be several contradicting mandates related to the political makeup and terms of office for Boards of Education.

After nearly an hour of discussion on this and several related matters, Mr Cramer asked fellow commissioners if they wanted to revote on the school board proposal, or table it pending his consultation with counsel to clarify the legalities in question. The panel voted unanimously to table the proposal on the school board until its first meeting in 2007, which is scheduled for January 9.

During the second public comment segment, Dr Pitkoff, Mr Buzzi, Mr Gissen, Mr Mangiafico, and school board member Lisa Schwartz each spoke. While the former members continued to reiterate points they introduced earlier, Ms Schwartz simply expressed her appreciation to the charter panel for reopening the discussion, and choosing to table it in the interest of achieving clarity on the legal points of the proposal.