BROCTON - The Brocton Board of Education will have the same leadership as last year, but not all members of the board were happy with that outcome.
At Thursday's reorganizational meeting, Thomas DeJoe was re-elected board president. There were no other nominations, but board member Susan Hardy voted nay. Doug Walter and Mike Riforgiato were named first vice president and second vice president respectively.
Once elected to the position of president, the oath of office was administered to DeJoe and Riforigiato by Linda Miller, the district clerk. Walter did not attend this meeting.
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OBSERVER Photo by Diane R. Chodan
Board member David Hazelton (left) expressed his unhappiness with the board leadership. Also pictured is new member Steven Smith.
DeJoe then took up the gavel and conducted the rest of the organizational meeting, which moved quickly. There was a break of about a half hour before the board came back to conduct its regular meeting. This meeting also moved quickly through its agenda with no dissent on any of the resolutions.
However at the end of the regular meeting, both Hardy and board member David Hazelton in calm level voices expressed their concern about the outcome of the election. The gist of Hardy's remarks were that newer people needed to be given opportunities for leadership positions.
Hazelton seemed more troubled.
"This is a difficult situation. I contemplated resigning but I have only one more year in my term," he said.
Hazelton then cautioned all board members about use of email "which can be foiled." (Requested by the public as part of the freedom of information regulations.) He said that those type of emails should be stopped.
When asked to more fully explain the situation, Hazelton then said that he had was just expressing that he was unhappy with the leadership of the Board of Education.
Beside the leadership of the board, the reorganizational meeting also approved other formal appointments, board committees, the structures of the special education committee, the committee on pre-school special education and subcommittee, meeting dates for the board for the next school year, and established mileage reimbursement at the current IRS (Internal Revenue Service) rate of 55.5 cents per mile.
Comments on this article may be directed to dchodan@observertoday.com.
