Tonight's School Committee meeting saw the unfortunate resignation of Benjamin Echevarria due to health issues. Mr. Echevarria was chosen to represent Ward 1 in a resume process after the resignation of Maureen Cuff-Bastardi in December. Bastardi was approved to fill the seat of outgoing Ward 1 Alderman Bill Roche.
The Committee, with the exception of Ward 5 Representative Mark Niedergang, has voted in Steven Roix to fill the seat, but he still has to formally accept. Roix was Bastardi's choice, but the School Committee decided to exercise their Charter rights and conduct their own search.
Ward 1 has been without representation since December of 2012.
5 comments:
I wonder eactly what Niedergang's problem with Roix is? It was my understanding that he and Bockelman were the SC members responsible for starting their own search after bastardi offered Roix?
He was against Bastardi's choice from the beginning and wanted the chance to choose his own. Funny because both Mary Jo and Bockelman supported the motion to invite Roix back (using Court's terms there).
I voted against the motion on purely procedural grounds and I stated so at the meeting last night. I believe Steve Roix will be a fine School Committee member. Upon Mr. Echevarria's declining the position, the School Committee should have returned to the previous step in the process -- a vote on the remaining finalists. There was one other finalist, Bonny Carroll, who as far as I knew, was still interested in the seat. The right step would have been to hold a vote between Mr. Roix and Ms. Carroll. A motion to give the seat to Mr. Roix was made and seconded without any discussion of the process. I voted against the motion because I believed that it excluded one of the finalists from consideration for the position.
Mark Niedergang
Somerville School Committee, Ward 5
Candidate for Ward 5 Alderman
617-629-8033
www.MarkNiedergang.com
Thank you for the clarification, Mark.
It has been since December 17,2012 that Ward 1 has had NO representation on the School Committee. Finally Ward 1 has a school committee representative. Let's move forward and stop the politics. The citizens should be able to ELECT who they want their representative to be not a select group or person.
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