From last year's school board election thread (and courtesy of r_pinkowitz), here were the results:

2006 Board of Education elections - Jersey City
Completed Precincts: 111 of 111 (100.00%)
Vote Count
Israel Nieves 635
Anthony R. Cucci 1,810
Paul Catsandonis 327
Samuel Gutierrez 286
DeJon V. Morris 366
Vernon Richardson 519
Edward Allen, Sr. 933
Justo DeJesus 510
Michael Esposito 999
Edward Cheatam 1,040
Heather Martin 453
Mahdi Hemingway 898
Jenny E. Campbell 414
William DeRosa 1,194
Personal Choice 24
Total 10,408[/quote]

As you can see, the difference between the 'top loser', Michael Esposito (endorsed by Steven Fulop), and the winner with the least votes, Ed Cheatam, was 41 votes.

YOUR VOTE MAKES A DIFFERENCE! Go to the JC Families for Better Schools candidates forum tomorrow night and make plans to vote on April 17th!

Jersey CIty Board of Education - Steven Fulop
Sun 4/1/07 4:25 PM

I am sending out an e-mail to keep you in the loop as to important information that I think you will both find useful and that will hopefully shape Jersey City for the better. With the Board of Education Elections around the corner, I think it is fair to write that our school system can be improved significantly from its current point. I believe that change starts by having the best and most qualified people on the Board of Education setting the school policies.

This Thursday, April 5th, at the Rafael Cordero Elementary School (158 Erie Street) at 7pm will be a candidate forum moderated by John Holl a journalist who covers New Jersey for the New York Times. The forum is sponsored by JC Families for Better Schools. Almost all the candidates have accepted an invitation so I think the event will be informative.

Change starts in the voting booth and I hope you are willing to be part of it. This event will be a great opportunty to hear what the candidates envision for a better school system.

Sincerely,

Steven M. Fulop
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

email: fulops@jcnj.org
web: http://www.stevenfulop.com

From the New York Times:

April 1, 2007
Jersey
Ex-Basketball Star Helps Rebuild His Hometown
By KEVIN COYNE

Jersey City

THE first steps on the basketball journey that took Terry DeHere out of his hometown, then brought him back again, led down the scrubby hill from Randolph Avenue, along a sneaker-scuffed dirt path and through a chain-link gate onto the court that was known at the time simply as Garfield Park.

?My mom could actually look out the window and see that I was fine,? Mr. DeHere said as he stopped at the court on his rounds one recent day, pointing toward the house where he lived until his bull?s-eye jump shot lifted him to Seton Hall and the National Basketball Association. The court was renamed for him after he turned pro and gave $75,000 to refurbish it. ?This is where I stayed 8, 10 hours a day, easy.?

He started coming to this court when he was 9, and he owned it by the time he was in high school, the shooting guard for the St. Anthony?s team that won 32 games without a single loss in his senior year. When he traveled around the city then, it was from court to court, looking for a game. When he travels it now, he?s looking for something different.

?This is my building here, this one that?s boarded up,? he said, pointing out a long-abandoned 12-unit apartment building on the corner of Bergen and Orient Avenues. ?We should be able to get working on this by the summer, rehabbing it.?

Mr. DeHere scored 2,494 points at Seton Hall, still the school record. He was picked in the first round of the draft by the Los Angeles Clippers and spent six years earning the kind of paychecks that would have allowed him to live the manner of an N.B.A. grandee ? the suburban castle with an indoor court, a pool, a putting green. He chose instead to come back to his home city in the off-seasons.

?Not too many players go back, but I never saw myself anyplace other than Jersey City,? he said. He now lives in a brownstone downtown and owns a Journal Square restaurant, the Blue Ribbon Summit House, in a building that is among the city?s oldest. ?Just because you have a certain amount of success, that doesn?t mean it has to go somewhere else.?

Driving up Bergen through the Greenville neighborhood, he touched the horn of his black Ford pickup at what seemed every other corner, returning the waves and shouted greetings of people who recognized him. ?This is an old toy factory here that we?re turning into senior housing,? he said, referring to his Jersey City Community Housing Corporation, a nonprofit organization. Then, on the next block, he pointed to a hole in the ground ? the foundation for 43 more units of senior housing. ?That?s ours, too.?

