Monroe Parents Hire Attorney to confront Board Members about their Ethical Violations скачать в хорошем качестве

Monroe Parents Hire Attorney to confront Board Members about their Ethical Violations

At the May 5, 2022 meeting of the Monroe Township Board of Education meeting, an attorney spoke at public forum. It looks like some Monroe parents hired an attorney to confront the board about their ethical violations! Attorney, Patricia Melia, said she represented a group called “Monroe Parents for Education”. Ms. Mela said that the School Ethics Act required board members to “avoid conduct which is in violation of their public trust or which creates a justifiable impression among the public that such trust is being violated.” Specifically, N.J.S.A. 18A:12-24.1(f) states, “I will refuse to surrender my independent judgment to special interest or partisan political groups or to use the schools for personal gain or for the gain of friends.” Ms. Melia said, “A board member must recuse him or herself from discussing or voting on a friend’s employment contract. If you’re close personal friends with a board employee if you have celebrated family milestones, celebrated birthdays together, you should recuse yourself from discussion and from voting. If you’ve posted on social media about your special friendship, you should recuse yourself from discussion and voting.” The attorney cited Ms. Skurbe’s recent Facebook post, which included a photograph of Ms. Skurbe, Ms. Chanley, Mr. Chiarella, and Mr. Nikitinksy together celebrating Ms. Skurbe’s son’s communion with the caption: “Friends through it all”. Ms. Melia said that, when the board goes into closed session, she expected to see Ms. Skurbe, Mr. Chiarella, and Mr. Nikitinsky out with the rest of the public given that the law prohibits them from discussing Ms. Chanley’s employment contract. The attorney also suggested that another board member had a financial conflict of interest but her time ran out and she was prevented from continuing her speech. In spite of this, board members, Chrissy Skurbe, Ken Chiarella, and Adi Nikitinsky did not recuse themselves from the vote on the contract of Acting Superintendent, Chari Chanley and she got the 6 votes she needed for the board to apply for a contract extension. Let’s see if this new parent group files a lawsuit against the board over this vote. My guess is that the board will not be able to install Ms. Chanley as Acting Superintendent and remove Mr. Gorski as business administrator without a legal fight.