Yes, we should vote out a woman (Suzanne Mack) who has done so much for kids and parents on the word on an ex-felon.

McCann: Keep Donnelly, dump Mack, Williams

Tuesday, February 26, 2008
By KEN THORBOURNE
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

Elected to the Jersey City Board of Education last year - over opposition from Mayor Jerramiah T. Healy and the teachers union - former Mayor Gerald McCann is seeking some measure of revenge.

Eleven candidates, including three incumbents, met yesterday's filing deadline to run for three seats in the April school board election.

McCann is putting his political chips on one incumbent and two newcomers, hoping to unseat two longtime board members: Suzanne T. Mack and former schools superintendent Franklin L. Williams.

"I think it's time for them to move on," McCann said about Mack and Williams, each seeking a fourth three-year term. "They've been on the board for a long time. Nothing has really changed. And neither one of them supported me."

McCann had particularly sharp words for Mack, who, as chair of the board's facilities committee, he accused of dropping the ball when it came to acting on 2006 EPA findings of lead in the drinking water at eight schools.

"She is also in charge of the (board's) special education committee, and clearly lead in the water could lead to mental diseases, and we haven't even heard anything from her since it's been in the papers," McCann said "She is ducking it. . I don't even know why she is even running again."

Mack responded that she was never told about the 2006 EPA test results.

Williams couldn't be reached to comment.

McCann is backing incumbent Peter J. Donnelly, a former dean at New Jersey City University; the Rev. John H. McReynolds, of Mount Olive Baptist Church, and Sandra Samaniego, a clinical psychologist at Cornell Medical Center in New York City.