Mr. DeHere, 35, started investing in real estate while he was still in the N.B.A. and became a developer after he retired in 1999 ? starting not with golf-course condos or shopping malls or office buildings, but subsidized housing in the city he knew best. He has more than 100 units occupied or under construction, and he has ambitious plans for many more, spreading out from Jersey City to other urban neighborhoods in the state.

?This is the big one,? he said, stopping his truck in the Morris Canal section, near the light-rail station, where his real-estate development company Shining Star Productions is planning two 20-story towers of luxury condos with views of the Statue of Liberty and Manhattan. ?This is the league. This is the one that gets you in the show.?

He turned his truck back toward his restaurant and passed too many young men hanging around on corners and stoops in the aimless way he never had time for himself when he was their age. ?If I could just talk to these kids and touch them somehow, let them know there?s another way,? he said, by way of explaining why he is also running for a seat on the city?s Board of Education on April 17. (He ran unsuccessfully for City Council in 2001.) ?If you can organize 200 people to be affiliated in gang activity, it?s the same power you need to have 200 people to do something positive.?

The Blue Ribbon was busy with lunch when Mr. DeHere arrived, the televisions tuned to coverage of the N.C.A.A. tournament. The building?s hand-hewn beams were salvaged 300 years ago from wrecked ships, the sandstone hauled in on oxcarts. Hanging on one of the walls was his Seton Hall jersey, No. 24. He is seeking permission from the city to have live music ? jazz performers, D.J.s for private parties ? but his application has been complicated by what he calls ?the incident.? A few months after the restaurant opened in 2005, a late-night argument outside ended with gunfire and left an off-duty Hudson County corrections officer dead.

Basketballs were bouncing all over the TV screens, but Mr. DeHere paid no attention. ?I might not watch 15 minutes today,? he said of the tournament into which he once led Seton Hall three years in a row. He had too much else to do, and that was one place he had already been.

Who's running for school board - part one

11 candidates vie for three seats on JC Board of Education

Ricardo Kaulessar -- Hudson Reporter -- 03/30

Want to help decide who spends $591 million on city schools next year?

This year's Jersey City school board elections take place on April 17, with 11 candidates running for three seats. Voting will be held from 2 p.m. to 9 p.m.

One incumbent, Angel Valentin, is running again. Incumbents Jeffrey Dublin and Anthony Cruz are not.

The other 10 candidates are: Moses Ballon, Jenny Campbell, Terry Dehere, Michael Esposito, William Frasca, Jenny Garcia, Ben Lopez, Gerald McCann, Aida Sanchez, and Arnold Williams.

The board consists of nine members with three-year terms. Members take on an advisory role to state-appointed Schools Superintendent Charles Epps. The Jersey City school system is currently under state control and has been since 1989. But legislation was approved in 2005 that will start the process of moving control back into city supervision in the next couple of years.

What the board will oversee

The board oversees one of the largest and most heavily funded school systems in New Jersey, with state aid of $425 million for the 2006-2007 school year, which will be decreased by over $3 million for the next school year. The total budget for the Jersey City school system is $591 million.

In the upcoming election, some of the issues that candidates will have to tackle include: * The state returning the school system to local control; * A $3.2 million decrease in state aid to the school system for the 2007-2008 school year;

* A state audit of the Jersey City that found millions of dollars wasted on salaries and outdated services;

* Improving students' test scores, and

* The uncertain future of new school construction funded by the state Schools Construction Corporation (SCC). The present board filed a lawsuit against the SCC in February to get repairs done in several Jersey City schools.

Meet the candidates

Here are quotes from six of the candidates running for the board. They were asked why they are running and what issue they will tackle if elected.

Moses M. Ballon Jr.

Ballon is a lifelong resident of Jersey City. He has been married for over 30 years and is the proud father of five children (one deceased), and eight grandchildren.

He is a currently a project monitor for the city's Division of Economic Opportunity. Also, he is a community activist, involved with and a member of several committees including the Martin Luther King Drive Redevelopment Plan Steering Committee, and the newly formed Jersey City A. Phillip Randolph Institute Chapter.

