Citizens’ groups make presence felt on Washington education scene

School spending primary focus of organizations.

By: Cynthia Koons
   WASHINGTON — They are both citizens’ groups with an interest in education finance — but that’s where their similarities end.
   In theory and in practice, the philosophies of the Citizens for Affordable Education and Citizens for Advancement of Responsible Education (CARE) run antithetical to one another. In fact the leader of CARE said it was the creation of Citizens for Affordable Education that prompted CARE into formation.
   "We started off with a few parents who were concerned with Mark Tobias forming a slate to defeat the budget," said Geoff Lewen, head of CARE. "We believe school board members are supposed to leave partisan politics behind."
   Mr. Lewen is a former school board member and president who resigned in October of last year.
   Mr. Tobias, a school board member from 1996 to 1999 who twice ran unsuccessfully for Township Committee, said he put together the Citizens for Affordable Education slate in order to have a contested school board race. In previous years, he said, there have been little to no challenges in the school races. His group’s intention was to defeat the budget.
   CARE endorsed three victorious incumbents, President Florence Gange and board members Faith Silvestrov and Pat Foti. Mr. Lewen said the group’s main priority, along with supporting these campaigns, was to see the school budget passed in its entirety.
   At the Washington Township Committee’s May 15 meeting, the committee approved the $24.1 million defeated school budget in a 3-2 vote.
   Voters rejected the spending plan at the polls on April 15 for the second consecutive year. Last year, after the budget failed, it was trimmed in order to save taxpayers 3 cents of the proposed 27-cent tax hike. This year’s tax increase stood at 18 cents. The school district is currently financing a $50 million high school construction project.
   The Citizens for Affordable Education group actively campaigned against this year’s budget, and one of its candidates, Joe Armenti, won a seat on the board.
   Yet Mr. Armenti’s school board win was the only success for the group, because no cuts were made to the defeated school budget by the Township Committee, which was required by state law to review the defeated school spending plan.
   "The school board did a good job leaving us with a very defensible budget," Mr. Lewen said.
   He said it would be "presumptuous" to suggest that CARE, as an organization, had any effect on the budget’s passage by the Township Committee. The group is registered as a political committee with the Elections Law Enforcement Commission because it worked for the passage of a public question on the ballot, he said.
   He’d rather CARE be considered an apolitical organization.
   "Politics and education are antithetical to each other," he said. "We don’t see ourselves as political, but that’s the term for groups like ours."
   But Mr. Tobias, who managed the Citizens for Affordable Education organization, believes CARE is the very reason the budget passed without cuts.
   "I’ll give them credit for one thing; they made the Township Committee cave to their demands, which really surprised me," he said.
   "I think they’re really just a fringe organization," Mr. Tobias said.
   "It’s a lot of noise with not a lot of substance," Mr. Tobias said. His organization had a dozen community members working on three school board candidates’ campaigns in April.
   Mr. Lewen said CARE is looking forward to future elections, and hopes to act as public educators on the budgeting process in coming years.
   "One thing we’re learning is while we did get the word out, people still, in the end, thought there was fat in this budget," Mr. Lewen said. "We know that how schools are funded is an issue. We have a lot of smart people in Washington Township."
   "We have to get together and attack the issues while we’re solving the problem," he said.
   Although the Township Committee approved the budget, two members, Mayor Doug Tindall and Committeeman Jack Mozloom, voted against it.
   Mr. Mozloom and CARE were at odds earlier this month when the group spoke out against his questioning of the special education budget in prior school budget proceedings.
   "In the course of one exchange, I questioned the superintendent about the need for what struck me as a disproportionately large number of child study professions," Mr. Mozloom said in a letter to the editor in today’s edition of The Messenger-Press.
   But it was the question Mr. Mozloom asked the superintendent, "What is the range of their disabilities … dyslexia or something?" that drew the ire of CARE members, Mr. Lewen said.
   "We felt that asking about the range of disabilities (of special education students) had nothing to do with the budget and was not germane to discussion of the budget," Mr. Lewen said.
   "The other Township Committee members were asking questions very respectfully," he said. "Mr. Mozloom was more confrontational and displayed less interest in what the budget stood for."
   CARE formally denounced Mr. Mozloom’s line of questioning in an editorial on its Web site (www.caredu.org) that encouraged residents to contact County Clerk Cathy DiCostanzo about his "behavior."
   Ms. DiCostanzo hired Mr. Mozloom as a confidential aide in the Mercer County clerk’s office earlier this month to fill a spot vacated by a retiree. Ms. DiCostanzo is the GOP candidate for the position of Mercer County executive and Mr. Mozloom is running for his Washington Township Committee seat in the June primary.
   "We did not call for anyone to lose their jobs," Mr. Lewen said.
   Sharon DeVito, CARE’s webmaster, said the group wanted Ms. DiCostanzo to know about Mr. Mozloom’s statements because she has been active with the Sunshine Foundation, which grants wishes for chronically ill children.
   "We didn’t actually contact Cathy DiCostanzo as a group. If you’re concerned, (we said you could) let your feelings be known, her e-mail address was on the Web site," Mr. Lewen said. "We found his statements at best imprudent for an elected official."
   Ms. DiCostanzo said no one has contacted her about the statement in question.
   "I’ve gotten a few e-mails from people just saying that they were surprised he was working for me," she said. "Their budget has nothing to do with the (Mercer County clerk’s office.) That’s a separate and distinct life of his."
   Mr. Mozloom said his words were taken out of context and that his question at the Township Committee meeting was not out of line.
   "My critics … found in this moment a chance to exploit my question for their own political benefit. They took my question and fabricated around it a context designed to make me appear to be insensitive to children with disabilities," he said in his letter.
   In a separate interview, he said, "I’m not going to be bullied or intimidated by people who have an agenda. I did my job by asking questions. The voters defeated that budget; it’s my job to scrutinize it and ask questions about every penny spent."