Divided school board elects Kight as prez
New board attorney appointed
BY DANIELLE MEDINA
Correspondent

During one of its most divisive reorganization meetings in recent history, the Brick Board of Education managed to elect a new president and vice president.

The board also appointed three new law firms for the 2005-06 school year.

At the May 5 meeting, Sharon Kight was selected as board president and Frank Pannucci as vice president. Both were elected by a 4-3 vote, with Kight, Pannucci, John Talty and the newly sworn-in Dan Rosa voting for the appointments, and Catherine Lindenbaum, John Paredes and Dan Woska voting against.

Woska, Lindenbaum and Paredes supported Lindenbaum for president and vice president.

“I don’t see how we can appoint someone who has only been on the board for one year,” Woska said.

The 4-3 voting pattern continued throughout the evening as the two alignments disagreed on a number of appointments and whether to table other items.

Most notably, Nicholas Montenegro was replaced by John C. Sahradnik of Berry, Sahradnik, Kotzas, Riordan and Benson as board attorney. Thomas E. Monahan of Gilmore will serve as special counsel for civil litigation and special education matters. Gregory P. McGuckin of Dasti, Murphy, McGuckin, Ulaky, Cherkos and Connors will represent the board as special counsel on matters involving workers compensation.

Sahradnik, who was present at the meeting, said his firm represents the boards of education in Bay Head, Berkeley, Point Pleasant Beach, Seaside Park and Southern Regional High School District.

“These are three people who are specialists in their own right,” said Pannucci, who introduced the resolution at the meeting.

All three firms will be paid a rate of $140 per hour, the same as Montenegro, but none of them will receive the $67,080 annual retainer paid to Montenegro’s law firm, Wilbert, Montenegro and Thompson.

“It will be cost effective in the long run and it all makes sense,” Pannucci said.

However, Woska questioned the appointments and the manner in which they were handled.

“We’re violating our own rules and not going out for RFPs?” he said.

Woska was referring to the fact that the resolution was not placed on the agenda prior to the meeting and that Kight and Talty were supporters of seeking requests for proposals, or RFPs, in the past.

“It’s a new day,” Talty said.

Kight added that the board president can place items on the agenda if they’re of an emergent nature.

“Mr. Montenegro’s contract expires before the next meeting, so I don’t know what the problem is,” Kight said.

Following the meeting, Kight explained that the appointments were made without competitive bids under the provisions of the Local Public Contract Law because the services are to be performed by a recognized professional licensed and regulated by law.

In addition, she said she was unhappy with the time it took the board to complete the RFP process for the district’s health insurance broker.

The board approved its schedule of pre-agenda and regular public meetings for 2005-06 last week. All meetings will begin at 7:30 p.m. and will take place in the Lake Riviera Middle School multi-purpose room, unless otherwise advertised.

Pre-agenda meeting dates are as follows: June 9, Sept. 15, Dec. 8, Jan. 12, Feb. 2, March 2 and April 6. Regular public meeting dates are as follows: June 16, Sept. 22, Dec. 15, Jan. 19, Feb. 9, March 9 and April 20. On the following dates the two meeting will be combined: May 17, July 14, Aug. 25, Oct. 20 and Nov. 17. The annual school election will be on April 18 and the next board reorganization meeting will be on May 4.