"I'm running because I have seen for too long the people who are representing us have been too conflicted politically."

"I think the first thing I would do is to let the people know what happened to the billions of dollars that Jersey City is supposed to receive for training people to work on school construction projects within the city."

Jenny Campbell

Campbell is a unit director at the Boys and Girls of Hudson County in Jersey City. Married with four children, she has lived with her family in Jersey City since 1995.

She is also pursuing a degree in business administration at Montclair State University.

She is one of two candidates running this year for the board who ran last year (the other is Michael Esposito).

"The reason I'm running for the board is the same reason I ran last year - trying to finally get the politics out of the education system. Watching my children and their schools, the curriculum is a mess."

"The first thing I do is to get some parents motivated and empowered to make some changes in the school system. At the end of the day, it is about the children, not about who you know and what connections you have."

Lennox 'Terry' Dehere

Dehere is the co-owner of the Blue Ribbon Restaurant in Jersey City.

He played for three NBA teams from 1993-1999, and is the former St. Anthony's High school basketball star of the late 1980s and all-time leading basketball scorer at Seton Hall University.

He is also the founder of the Jersey City Community Housing Corporation to build affordable housing, and Shining Star Productions, LLC to build market-rate housing.

"I am running because I believe the school board should be serving the kids, ensuring their education and safety."

"Being on the board would mean to me working toward getting more recreation programs in the schools. My experience as an athlete has shown me the benefits of organized recreation upon youth."

Michael Esposito

Esposito was born and raised in Jersey City and is a graduate of the Jersey City public school system. He is vice chairman of the Jersey City Housing Authority Tenant Affairs/Resident Advisory Board, a president of the Hudson Gardens Council, and vice president of the Jimmy King Civic Association. Esposito currently works at Hudson City Savings Bank as a bank teller.

"Improve the schools system, to cut wasteful spending and bring good government back to the Board of Education."

"Safety would be the number one concern, especially around Dickinson High School and other schools in Jersey City. Also, I would bring back the truancy task force...kids can't walk to school and they don't want to go to school because they fear for their safety."

William P. Frasca

Frasca is a retired supervisor from the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission. He's a graduate of Jersey City State College (now New Jersey City University).

He is also a licensed realtor working with Frank Monaco Realty in Jersey City, and has been a notary public since 1985.

"First of all, I want to get involved to throw the state out. I feel the state of New Jersey had enough time in Jersey City. The residents of the city still can't vote for a budget."

"If I am elected, I will be a loud voice for that child who does not have a voice. I am going to work to get children and the parents more involved in the school system since I can't do it alone."

Jenny Garcia

She is a mother of five children, four with learning disabilities, and all in the Jersey City public school system. She currently serves on the Parents Advisory Council for Special Needs for the Jersey City school system.

"I am running for the board to ensure that the voice of our parents is heard. As a parent with five children in the system, my husband and I, like many families, have a vested interest that not only our children, but all children, receive the best education possible."

"I would first take time to understand the workings of the school system. One cannot make good judgmental decisions without understanding the positives and negatives of anything that we are involved in. So I would spend some time moving about the district and learning the concerns of our PARENTS, TEACHERS AND ADMINISTRATORS."

The rest of the candidates will be profiled next week. Ricardo Kaulessar can be reached at rkaulessar@hudsonreporter.com

Sidebar

Public forum for Board of Education candidates

JC Families for Better Schools (JCFBS), a Downtown Jersey City-based parents group founded this year to deal with issues of education with the Jersey City school system, will hold a public forum for the Board of Education candidates this coming Thursday.

The forum starts at 7 p.m. and takes place at the Rafael Cordero Elementary School, 158 Erie Street.

JCFBS organized this question and answer session with the candidates to help the community be more informed for the April 17 Board of Education election.

"This is an opportunity for parents and community members to meet the candidates and make and informed a decision. It is an important first step in making a positive change in the public schools," says Shelley Skinner, JCFBS founder.

For further information about JCFBS please log on to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/jcschools/ or email us at jcschools-owner@yahoogroups.com. - RK