Council accepts Collins’ resignation; nixes band funding
BY SUE M. MORGAN
Staff Writer
A former freeholder who lost his last bid for re-election and a Memorial School teacher are two of three nominees vying for the Eatontown Borough Council seat vacated by John J. Collins.
Former Monmouth County Freeholder Edward J. Stominski, a onetime Eaton-town mayor and a borough councilman; Eatontown Republican Organization Chairman William M. Kinney, a local attorney; and Anthony Gaetano, the teacher who also ran unsuccessfully for the council last fall, are seeking to replace Collins, a Republican.
The former Memorial School music teacher stepped down April 1 in the wake of charges that he sexually assaulted two female former students.
By April 30, the Democratic-led council is expected to choose one of the three nominees offered by the Eatontown Republican Committee to fill the remaining eight months of Collins’ term, which expires Dec. 31.
Stominski, of Fairway Avenue, lost the freeholder seat he had held since 1995 when he failed to win the Monmouth County Republican Party’s nomination for the board last June.
Although he won party support in Eatontown during the primary, Stominski lost the county GOP’s support overall after party officials accused him of misusing campaign money and funds for personal uses such as meals.
Stominski has denied the county GOP’s accusations.
Gaetano, varsity football coach at Monmouth Regional High School in Tinton Falls, teaches at the same seventh-and eighth-grade school where Collins taught music until he was suspended with pay by the Eatontown Board of Education on March 21, six days after he was arrested by borough police on the first reported set of aggravated sexual assault charges.
Gaetano’s father, school board member Joseph Gaetano, is part of the same body that is expected to review Collins’ request for an earlier retirement to be effective on June 1. The issue is set to come up at Monday night’s scheduled board meeting.
Collins, 57, who has taught music at Memorial for 35 years, reportedly submitted a request to take retirement three years earlier than expected to district offices last week.
Without any discussion, the Democratic-led council unanimously accepted Collins’ resignation during its April 13 public meeting.
Collins’ voluntary leave is effective April 1, the date that the former councilman had indicated that it would be official via a terse letter submitted to borough offices the day before.
Democratic Mayor Gerald Tarantolo who had publicly called for Collins to step down twice after news of the councilman’s arrests broke on both March 15 and 29, was reported to be out of town and did not attend the April 13 council meeting.
Tarantolo has previously stated that the council might be ready to choose the former councilman’s successor during their next public meeting scheduled for this coming Wednesday night at the Borough Hall.
Collins, of Cloverdale Avenue, remains free on $200,000 bail, after the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office charged him with four, first-degree counts of sexual assault and two counts of child endangerment on the two former female students who were 13 and 15, respectively, at the time of the alleged physical contact.
Both girls, whose identifies remain concealed by authorities, are Memorial School graduates that later participated in the Eatontown Municipal Band, a community-based organization founded by Collins in 2000.
Because fighting the criminal charges has consumed much of his time, Collins chose to voluntarily step away from his council duties according to his attorney, Charles J. Uliano of West Long Branch.
Eatontown police and the county Prosecutor’s Office are continuing the investigation into the charges against Collins.
With that in mind and before accepting their former colleague’s resignation, the council unanimously decided to suspend its funding of the municipal band on the advice of Borough Attorney Gene Anthony.
The band, described by Anthony as “a separate legal entity,” has garnered financial support from “other outside sources” other than $2,000 allotment set aside yearly by the council.
Anthony did not name those other sources.
“The municipal band is not part of the borough family,” Anthony told the council. “It is important to discontinue the municipal support.”
The band, a non-profit organization, can continue to operate under the direction of another leader than Collins, Anthony explained, but without any financial support from the borough.
The alleged sexual assaults on both victims occurred inside Collins’ classroom at Memorial after the evening practices of the municipal band according to the prosecutor’s office.
Though not sponsored by the Eatontown school district, the band used Memorial’s facilities for its practices, school officials have said.
One of the reported relationships between Collins and a then-13-year-old female took place over ten months between Aug. 2000 and June 2001 while the girl performed with the municipal band.
That victim, now an 18-year-old college freshman, came forward to authorities late last month to report the assault after reading of Collins’ March 15 arrest in area newspapers.
The earlier arrest came after witnesses observed Collins kissing the second victim, now 16, outside of the high school she now attends on March 7. The relationship with that victim began in May 2004, when the girls was 15, the Prosecutor’s Office has said.
Collins intends to plead not guilty to all of the charges, Uliano has said.