Election brings no changes to Lawrence Board of Education

Despite an aggressive campaign by three challengers who were seeking to create a more diverse Lawrence school board to reflect the makeup of the school district, the incumbents were overwhelmingly successful in last week's election.

Though Jay Silverstein, Annie Reyes and Nicole Di Iorio mounted spirited challenges, the Board of Education will remain the same for the next year, comprising six parents of privately educated children, and Dr. David Sussman, whose four children are products of the public-school system but who votes in agreement with the other trustees.

Sussman defeated Reyes, of North Lawrence, with 59 percent of the vote. Nahum Marcus collected 58.5 percent to defeat Di Iorio, of Inwood, and Sol Blisko bested Silverstein, of Atlantic Beach, with 58 percent of the vote.

"I'm very proud of the campaign that myself, Nicole and Annie ran, and I also give my compliments to Blisko, Marcus and Sussman, because I think we all ran a respectful campaign," said Silverstein. "I think this community has the potential to come together, and we need leadership."

Lawrence resident David Urbach, who is originally from Dublin, Ireland, said he based his vote on his assessment that the incumbents have been fiscally responsible. "There have been statements made that they're acting on the side of the non-public-school [community]," said Urbach, later using the phrase "taxation without representation" in expressing his desire to see the large Orthodox community, most of whose children attend area private schools, get "a fair share of the pie."

Andrew Levey of Atlantic Beach, a self-described public-school advocate who ran for school board in 2007, said he voted based on his desire to see more diversity on the board, and his "strong disapproval for the incumbents' actions." He characterized the budget vote as a "no-brainer," saying, "You're always better with money than being state mandated."

The $94.1 million budget, a 2.6 percent increase over the current spending plan, passed with 60 percent of the vote. Lawrence Middle School was the only precinct in which a majority of voters opposed the budget, with 60 percent voting "no." The most widespread support was among voters at the Number Two School in Inwood (87 percent) and Atlantic Beach Village Hall (82 percent).

Solid support for the challengers came from the Number Two School precinct in Inwood, where Silverstein, Di Iorio and Reyes each pulled in more than 20 times more votes than the incumbents. The challengers also fared exceptionally well in the Village Hall precinct.

Voting controversy

While all of the school board races and budget votes were decided by wide margins, there were some complaints on Election Night about voting irregularities at some polling sites. Moments after the results were announced, Giselle L. Eras, who said she was speaking for some other like-minded parents, announced, "There are contested votes which we claim are in violation of the election law."

Eras later said that she or other parents may file a formal protest.

After the polls closed at 10 p.m. and while votes were being tabulated, Reyes and Di Iorio claimed that they were hearing about irregularities. A woman with Reyes, Marlene Davis, claimed there were 300 people who voted who did not live in the district.

One poll watcher to whom Di Iorio attributed reports of problems, Robert Stanya, said that while he was monitoring the voting at Lawrence Middle School, he noticed a number of voters checking in under the address 1 Cedar Lawn Ave. in Lawrence. Stanya recognized the address as being that of a school, not a residence, and filed about 30 separate vote challenges at the polling place help desk. He estimates that two other poll watchers at the site filed another 25 challenges to the votes of those claiming the Cedar Lawn address, which belongs to the Sh'or Yoshuv Institute, a yeshiva that does have student housing.

The day after the election, Di Iorio said she was told by a poll watcher that 50 absentee ballots were missing from an Atlantic Beach polling station. In response, District Clerk Mohinder Bharaj said, "Nothing was missing."

JoAnne Jordan, Lawrence Superintendent Dr. John Fitzsimons's secretary, explained that confusion about absentee ballots arose when a list of those who applied for the ballots was supplied by her office to those counting ballots. That list, according to Jordan, was not an accounting of how many people actually sent back ballots to be counted as votes.

The smallest margin of victory in the three races for trustee, between Blisko and Silverstein, was Blisko's 1,286-vote win. The school and library budgets passed by margin of 1,168 and 2,488 votes, respectively.

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